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mary rosenblum
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Hello all.
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mary rosenblum
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I hope you've had a good week.
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mary rosenblum
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I apologize for missing our
open chat this morning after I said I would be there...
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mary rosenblum
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but the virus I caught still
has me in its grip and doing and interview and then editing and posting
transcripts...
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mary rosenblum
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is a pretty intense four hour
session. I really was a lot worse this morning and figured...
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mary rosenblum
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I'd better save my energy for
this afternoon.
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mary rosenblum
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Don't know how many people
we'll have on a spring Friday afternoon. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Hard to be inside when it's
still daylight outside.
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gwanny
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Mary, if you arent up to this
then you should rest
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mary rosenblum
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Actually, I think I'm finally
getting better rather than worse.
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mary rosenblum
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I wanted to talk about first
person in terms of characterization.
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mary rosenblum
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Because in a lot of ways,
characterization is much more critical in a first person piece than it is
in something written in third person...
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mary rosenblum
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where a lot of action and
dramatic visuals can carry the reader along.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about
first person. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories
and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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mary rosenblum
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And for some reason, first
person really seems to be the more popular of the two main writing voices.
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mary rosenblum
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And because of that...
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mary rosenblum
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I see quite a bit of rather
weak first person fiction...and it actually carries over into nonfiction,
too.
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mary rosenblum
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The reason for this is that in
first person...
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mary rosenblum
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the narrator is the main
character...or one of the main characters.
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mary rosenblum
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And the only means for
demonstrating character is through the words that character speaks.
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mary rosenblum
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Even the description will be
filtered through that character, so essentially, every word you write in a
first person piece IS characterization.
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mary rosenblum
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So writing you really need to
think about how your character actually talks.
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mary rosenblum
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What words he/she would use. Vocabulary
level. Age.
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wingedwarrior24
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would this mean repeating words
a lot is common?
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mary rosenblum
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Depends on your character,
winged.
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mary rosenblum
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If your character is a ten
year old kid from a farm family who is getting Ds in school...
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mary rosenblum
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he might well repeat words a
lot since he might not have a huge or complex vocabulary.
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mary rosenblum
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If he's an English professor,
he's going to describe the same landscape to us, say, in very different
terms.
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mary rosenblum
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Think about meeting someone at
a party.
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mary rosenblum
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AFter you get done
...ahem...noticing all the gender-related decoration...
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mary rosenblum
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how do you begin to decide
what this person is like?
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mary rosenblum
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You notice..even
subconsciously...what that person says, what words he or she chooses...
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mary rosenblum
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and you find TONS of hints
about where this person grew up, what his/her personal beliefs and
prejudices are...
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mary rosenblum
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education level...many things.
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mary rosenblum
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And you decide...'like'
or...'exit gracefully'...and act accordingly.
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mary rosenblum
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And that's what you need to
consciously work on revealing as your character talks about whatever is
going on.
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mary rosenblum
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Backstory, essentially.
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gwanny
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when I switch from writing 1rst
person dialogue, both internal and spoken, to narration, I confuse myself.
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mary rosenblum
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It can be confusing, gwanny.
And that's why it's a good idea NOT to use first person if you
anticipate...
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mary rosenblum
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a lot of dialogue in your
story.
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mary rosenblum
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You CAN do it that way, but
you're probably going to have an easier time with third, so you might want
to give it a try and see if it works for you.
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mary rosenblum
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The transition from first
person narratation to dialogue can be a bit bumpy for the reader.
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mary rosenblum
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I walked up to Sonora.
"Hey," I said. "Didn't see you in Algebra."
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mary rosenblum
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"Becuase I wasn't
there." She gave me this big smile, but her eyes were saying back off.
I wondered what was going on.
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mary rosenblum
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"Yeah, right, you want a
ride home?"
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mary rosenblum
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"No." She grabbed
her backpack, slung it over her shoulder like it didn't have ten tons of
extra books in it.
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mary rosenblum
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"See you," she says
and you can hear that she means never if she can help it. What the heck did
I do?
