I is for First Person

Debra takes a look at POV.

There seem to be a few generalizations in literature. Which means, this tends to be the usual, but not always the rule. At least in my brain.

Romance tends to be written in third person. Depending on the POV of a certain scene, we're in either the hero or heroine's head for various scenes. In my own work, most of the time we're in the heroine's head, with smaller glimpses into the hero's. I've found this tends to be the norm for most romance, although some are more evenly balanced than others.

YA and chick lit (Is that the right term nowadays?) tend to be written in first person more often than not. The use of the pronoun I is found throughout and we are deeply immersed in this one particular character. We can only get a read on other characters through his/her eyes.

Cozy mysteries tend to also be written in first person. As the mystery unfolds, we get to solve it along with the main character.

Denise Swanson uses an interesting combination in her Devereaux's Dime Store Mysteries. The main portion of the story is written in first person from the heroine's POV. Every once in a while, though, she slips into third person to get us into the heads of her love interests. (At this point in the series there is more than one and I'm not sure who Dev will wind up with!) This combination of viewpoints works for me, as I have no trouble distinguishing whose head we're in at any particular moment.

What I don't like is when and author uses first person for multiple characters, switching between chapters. To me, this is VERY confusing. It always takes me a while to figure out who the "I" is referring to at the beginning of each chapter or section. By the time I figure it out, I have to go back and reread to get this changed perspective in my head.

Now again, this is a generalization, not a hard and fast rule. I've read romances in first person. I've read YA and cozy mysteries in third person.

Other than a brief piece of flash fiction for a Halloween blog fest which was written in first person, I've always written in third person. And I've always stuck to only writing from the hero and heroine's POVs. I've never included a 'villain' or other protagonist's POV in my stories.

What about you? Do you agree with my generalizations or am I way off? What types of POV have you dabbled with?

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

One Thousand Three Hundred One

It just seems like a random number, right?

But to me it's wonderful, astonishing, and beautiful.

It's the number of words I wrote this week.

Now, I'm sure you're saying...big deal...so what? I can write that and more in a day...

But I haven't written anything in a long, long, long, long time. So to have come up with an idea, gathered my thoughts into something coherent, and actually put them on a page is nothing short of a miracle. Seriously. I've broken through a dry spell and there's no other feeling like it in the world.

What did I do to break out? Well, I'm organizing promotion for The Vampire and the Vixen and I signed up for a blog visit which required me to write a piece of Flash Fiction. With a deadline and a required word count, it was a little bit like being back in school and having an assignment due. And it got me going. I brainstormed an idea. I jotted notes. And I WROTE! I've even done some editing and revising. And I still have one major task ahead. The story was supposed to be around 1000 words, but the blog host said as long as I kept it under 2000 I'd be okay. But I'm going to try to whittle it down. Just for the fun and challenge of it.

I also ventured into uncharted territory for me and wrote the story in first person. Well, actually I wrote the story in third person and converted it. I've read books/stories in first person, so I'm familiar with it, but I've never written anything in it myself.

Which brings me to a question for all of you out there reading this post (g)...

Do I say:

I frame his face in my hands.

or

I framed his face in my hands.

Is it:

He kisses my forehead.

or

He kissed my forehead.

To me both sound correct, but I'm not sure if one is the correct tense over the other. Any thoughts or advice?

When I figure it out, I'll be sure to post the link so you can read the entire story when I do my blog visit!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com