BIGGEST QUESTION for "Escape from Rochester" (Camp Nano July 14 project) -

[aldersprig]

- first person or third person limited?

Comments

[inventrix]

I'm not sure; I've rarely seen you do first.

[aldersprig]

I don't normally enjoy it.

However, 1) this is supposed to be a learning-project, which leans towards practicing something new, and 2) I rather want the POV character to be a reader-proxy.

[inventrix]

Sounds like you should do first, then! ;)

[clare_dragonfly]

Well, it really depends on what you're doing! From the abundance of character profiles, I assumed there would be more than one POV character, so this question rather surprised me. (Not that you can't do more than one first-person narrator, but I think two would be the absolute limit, and that's way harder than doing one.) But if you only plan to have one POV character and that person is more of a reader proxy, then I agree that first is the way to go.

person, and number too!

[thnidu]

How continuous is this to be, though? To include several different stories? Many episodes? You could have some episodes played twice (or ?more?), from different characters' POV; not necessarily the whole chapter retold, but e.g. an encounter (possibly a lengthy one) that includes chars A and B, told as part of an A-view chapter and also of a B-view chapter, with each of those chapters also including material that the other one didn't experience. (Sorry, am I too unclear there?)

I've also read a story with first-person-plural POV, switching between different members of a group struggling to survive. Some of the chapters showed the death of the narrator of a previous chapter. It worked well there, and it kept the reader in suspense along with the characters: "Who's going to make it to our destination?"

And I've seen a few stories in second person perspective. This is of limited utility, but very striking when appropriate.

Re: person, and number too!

[clare_dragonfly]

That first-person-plural POV does sound very cool! Do you recall the name of the story?

Re: person, and number too!

[thnidu]

:-( Sorry, no.

[aldersprig]

Aah, no, it's going to be from one POV but there's a lot of character on the bus, as it were.

Re: person, and number too!

[aldersprig]

I thought abut 2nd person and discarded it as too hard to keep up for a whole month ;-)

These all sound fun for experimental cases.

[inventrix]

I do have a small piece of advice/critique which you can have if you want it relating to your writing first person. Do you want it?

[aldersprig]

Yes, please.

[inventrix]

Okay!

On the occasions you've written first person, I've noticed it always seems to have the same voice, the same word use, cadence and way of narrating. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's something to be aware of - especially if you want to use this project to push yourself/learn new skills. You've shown that you can capture different character voices when doing third-person, internal thoughts and dialogue, so I'm pretty sure you can do first-person with unique character voices if you're thinking about it.

[aldersprig]

Hunh, interesting. Thanks! /chews on that/