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mary rosenblum
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No matter how well you do
dialogue, it does tend to sound a bit stilted in first person because we
have the narrative voice of the main character in between her comments.
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mary rosenblum
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Even if you reduce the
narrative in between it still tends to sound a bit less real than in
thired.
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mary rosenblum
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I walked up to Sonora.
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mary rosenblum
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"Hey," I said,
"I didn't see you in Algebra."
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mary rosenblum
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"Because I wasn't
there."
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mary rosenblum
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"Yeah, right. You want a
ride home?"
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mary rosenblum
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"No." She grabbed
her backpack and slung it over her shoulder...
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mary rosenblum
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and here I went back to
narrative. The dialogue, without any narrative at all, sounds kind of
stark, so you're caught between a rock and a hard place.
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mary rosenblum
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It's not a big deal if there
isn't a lot of dialogue...
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mary rosenblum
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if you read some of the
classic first person...say Raymond Chandler's hard boiled PI novels..,
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mary rosenblum
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while his MC does have
conversations, they tend to be brief, terse, and to the point. Most of the
books are the character talking to himself and us, of course.
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wingedwarrior24
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in first person can there be
descrition or does it have to come from narrative?
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wingedwarrior24
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dialouge i mean
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mary rosenblum
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Well, I'm not entirely sure
what you're asking, winged. Everything in first person normally is told to
us by the first person POV.
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mary rosenblum
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She describes the scenery, he
describes the action. The description is done in the character's voice and
the dialogue is commented on by the POV, as I did above.
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wingedwarrior24
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does the MC have to say what
he/she sees or can you use descrition
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mary rosenblum
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Ah, that's what I thought you
meant. Nope, it's the MC who does the description.
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mary rosenblum
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And this is a BIG reason to
think about your POV choice.
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mary rosenblum
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If you want to show the reader
a really complex and lush landscape...
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mary rosenblum
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and your first person POV has
seen this landscape all his or her life...
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mary rosenblum
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why should that character even
notice those details.
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mary rosenblum
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When was the last time you
really NOTICED all the details in your living room? (Unless you are the
person who does the dusting! LOL)
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mary rosenblum
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A garden is my favorite
example.
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mary rosenblum
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A POV who is a fanatic
gardener will stroll along and notice flowers by name, think about the
colors, the design of the garden, how nice it looks for the season..
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mary rosenblum
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and a lawyer POV whose hobby
is model aircraft and who couldn't tell a dandilion from a daffodil if his
life depended on it...
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mary rosenblum
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might walk by the same garden,
glance at it and think 'pollen factory'.
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mary rosenblum
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If you want to show that
garden to the reader in detail you either need a POV who is NOT the
lawyer...
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mary rosenblum
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or you need to find a reason
to make Mr. Lawyer notice the garden and even then, he won't know the names
of the flowers.
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mary rosenblum
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So instead of saying 'tulip'
and the reader will get it...
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mary rosenblum
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he is going to have to notice
'a bunch of those spring flowers...the tall pink ones you always see this
time of year... and hope your readers see tulips!
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mary rosenblum
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Now of course, you can get
away with even a garden hating guy like this knowing what a tulip is. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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But he's not going to say
'nice delphiniums...I love that shade of vibrant blue'.
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mary rosenblum
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And if you do that, it jolts
the reader. Not this character they think.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about
first person. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories
and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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gwanny
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I loose the Strength of the 1rst
person POV after a while
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mary rosenblum
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That is such a common problem,
gwanny and the problem most people have.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's face it, with first
person, you have to listen to the same voice for a loooong time.
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mary rosenblum
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In a short, that's not a big
deal. In a novel it is a BIG deal.
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mary rosenblum
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Your character's voice needs
to be interesting.
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mary rosenblum
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It needs to add to the story,
not just become a monotone that delivers description.
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mary rosenblum
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Take some time to talk to your
character and give him/her a pattern of speech and habits that are NOT
yours.
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mary rosenblum
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Writing a long monologue in
that character's voice...perhaps a long riff about his or her past... is a
good way to start.
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mary rosenblum
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Really try to have this person
speak or use words in a way you wouldn't do yourself. :-) Something that
perhaps would make you correct this person if he/she was your kid.
