Tara Maya

Author Archives: Tara Maya

First Person, Third Person, Omniscient

I’m trying to decide the proper Point of View for my new novel.
This isn’t the most urgent question. I still have a ton of research to do before I can commit to more than jotting down notes and hypothetical scenes. I have my Short Outline for the novel. If I wrote out a few hypothetical scenes, I could always change the Person they’re in later. (That sounds so odd to say, “the Person they’re in” but how else would you say it?)
There are pros and cons for each Person. The question is which will best tell this particular story?
Third Person: Third (“he said, she said”) is standard and also my usual favorite. I like to have a lot of PoV characters, which rules out First. Third Person is the most flexible, and at the same time, the least obtrusive. In all probability, I will write the novel in third, unless another Person offers something to the story which third cannot. 
Omniscient: Omniscient (“he thought, she thought”) used to be standard, but nowadays is frowned upon. There are advantages, however, which, in my opinion, still make this Person worth considering. An omniscient narrator can peer into the thoughts and backgrounds of any character in the story, not just the PoV character or MCs. When you have many bit parts who cannot be PoV characters, but whom you would like to reveal briefly to your reader, omni is the way to go. 
One example of a master at this is Kurt Vonnegut. He will unabashedly take a paragraph to tell you the life history of the gas station attendant washing the windows of the MCs car, even though the attendant has no other role in the story. Vonnegut’s point is, “this is a person too, and don’t think he doesn’t have his own story even if it’s not this story.” A movie which attempted to do the same thing was Run, Lola, Run.

First Person: First (“I thought he said”) is popular among new novelists, who over-identify with their MCs. However, it is also used by master artists, sometimes to deceive the reader with an untrustworthy narrator, other times simply to allow a degree of intimacy with the MC not possible with other methods. First person doesn’t allow peeks into other heads, though a narrator may speculate about what other people are thinking. Untrustworthy narrators often tell you — confidently — what other people are thinking, but their speculations may be at odds with their observations, for example, in Lolita. I’m not interested in exploring untrustworthy narrators in this particular story.
Since I have four PoV characters, first person would seem to be out of bounds in any case. First limits you to one narrator, right?
Well, not necessarily. It’s tricky to pull off, but one can have multiple first person narrators. Two famous examples are the noir mystery novel Laura and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.
Right now, I admit, I’m toying with doing multiple first person. I wrote several hypothetical scenes, and third person felt too distant. I loved the intimacy of first. Maybe it felt right because much of my research material is witness depositions and autobiographies, all first person. First person transforms the story from mere narration to testimony. First person also allows my characters to declare their philosophical beliefs, which are not necessarily my own — or shared by the other characters. Stacking the different first person accounts side by side will allow the reader to see how the characters differ, not just in their experiences, but in their philosophies.
The downside is the danger of confusing the reader. If one changes PoVs, and this is announced by a new name, “Johnny wondered…” “Janey decided…” the reader can make the leap easily. If the reader has only “I wondered…” “I decided…” to go on, it might be more confusing. Of course, I would try to make things clear by writing, “Johnny, London, 1987”  on top of each new section when there is a PoV change, but in my experience, some readers will still flounder.
* * *
For now, I’ll write my draft scenes in first. It if doesn’t work, I’ll change them later.
Do you have a favorite? Do you always write in first or in third? If you switch, how do you determine which Person is best for which story?
* * *

The artwork is from Digital Expressions, and can be found here, along with a lot of other lovely fractals.

Beta Testing

http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/2009/03/questions-for-critique-partners.html

That’s Just Precious

“Don’t forget folks, this production is just an unofficial home movie, made by a bunch of Tolkien enthusiasts for love of the material. The budget has been scraped together by ourselves, nobody was paid and no money will be made from it. So yep it’s purely our way to express our tribute to this magical world. It’s exciting that so many other fans like us have posted supporting words on our guestbook. Thank you all for your kind comments and support! The editing of the film will take a lot of work but we hope to put it online in early 2009.”

It really says something when the quality of your “unofficial home movie” is so blow-me-over awesome you have to keep reminding people of the fact. And it really is just that awesome. At least the trailer is. Check it out.

Please, please, do the Simirillian!

Military SF story

Two big battleships around Saturn (or Jupiter)

Orbiting ship tosses asteroids from rings, ship below is firing laser up (they have to surface to fire) asteroids are like depth charges (delay)
(Smaller ships from guard fleet fighting other individual battles further out in orbit; one falls and the submerged ship takes a risk to save it even though it’s an enemy)

One had fuel from the planet but a broken ship, the other has a good ship but no fuel

They each send the other a “You’re side has lost, surrender.”
The captain of orbiting ship realizes both will die unless they pool resources, but knows other captain will never surrender
He tells other captain his side won
Other captain takes prisoners on board and leaves planet grav well to go home — finds out it was a fake, the orbiter’s side actually won

http://Mokuyo.pixnet.net/blog/post/24299972

http://www.mytinyplot.co.uk/?p=255
http://restaurantequipmenttogo.com/2009/01/28/when-pigsfrogs-fly/

Short Outline, Long Outline, Draft


My outlining will probably go through three stages.
(1) Short Outline –  basic story arc of the book
(2) Long Outline – list of scenes, with conflict-response for each scene
(3) Outline Draft – technically, a first draft, but so awful I can’t stand to call it a draft, so I pretend it’s just a really long outline
* * *
I think of the Short Outline as the infrastructure of my book. Here I decide the word count I’m aiming at, the number of chapters and the approximate number of words per chapter. I decide how many PoV characters there will be, and how many storylines. Although it will give me tremendous grief at some point in the writing of the novel, I stick to this infrastructure like a underground splinter cult fanatic clings to an uzi.
My word count, however, often suffers from bloat, perhaps brought on by adverb retention, but often as a result of overindulging in subplots.
For this novel, I have a central image/metaphor of a well. I envision the still circle of water reflecting the sky. I have four PoV characters. I’m aiming at 80,000 words, on the theory that if I go over, I’ll still be under 100,000 words. Since all the PoV characters have equal weight, this allows 20,000 words for each character. I will split the characters’ sections in two. So the structure will look like this:
Wife
Friend
Husband
Son
Son
Husband
Friend
Wife
…like sky reflecting on water.
I know. I spend way too much time entertaining myself with this stuff. Does this contribute to a better novel? I have no idea. It’s like bloomers on a baby doll. These are parts which might not show, but making them is half the fun of dressing the doll.
I’ve already encountered the first problem this set up has caused me. I need to make sure the timeline fits the order of the PoV sections in my outline. At first I thought it would be easy, but that was because I had the wrong date for an (actual) historical event which appears in my novel. 
Opps.
I may have to shuffle my characters’ sections around a bit.
* * *
The picture shows a craftsman cutting down the outline of a carving.
1 … 168 169 170 171 172 … 197