Yorth
Swordman
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2019
- Messages
- 244
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- 133
I discussed this idea before on discord (some months ago) and have been ridiculed for it, but I'm going to rehash it and formalize it in this thread.
One of the biggest mistakes new authors make when writing in the third person is that they choose to go with a limited approach but constantly slip into omniscient. This is different from head-hopping as you don't switch between POV characters in the same scene, it's more about the narration. They either give information that the POV character isn't supposed to have or say through narration things that the POV character wouldn't say.
This kind of behavior has many drawbacks. It creates an effect of whiplash much like that seen in head-hopping, but it also makes the author fail at creating a level of intimacy between the readers and the characters. Now, I'm not saying that you can't do it consciously while knowing the drawbacks, but most new authors don't even notice that they're doing it in the first place.
Enter the first person POV. If you're writing in first person, then there is no way you're gonna fall into these pitfalls. Or, at the very least, it would be much harder for it to go unnoticed by you. That's why I encourage 3rd person writers to try out 1st person if at least to get a sense of how the scenes should look like. Honestly, it's a pretty cool exercise. Not only does it force your writing to be more intimate, but it lets you experiment with techniques you might not have been introduced to before.
One of the biggest mistakes new authors make when writing in the third person is that they choose to go with a limited approach but constantly slip into omniscient. This is different from head-hopping as you don't switch between POV characters in the same scene, it's more about the narration. They either give information that the POV character isn't supposed to have or say through narration things that the POV character wouldn't say.
This kind of behavior has many drawbacks. It creates an effect of whiplash much like that seen in head-hopping, but it also makes the author fail at creating a level of intimacy between the readers and the characters. Now, I'm not saying that you can't do it consciously while knowing the drawbacks, but most new authors don't even notice that they're doing it in the first place.
Enter the first person POV. If you're writing in first person, then there is no way you're gonna fall into these pitfalls. Or, at the very least, it would be much harder for it to go unnoticed by you. That's why I encourage 3rd person writers to try out 1st person if at least to get a sense of how the scenes should look like. Honestly, it's a pretty cool exercise. Not only does it force your writing to be more intimate, but it lets you experiment with techniques you might not have been introduced to before.