Planetfurry BBS

[vladspellbinder]

I’m asking around on the different forums that I’m a part of on this matter, to get as many opinions as possible. I’m just wondering about something in stories.

Which one to feel pulls you more into a story, as if you where the main character. Is it lines such as.

“I wake up in the morning the find my roommates had passed out in the living room again”

Or do lines like this make you think it’s you and not a character

“You wake you in the morning to find that your roommates have passed out in the living room yet again”

I’m going to work on an ‘immersion story’, where you are the main character. So please help me out a little and tell me why one way seems more ‘grabbing’ then the other.

[PrincessB]

Well i'm not the best oppinion on this cuz I've never found a story that I felt like I was the main character, read some where I felt the characters were my close personal friends, Lurlene McDaniel is good at writing like that.

I guess that personally for me the closest would be "you". I seems like the main character is telling me their story, you seems a bit demanding (who are you to tell me what I did ) but I think fits the "I am the story" feeling better, at least for me.

[Asalis]

I seems good to me as well. if i'm supposed to be the main character then I most deffinitly wouldnt reffer to my self as you. putting it as I jsut sounds more like you the reader are telling the story. if you put the word you in place of I then it sounds more like a roleplaying game and tends to take away from the intended effect yoru looking for.

[ScottyDM]

What gets published?

Writing in the first-person point of view can be restrictive, but it can also be rewarding. The author needs to be tightly focused on only what the POV character can see and experience. And they may go deep into the exact thoughts and feelings of the POV character. The reader sees what the POV character sees, hears and smells what they hear and smell, tastes and feels what they taste and feel--it can be very intimate. The restriction is that it can be difficult to write a longer story from a single point of view. What about revealing things to the reader than the view-point character doesn't experience?

Well, you could write mixed view points. Typically this would be first-person when the main POV character is in the scene, and some flavor of third-person when the main POV character isn't there. I have seen a grand total of one published novel with two main POV characters told from first-person. They had alternating chapters until their story lines merged--then the author slipped into third-person.

Second-person point of view does not work except for short stories. Typically, the longer the story the more you piss off the reader. The only place I've seen second-person used is the Choose Your Adventure series for preteens, and the "add your child's name to this book" for preschoolers. The commonality is that there is no character development in these types of stories. If you use second-person, you cannot develop the character. Are you going to dictate to the reader who they are? What their most cherished beliefs are? What makes them tick? Their favorite color?

First-person or third-person, lets you create your characters. Develop them and nurture them. And with good writing your reader may choose to get inside the skin of your view-point character. To see the story through their eyes and experience their losses and triumphs. With second-person you are getting inside the reader's skin--a serious breech of personal space.

Unless you are writing a bland story in which nothing interesting takes place, your characters will sometimes do things that surprise the reader. If you've developed your characters to a sufficient degree, then the reader will see that whatever nutty thing your character just did, was in keeping with the type of person your character is, and they will accept your character's action. In second-person you cannot develop your POV character--they are already fully developed and holding your book. So the first time your POV character--played by the reader--does something that the reader would never do, then it's all over. You just lost them. Young, unsophisticated readers will accept this. For anyone over the age of about 13, the less you write the more likely you'll be successful. If the first place you piss off your reader happens to be the final paragraph of your story, then it could work.

Second-person point of view is toxic to readers.


More

Third-person limited is the most popular (the most successful) form of fiction. You the author may have more than one POV character, but while in the scene with that character you stay nailed to that character's experiences. With very, very few exceptions you do not switch POV characters within a scene. Thus you can be as tight and as intimate as in first-person, but you write "She opened her eyes..." instead of "I opened my eyes...". When you write a scene where two of your POV characters come together you get to choose who gets the POV.

Third-person omniscient lets you step outside of the character and see all and know all. To be successful you should not get too deeply into any character's head--some would say you should not get into any characters head, period. This is the sort of thing we see on TV and the movies. Since we cannot be inside a character, we can only see what the camera sees. The omniscient, silent observer. For example flying over the battle scene in The Return of the King, or down on the ground in amongst the action. If you want to know what a character is thinking they need to open their mouth and say it, but a good actor can say it with their face or the tone of their voice.

Books are not movies. Which is both freeing and limiting.

Scotty

[mwalimu]

[ScottyDM]

Third-person limited refers to limited view point. That is, limited to one person at a time. You're thinking of third-person omniscient. The fly on the wall who sees all and knows all.

Scotty

[mwalimu]

Ummm, no, not what I meant. The fly on the wall knows nothing except what he sees and hears.

However, based on a cursory web search, it appears that your definition of "third-person limited" is the usual one. I'm not sure what the term is for what I had thought of.

Edit: Found it - it's "objective".

There are three possibilities for third-person viewpoint:
Omniscient - You see all and know all. In a sense, you are "God".
Limited - You see and know what one character, your viewpoint character, sees and knows, and what they are thinking and feeling (this is the most common).
Objective - You know only what can be seen and heard from outside any of the characters (this was my "fly on the wall"). You know nothing of anyone's thoughts or emotions except what could be reasonably surmised by observing them.

[ScottyDM]

There are more third-person points of view than these three, but they pretty much cover the basics: limited, omniscient, objective.


And for those who thing second-person will work. Try it, I want to see.


Scotty

[Solis]

Second person really does piss off your readers, but in a poem it can really suck them in... I read one in english class by Janice Galloway that was in stream of consciousness that used "you" very well because it indirectly developed the character... But then again, it only went on a few pages.

That said, if I was readong a longer story in 2nd person, it would be really hard to get through because inevitably the character would do something *I* wouldn't do, and if it happened enough I really wouldn't want to read that book.

[Rabbit]

There was a second-person SF story written in the late 1950's or so that won one the two major genre awards; the Hugo or Nebula. I first read the work when I was 13 or so, and the thing was so incredibly powerful that I never, ever forgot the experience. It takes an _incredibly_ gifted writer, however, and I would file this little trick away under the heading "don't try this at home, folks" for all but the most experienced writers.

Someday, it is my fondest hope, I will be good enough to pull off a second-person tale along similar lines.

[ScottyDM]

Rabbit, do you remember, was that was a novel or a short story?


Scotty

[No_Idea_What_I'm_Doing]

For me it all depends on what kind of story you're talking about. "I" and "He" are my defaults for most stories, but I also do Text Adventure Games, and in those I use you, naturally. If you don't know what a text adventure game is, run a Google search on it. There are lots of them. Basically it's a jazzed up "Choose your own adventure" book, where you decide almost everything that the person in the story does. I think they're pretty cool.