Tuesday, October 12, 2010

1st person vs 3rd person

After giving it a lot of thought, I've made a big decision. This wasn't the easiest decision to make, but now I'm committed. I had been thinking about this since I finished the manuscript that's still in circulation. I'm really not getting anywhere with it, in terms of finding agents. So here's what I've decided.

I'm rewriting the manuscript and the current writing project in the 3rd person. 1st person is easy, but it tends to gets confusing. The infamous chapter 10 is what led me to this decision. I don't have writer's block, yet I was blocked. I couldn't go further to save my life. It was so frustrating! As it turns out, the perspective is wrong.

The disadvantages to 1st person perspective is that person may not see everything involved with the story. For my current project, I thought I had chosen the right narrator. As it turns out, the main character doesn't see enough to complete the story. Pity.

I realize this probably makes me look flighty, and I swear I'm not. I'm just a firm believing in doing whatever is needed to make the story the best product possible. I believe in the story above all else.

So, this is what I'm doing. My estimate to send out the second round of query letters to agents is Dec. 1st. That gives me about 2 months to rework the manuscript. For me, that's a long time. If I worked on it day and night, I could probably be finished in a week. But I'm not going to rush it, I'll just make sure it's done by Dec. 1st.

Reworking my current writing project is top priority. I only have 9 chapters to rework, so that I'll work on night and day. Hopefully it doesn't take longer than a few days to get back to chapter 10 and write the rest of the story.

1st person perspective is easy. Too easy. Because I have to write so much to overcompensate the character not quite seeing everything, the story ends up being confusing and coming across as less than professional. And that's just no good.

Don't think this was a rash decision. I tested the text first, to see what works best. After rewriting the first chapter of my manuscript in the 3rd person, I immediately saw it works a hell of a lot better. I did the same for the current writing project. It makes so much more sense now.

See, I honestly don't care about 1st vs 3rd person perspective. Whatever works best. And at worse, I'll have another version of my manuscript to show, which will hopefully increase my chances of traditional publishing.

And yes, I'm a total slave to my writing...

2 comments:

  1. Amazing how a POV switch can add dimensions and layers to the storyline. Does a piece have to have only on POV? Hmmmmmm.

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  2. It is amazing, as I rewrite I'm finding the story is much more clear and 3 dimensional. I'm loving it :)

    Few authors can get away with multiple POVs. I'm not one of them ;) The thing about 3rd person, omnipresence narator, is it can provide nultiple POVs all in one, making the story much more organized and cohesive.

    Still rewriting, but almost done. When I'm done, I'll post about the things I've learned :)

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