I was about three chapters into my latest effort, when I came to the halting realization that my current ability to write in third-person narrative sucked. Not so much sucked, but I'm having difficult expressing my characters and have a tendency at times to jump between limited and omniscient narratives. Of course this was pointed out by my friend in my writing group.
So, I made the radical decision to go back and rewrite the entire thing in first person. Granted, the manuscript was only 10,000 words along, but jumping back and switching the perspective wasn't that hard. Actually, it was very easy. Having written my first manuscript in first-person, the dialogue and narrative came much easier. I still don't want to abandon my efforts to learn and use third person, so for the meantime I'm going to continue to use it for shorts.
Last month I neglected to post the link of my first published work, Footsoldier, which is currently featured in the current online edition of Drops of Crimson. So feel free to take a look.
I'm entering my YA novel in another contest, this one over at Guide to Literary Agents. Prize is a free critique by literary agent Jennifer Laughran from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Their agents represent a lot of YA writers, so any feedback on my work would be a heck of a prize.
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8 comments:
Congrats on Drops of Crimson and good luck with the contest. Re first vs third person POV, most people have the opposite problem, with first being more difficult to write. So, you're ahead of the game already!! And it's always good to be ahead of the game, right?
DBR
Yes, I agree with D.B., I have a lot of trouble writing first person but like you, I started my lastest story in third but felt like something was missing so I started over. It was difficult for me and I'm still struggling with it.
Good luck on the contest!
Good luck with the contest.
Congratulations on the Drops of Crimson. I had a quick peek it's excellent.
Also good luck with the contest, i will keep everything crossed for you.
I tried to write a short story in third person, and I sucked. I find it easier to write in first person. But I have a long way to go.
Good luck with the contest!
And, it's always hard to go back and rewrite something. It's sometimes hard to determine which voice a piece should be written in. I wrestled with a piece for a couple weeks before deciding it had to be told from 1st person POV.
Fortunately I had some good friends in my group to help me make my decision. I really wanted to make third person work, but it wasn't meant to be.
I think PoV needs to be determined by the story.
Personally, I don't like 3rd person when the entire story is from on character's PoV. It makes me feel too distant from the characters.
I won't try tackling a full novel from 3rd again for a while. Of course, having said that, the right story might pop into my head that needs it. For now though, I'm just waiting for some feedback on my 3rd person chapters from the WiP
Hopefully your writing group didn't just say it sucked. It sounds like a good group :D.
Good luck on the contest!
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