What a difference a point of view makes. In all of the analyzing of my novel and dealing with my fears about writing, there was still something that was keeping me stuck. I couldn’t quite figure it out. I love my story and I love my characters. However, something just wasn’t working.
It finally hit me yesterday. I needed to be writing in first person from the point of view of my female protagonist. How could I have missed this for over a year? It now seems so obvious. She is in every scene. One of the most important elements of the novel is the way she grows and changes in the face of tragedy and the revealing of unspeakable family secrets. For this to happen, I really need to get inside her head. I need to be able to share her thoughts, feelings and fears. I now see I can do this so much more effectively in first person.
This has turned around the entire way I am telling the story. It allows me to more quickly get to the precipitating event that begins to bring the secrets into the light.
I have a lot of work ahead of me but I am re-energized about the book. This is going to seriously mess up my schedule for completing it especially given that I have to pull off soon and complete my outline for this year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that begins November 1st. I am hoping that I can juggle them both and write the new novel in the mornings and work on the old in the afternoons. Since I have never tried working on two at once before, I don’t know if this will pan out, or not.
In the meantime, I will get as far as I can on converting my current novel to first person. I have trashed the old prologue and written a new one this morning. I like it so much better and I think it is more likely to grab the reader right away.
5 comments:
Congratulations on your discovery. It makes perfect sense. Congratulations also for sticking with this huge project, you'll feel such deep satisfaction when it's complete.
Thanks, Drifter. You are the best!
That sounds like an interesting change of plan for your novel. I am a writer-becoming as well. I also have a novel in the works plus a story or two or three in between stale times with the novel. I struggle with point of view. I started with firt person, then changed the entire thing to third, then added some subplots with more third person (this time a different person) and on it goes. I have read a simple novel recently that has the entire story through one person, but written in the third and I figured that would make better sense for my first novel. Am I even making sense now? The more I learn, the less I know. This is hard, but it sure is fun trying. Don't give up!
Great that you were able to put your finger on what was lacking in your story. Sometimes it eludes us for a long, long time.
@Wendy - Hello and thanks for stopping by! I always like meeting other writers. I just bookmarked your blog so that I can look at it a bit more later. Yes, you are making perfect sense. It might be easier to write your first novel in 3rd person and have the POV be your main character. I am loving first person, present tense but it is challenging. Staying in present tense is surprisingly difficult but I am having fun. Writing is hard. But, it is so worth it. I have dreamed of doing this my entire life. Best of luck to you and stay in touch! ;-)
@Corina - Yes, it was funny that I was looking so hard at the plot and the characters that it took quite a while for me to look at POV. Oh well, it is all a learning experience and I will think it through on the front end for this year's NaNo novel!
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