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mary rosenblum
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That will help keep you aware
of what you're doing.
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mary rosenblum
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The trick is...before you sit
down to work on your story or your novel...
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mary rosenblum
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read over your monologue. Do
it out loud if you can...
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mary rosenblum
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that way you 'get into' that
voice and start hearing it before you start writing.
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mary rosenblum
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The reason is this.
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mary rosenblum
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Everyone. Everyone. Everyone
will use his/her own voice if you do not consciously do otherwise all the
way through the story.
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mary rosenblum
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And what does that do? It
turns your teen runaway, your homeless guy, your criminal, your striving
young hero to be into.....YOU.
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mary rosenblum
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And unless you and the
character are a perfect match...all of a sudden your character seems to be
a costume draped on a real person who is not the one you told the reader
would be running this story.
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wingedwarrior24
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In 1st pov, as I think, that
character could be telling another character a story, as in Dolores
Claiborn...can that listener character speak?
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mary rosenblum
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The POV is always telling a
story to someone. You can try to make that someone the character himself
(and us)...by making it seem as if this peson is thinking about what is
happening as it happens.
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mary rosenblum
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You can make the 'audience'
clear. Grandpa sits down at Thanksgiving dinner and says, "Let me tell
you about the time I almost ended up on the wrong side of the Bering
Straight."
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mary rosenblum
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And you can have the listener
answer....but it DOES break into the story and jolt the reader out of the
ongoing action...
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mary rosenblum
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for example, if we're on that
boat in the howling gale that is pushing it across the straight to
Russia...
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mary rosenblum
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and Gramps breaks off to
admonish Junior to eat his mashed potatoes so Granny can finally bring on
the pie...
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mary rosenblum
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we are jolted right off that
boat and land 'whomp' in the bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. Not
comfortable. :-) There goes your building supsense!
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mary rosenblum
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But if your aim is NOT to keep
the reader on the edge of his/her seat,then this can indeed work...
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mary rosenblum
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and your story can be episodic
with breaks to your 'now' here and there.
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mary rosenblum
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It's doable, just hard to pull
off effectively...takes work.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about
first person. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories
and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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gwanny
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And that is exactly why,
although I would love to write in the 1rst person, I am hesitant. I am
afraid everyone will begin to sound like "me",,,because I keep
thinking in the "I" . Hope that makes sense.
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mary rosenblum
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Sure it does, gwanny. But play
with it. Write scenes in first person. You'll probably find you're better
at it than you think. Just remember that you are the character as you
speak. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Think of it as role playing.
You put on your character's world view and speak with his voice for awhile.
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firelizard
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How can you tell about the
character's past in first person?
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mary rosenblum
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Wow, fire, that can be tough.
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mary rosenblum
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If your character is the kind
of person who likes to talk to people about his past...not a problem...
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mary rosenblum
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he'll babble about it all over
the place. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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But if that character is shy,
or reticent or...aha...pay attention to this there will be a quizz...wants
to HIDE his or her past...
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mary rosenblum
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then good luck. :-) You'll
have to find a way to reveal what you want through a minimum amount of info
on your POV's part.
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mary rosenblum
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Sometimes you can have other
characters say or do something that forces your POV to think briefly about
something that will illuminate that past.
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mary rosenblum
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Ok the nice little trick
here...
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mary rosenblum
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If you want to fool your
readers...
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mary rosenblum
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say your POV who seems soooo
nice is the serial killer..
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mary rosenblum
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then use first person.
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mary rosenblum
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He can charm and beguile us
just like his victims and hide everything from us...
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mary rosenblum
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until he lets us in on the
'joke'.
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gwanny
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I read a 1rst person novel last
night. When the characters past was brought into the story line, there
would be a lead in at the end of a chapter, and a new chapter would reveal
the MCs past. When finished, on to another chapter
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mary rosenblum
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Was the POV just pausing to
tell more about the 'old days' at the start of the new chapter, gwanny?
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mary rosenblum
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Or was it actually a separated
segment in third person narrative?
