Point of View

This is cross-posted form the Romance Divas message board.

I write in both first person and third person. For me, it depends on what I want to convey in the story. If I want to show multiple character's viewpoints, I usually write in third. But if I want to limit my story to just one viewpoint, then I'll write in first.

For example, one of the young adult stories I'm working on is a romance and I wanted to include the heroine's, the hero's and the villain's points of view because I thought that would create more suspense for the story. Plus, I wouldn't have to rely on my heroine to resort to out-of-character ways for her to figure out if the hero is into her or not. Plus, my heroine has a supernatural ability that allows her to pass through the waking/real world and the dreamscape without realizing it and it sort of makes her crazy because she looses her grip on what's real and what's only a dram. But since I didn't want to confuse the reader with what's real and what's not, I can switch to another point of view, to someone who isn't going crazy.

In another young adult story I'm working on, my main character is completely obsessed over this guy. From her point of view, he's perfect. But I switch to other characters' points of view to show that he isn't as perfect as she makes him out to be, and that he could be a potential villain.

But the futuristic urban fantasy novel I'm working on is entirely in first person. My narrator thinks she knows about the world, but there's a lot of stuff that she doesn't know. So I can use her ignorance to show the world I've created to both her and the readers. Also, I felt if I told her story from multiple points of view that I would give away too much of the plot and take out that suspense element (which is the opposite of my young adult romance I mentioned above).

I also got started writing in first person because I had a difficult time with head hopping and never knowing whose point of view I was supposed to be in. By writing in first person, I could only write what this one character can see, hear, smell, touch, feel, do, etc. and I think it's helped me improve my writing. I'm equally comfortable writing and reading either third person or first person stories.

One of the other factors I keep in mind before deciding which point of view to write in is what genre I'm writing in. Most romances tend to be written in third person from the hero's and heroine's points of view, while urban fantasy tends to be written in first person. But then paranormal romance can be written in either, chick-lit is usually written in first, and science fiction romance can be in either, same with paranormal YA and mysteries.

I think the only point of view mesh up I don't particularly care for is multiple first person, where there are multiple point-of-view characters, but every one is narrated in first person. To me this creates what I call a campfire effect where everyone is sitting around a campfire, including the villain, recounting what happened to them. It annoys me because it just doesn't seem believable to me. But then I'm reading a story now that's in multiple first that doesn't bother me too much. The main problem I have is that all the characters' voices sound the same or at least very similar so it can be difficult to keep the different characters apart and tell which character's point of view I'm actually in. But then, I envy the author who can do multiple first really well because they manage to give each point-of-view character a distinct voice.

Critiques

Reading this thread at the Absolute Write Water Cooler reminds me of one of my creative writing classes in college where my husband said he didn't like what I wrote and thought it could have been a lot better, then proceeded to list all the things he didn't like about it and why. Then all the girls in our class were like, but you're her husband, aren't you only supposed to say nice things about her? And my husband was like, not if I actually want her to improve her writing.

I almost always show my writing to my husband first just because I know he won't sugar-coat anything. He's not afraid to tell me what sucks, what doesn't work for him, where I'm being lazy and not writing at my best, or where my MC is being too passive. He's also not afraid to tell me what he likes.

I can always go to him for brainstorming. And he's not afraid to tell me if something's really stupid. Though there've been time when he'll later tell me this really cool idea and I'll have to remind him that he thought it was stupid when I first mentioned it. Of course, he doesn't think it's stupid now.

A Peek at my Writing Process

This is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows.

I don't think I really have candy bar scenes. Because I write out my entire story longhand first, I like to write the order that I think it should go. Usually I have two or three outlines I try to follow. One outline will be for the entire book, one will be for the chapter, and then sometimes one will be for the scene. I usually write scene outlines when either I think of a really great scene (or at least I think it's really great at the time), but it won't be happening in my story for quite some time. So I write a scene outline that I tuck into my notes to come back to when I finally get to that scene. I also write scene outlines when I can't figure out how to do the scene I'm currently working on, since writing the scene outline gives me more leeway to go off on random tangents that writing the actual scene wouldn't allow.

Even though I try to work from an outline, it's still just a starting point to the whole writing process. I think my brain's kind of chaotic, so having an outline helps me bring some order to my thoughts. Usually, my story has changed from the initial outline I wrote for it, with plenty of scenes and character emotions and reactions that I never planned out beforehand.

Though I suppose with Kitsune/Butterfly Mask, I have more of a candy bar character. I have this character whom I love working with and love the way he and my main character interact with each other, so I'm always excited when a scene with him is coming up. Plus, over the weekend, my husband helped me figure out some more of his background, so I have a bit more of a character goal/character arc for him for this book. So I'm looking forward to working on the next draft of me book just to work with him some more.