Call me chicken—because I am. Suffice it to say that when it comes to perspective I take the easy way out. When I write fiction, I like to write in third person. I love the omniscient narrator because it makes me feel like God—all knowing and ever present.
The omniscient narrator is the Grand Director developing the vision of story and seeing that vision carried out. The omniscient narrator can float in and out of anyone’s mind. He can move around telling a story using multiple characters and their varying personalities and perspectives. Stealthily he shapes views, creates scenes, and interprets actions. I find this fascinating.
In Creative Nonfiction, I attempted to write in first person and found myself feeling like I was running up against a brick wall. I would back off only to find my nose bleeding and that I had two black eyes. In first person I couldn’t tell or describe the thoughts of another person. I found it very limiting. Working on this blog entry, I have come to the realization that I need to make myself experiment with perspective. Perhaps practice writing the same piece from different points of view and from the perspective of different characters.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How can you be a "chicken" when a Pulitzer Prize winning author used the third person?
ReplyDeleteYou have me wanting to try third person omniscient. I tend to stick with third person limited because I get overwhelmed by all those voices. But playing God? Really have to try it now!
ReplyDeleteToni-
ReplyDeleteI think we may be opposites. I like to stick with the first person because it's easy for me to convey one person's view because we do it all the time when we tell our own stories to others. I like to be able to share my protagonist thoughts and ideas because my own head's so crazy, I'm not sure anyone ever understands it. Lol. I can't imagine having to do that for all of my characters.
Toni-
ReplyDeleteLike Danielle, I think we are opposites too. I am much more comfortable in first person because I can actually be inside of that character. I am not good with knowing everything. I feel like if I know too much my story isn't able to do what it needs to do. Funny, how we as authors just know what works for us.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI, too, like to write in the third person because I feel comfortable. I feel like I'm in control of the world I've created, and if something goes wrong (like if a character does something unexpected) I, as the third person looking in, can fix it much more easily than if I were actually writing as a character within the story. However, by writing this post I realized that I shy away from the first person as well and that I need to give it a second chance. :)
ReplyDeleteThird person limited omniscient is my voice of choice. BEWARE, FOOLISH MORTALS, OR YOU WILL FACE MY WRATH!
ReplyDeleteWhoops. Sorry. It just kind of snuck up on me, there.
I think I'd like to try omniscient myself. Man, is that a great word, or what?!?!!
ReplyDeleteIt is a good exercise to play with a piece by writing it from different perspectives. No matter which one you end up with, you've learned more about your work by doing the experiment.
ReplyDelete