Blog #5 Heather Cook

Typically, I write a third person limited narrator in my stories. I think I’ve chosen this point of view because in all the books I’ve read, I find this voice the least annoying. For some reason, I find first person to sound too juvenile. This may be because a large number of the chapter books I read as a child were written from the main character’s point of view. And so I now associate the first person with juvenile sounding characters. In my current project, I’m writing with a third person omniscient narrator, which is quite different for me. I’m finding this voice to be a little more difficult because I’m having a harder time getting to know and fully develop each character. Because of this, I’m having to spend more time discovering each character so that the audience will easily see them as I do in my head.

In my current project, the audience knows the thoughts of one main character, Byrn. Byrn is actually a fictional re-creation of my fiancé—he has brown skin, dark hair, defined muscles, and a whole lot of personality. The entire story remains in Byrn’s point of view. The audience knows his thoughts, which characters he likes and doesn’t like (which is intended to directly impact the audience’s opinions of the other characters), what time of day he wakes up, and what type of fictional food he enjoys for dinner. And despite the potential ease of the story being in first person, I still chose third person. I can attribute this partly to Stephenie Meyer. I’ll admit that I’ve read the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, and although I enjoyed the plot, I couldn’t stand that it was in first person. I lost respect for Bella at times because she was too whiny, too pathetic, and not enough of a loveable main character for me. Thus, I wrote my story in third person.

Although the readers stay within Byrn’s head, the audience also goes on adventures without Byrn. Even though I haven’t penned these chapters yet, I plan to write side stories that involve other characters that weren’t as developed as the others.