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gwanny
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yes
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, character was telling us?
I think that was the timing of your 'yes'. :-)
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gwanny
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NO,,I'm sorry,,,narrative was
telling us the past
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mary rosenblum
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OH, okay.
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, you can do that...you see
it in some historical work in both third and first person...
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mary rosenblum
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where a narrative
piece...sometimes in the form of a passage from a history book...informs
the reader at intervals.
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mary rosenblum
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That can work. Depends on what
you are trying to achieve.
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pliz
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In a novel can you have
different 1st pov in different chapters?
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mary rosenblum
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You can, pliz, but ohboy do
you have to have DIFFERENT voices.
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mary rosenblum
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They need to be so different
that when the reader opens the book after work, he/she knows whose voice
this is without having to flip back and figure it out.
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mary rosenblum
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I've seen first and third,
too.
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mary rosenblum
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Again...they can work. It
depends on what you are trying to achieve.
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mary rosenblum
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The most important thing to
remember in first person..
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mary rosenblum
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is that every word that comes
from your POV's mouth is creating his/her character...
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mary rosenblum
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so those words need to belong
to your CHARACTER and not to YOU.
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mary rosenblum
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Unless this is a personal
narrative nonfiction piece and you ARE the MC!
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mary rosenblum
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And let's talk about that for
a sec here, because of course, the personal narrative market is very big.
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mary rosenblum
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There you are, of course,
using your vocabulary and your word choices...
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mary rosenblum
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but there, too, remember that
the goal is to entertain your audience as much as inform them about
something...
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mary rosenblum
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and most of the time, it's
primarily to entertain them.
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mary rosenblum
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So work on making that voice
larger than life.
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mary rosenblum
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A little more dramatic than
you would be in a convesation with your next door neighbor, probably.
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wingedwarrior24
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So writing 1st POV will take
longer then 3rd?
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mary rosenblum
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Well, no, not really. You need
to put an equal amount of thought into portraying characeter in your third
person POV character...
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mary rosenblum
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but too many novice writers
use first because it seems 'easy'...
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mary rosenblum
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and it should not be easy!
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mary rosenblum
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It should require some real
thought about the character or presto! YOU will appear in the role.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and tonight we're talking about
first person. I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories
and will do my best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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mary rosenblum
|
Think about a cranky old man
and a new empty nester..a woman say in her fifties.
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mary rosenblum
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The old man lives hear a
school and loves his garden which he tends daily.
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mary rosenblum
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Kids are always cutting
through his yard and stomping on his flowers. He HATES them.
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mary rosenblum
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Our empty nester just sent her
youngest daughter off to college and misses kids.
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mary rosenblum
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If these two walk through a
playground, how will each person see the scene? Hmmmm?
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mary rosenblum
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What do the plants look like,
the grass, the play equipment, the kids on the play equipment?
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mary rosenblum
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They will look very different
to each of those characters, yes? At least the words they use as they
notice those items should be quite different.
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mary rosenblum
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What for example, does the old
man see when he looks at the kids?
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mary rosenblum
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What does the woman see?
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mary rosenblum
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How would you describe the
scene through one of those two pairs of eyes?
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gwanny
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he would say little
brats,,etc,,she would say little sweeties etc
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mary rosenblum
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Yep, of course.
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mary rosenblum
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And she might not notice the
condition of the grass and plants right?
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mary rosenblum
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But he would and blame the
kids for damage, yes?
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mary rosenblum
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Every time your first person
POV notices something, we get a glimpse of how he/she feels about it,
thinks of it, regards it..
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mary rosenblum
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we get a taste of his/her
worldview/prejudices/likes/dislikes...a wealth of information in tiny, bare
noticeable bits. :-)
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gwanny
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so each character has thier own
perspective and I have to maintain thier perspectives and forget mine,,,and
not confuse thiers either
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mary rosenblum
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Yep. Every POV character has
his/her own perspective on the world and unless you are the MC it is not
yours.
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mary rosenblum
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It may be like yours in many
ways, but it is not yours.
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mary rosenblum
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Although...to be honest...at
the core, our character generally ARE like us. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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As you get to know more and
more professional writers you'll realize that their personalities...
