Nanowrimo prep: Point of View

We’re coming up to the wire now: Nanowrimo starts in less than 3 hours for me (on Eastern Daylight Time) and has already started in most of the world. So here’s my final post in the Nanowrimo prep series. I hope to do a couple posts during the month of November if I can tear myself away from my own book, and I definitely have some plans for a “What Next?” series after Nanowrimo ends. So without further ado:

Point of View

This might seem like something very minor, and when compared to plot and setting and character, it is. Still, your decision to write in first, second or third person can make a big difference in how your reader receives the story.

Arthur Golden, who wrote Memoirs of a Geisha, said in a later interview that his first few drafts were written in third person, and while people were interested in the concept, no one wanted to touch the novel.

Before meeting Mineko, I’d written a draft in third person. Even after interviewing her I felt no temptation to try entering the head of my protagonist by writing in first person. Instead I wrote another 750 page draft in third person. While I was revising it for submission, a number of big name agents and editors in New York began calling me–very heady stuff for an unpublished writer. But when they saw the manuscript, they all lost interest. I know I’m a perfectly competent prose stylist; I didn’t think the writing itself had scared them away. And the subject matter is so fascinating–or at least it was fascinating to me. The way I saw it, if I’d failed to bring the world of geisha compellingly to life, I’d done something dreadfully wrong. And in fact, as I came to understand, my mistake was having chosen to use a remote, uninvolved narrator.

Writing the novel in first person made the story closer and more personal, which was exactly what the novel needed.

First person (“I walked down the street”) is particularly useful in genres where the action or emotion of the plot needs to come through. It seems to me that a large part of the success of Fifty Shades of Grey has been because it was written in first person, which lets the reader imagine that they’re the main character. It’s also popular in urban fantasy, which is often full of romance and action. Mira Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy did fantastic things with first person point of view, breaking a lot of rules. If you want to learn how to do first person well, read that series.

Second person (“You walked down the street”) is extremely rare. A lot of people have an irrational dislike of it. I happen to like it, but that’s just me. Unless you’ve been in Homestuck fandom, you probably haven’t seen too much of it, at least not in fiction. I wrote a short story in second person and my writing group unanimously hated the POV. One of them complained that she wasn’t doing the things described in the story, so why was the text telling her she was? It was a bizarre complaint, but not uncommon. Writing in second person can make your novel stand out, but it runs the risk of putting off readers. Any time a writing technique is too obvious, it distracts from the story itself. If you have a good excuse for it, though, do it! Just beware of the potential response you’ll get. (Side note: this is why I recommend that beginning writers write fanfiction. You can experiment with lots of writing techniques like this one with very little consequence).

Third person (“She walked down the street”) is most common, and therefore most invisible. It might be more narratively distant than first and second person, but it’s useful if you have multiple points of view in your story, or if you want to leave a little bit of mystery in your main character’s head. It’s a pretty safe bet, for better or worse. Don’t rely on it too much, though, because you could be missing out on a better option.

Basic? Yep. And you might not even know which POV your story should be in until after you’ve written it. If you get a chance during the frenzy of Nanowrimo, try writing the opening scene in all three POVs and see which one sounds best. It might make a big change in your novel.

That’s it for my Nanowrimo prep posts. I hope they were helpful. For those attempting it this month, good luck!

Previous posts:

Outlining your novel
Making characters
Setting
Themes