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mary rosenblum
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and their world views are
right there on the page for you to see if you look. :-)
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gwanny
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I agree, i see it in my own
writing
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mary rosenblum
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You really can't avoid it, you
just don't want it to supercede the characterization...
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pliz
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Like Elizabeth Berg and Jodi
Picoult?
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mary rosenblum
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Don't know the, pliz, but
everybody reaveals themself to some degree in their writing...not always
obviously.
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mary rosenblum
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Sometimes it's very subtle if
they are good at characterization.
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mary rosenblum
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If they are not particularly
strong character writers it's easier to see.
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firelizard
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so when should we use 1st
person?
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mary rosenblum
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Well, everybody has a
preference fire. If you HATE one voice, write the one you love to use.
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mary rosenblum
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But if you can learn to write
the other, it will give you more flexibility. I am a third person writer...
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mary rosenblum
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but there are stories that
simply work better in first and those I write in first. One has been
included in the 04 Best of the Year SF.
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mary rosenblum
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It wouldn't be there if I had
written it in third, I suspect.
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geezer
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If you regress my brother 40 yrs
and give him more hair you see my supporting character. I was surprised.
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mary rosenblum
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Oh yeah... LOL
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mary rosenblum
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and believe me...the fiction
universe is FULL of inside jokes!
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mary rosenblum
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Most good natured...a few not.
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I seen an episode of Star Trek
once where Mark Twain was a character. Another character looked at him as
stated he wished he was able to really get to know Mark Twain better. Mark
Twain character responded by saying, Just read my books. Who I really am is
in them. That is pretty much what we do by bringing our characters to life
and giving them their own voice, in essence, letting a particular part of
ourselves out.
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly, info. You WILL write
what you know and you know yourself better than anyone else.
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mary rosenblum
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Oh yes...
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mary rosenblum
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I got sidetracked from fire's
question! Sorry!
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mary rosenblum
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I find that no matter what
voice you prefer...
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mary rosenblum
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first person tends to be a
better choice if your character will do a lot of thinking.
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mary rosenblum
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If she is locked in a tower
for most of the story and planning her revenge...why not skip all that
thinking and just let her do the monologue in first person?
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mary rosenblum
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It is THE good choice if you
want your POV to lie to the reader.
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mary rosenblum
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In third person we take for
granted that we can eavesdrop on your POV's thoughts...so if he is the
serial killer and he never thinks about it...
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mary rosenblum
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readers will be ticked off and
blame the author for cheating.
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mary rosenblum
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BUT in first we only know what
the POV tells us.
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mary rosenblum
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So if he chooses to lie....not
the author's fault!
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mary rosenblum
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Third works better if you want
a lot of description and your character is not the type to notice those
details.
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mary rosenblum
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It is also simpler to sneak in
a bit more information than your character may actually be able to provide
in third.
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lilmac
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I write in the first person. How
do I get third person?
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mary rosenblum
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An excellent exercise...one I
did in reverse to teach myself to use first...
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mary rosenblum
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is to pick out a scene you
have written in first person and rewrite it in third.
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mary rosenblum
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That's excellent practice.
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mary rosenblum
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The more flexibility you have
as a writer, the more you can stretch and exand your horizons for what you
can write well.
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mary rosenblum
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Learning to write in a way
that is new, or to write something new is excellent for you ability
overall.
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mary rosenblum
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And if something just doesn't
seem to want to come to life...
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mary rosenblum
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change the voice. If it is in
first, switch to third.
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mary rosenblum
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If it is in third, try first.
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mary rosenblum
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I've revitalized a couple of
stalled stories that way.
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mary rosenblum
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Well, this has been a fun
Oregon hour, and I feel MUCH better than I did last night after the
interview. Maybe I have this virus licked finally!
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mary rosenblum
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Hope so, she says fervently!
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mary rosenblum
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I'll post this at the usual
place : Writing Craft/Forum Transcript.
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mary rosenblum
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Do join us for our casual chat
on Sunday at the same time/same place. I WILL be there!
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