…another tiresome discussion about POV. Seriously, guys, when will people get over this myth that first person point of view narration is the refuge of amateur writers or, alternately and just as falsely, a recent invention signalling the rise of chick lit and the end of humanity as we know it.
It’s not. You know who writes in first person? Melville, Nabokov, Twain, Poe, Faulkner. You want older? Fine. Dante. Are these guys hacks? Amateurs? Chick lit writers? Recent? This argument bugs me to no end. All it does is reveal the ignorance of the person making it. What really bothers me is when it is writing teachers supposedly telling students this crap. WTF, guys? You can prefer a different POV, but don’t act like it just popped out of nowhere.
On the other side of the coin, we now have arguments that “multiple narrators” is a sign of amateurism. (Please note, I am not talking about the original post, but about a statement that came up in the comments thread. I want to know who these writing coaches are!) The idea is laughable, as ludicrous as the folks who say that FPPOV is amateurish. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of fiction published in this country is told from the perspective of multiple narrators. All romance novels (with a few, incredibly rare, exceptions), have at least the POV of the hero and the heroine. That’s 26% of fiction right there. It’s easy to imagine that a third of all other fiction published (at least!) has multiple points of view. It’s a common trope in thrillers to have a few scenes from the villain’s or victim’s perspective, and many science fiction, fantasy (esp. high fantasy), and literary novels are also multiply-narrated.
So… we’ve got here that multiple narrators are signs of the hack, that FPPOV is a sign of the hack… What’s left for the poor writer? Omniscient? How very 19th century of you. (In passing, reading The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks right now, which is omniscient. Loving it!)
Guys, POV is one more weapon in the writer’s arsenal. It’s as simple as that. You may choose to write in 3rd person because it’s the marketable choice in the genre (such as romance). You may choose first person because you’re attempting an unreliable narrator. You may choose a POV becuase that is where your strength as an author lies, or because you have a gut feeling about the correct voice for the book in question. There’s no right. There’s no wrong. It all depends on the story.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Blurgh, I speak from experience when I say that writing multiple first person POV narrators is really hard. I’m just so wary of anyone who puts limits on creativity like that, saying you shouldn’t use this device or that device. Writing classes/professors can be so hit-or-miss.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I say, long live FPPOV! I recently finished my first novel, and am working away on the sequel – still FFPOV, but a different person. The books themselves – nay, the characters themselves – demanded to be written this way.
For an outstanding novel written from two different FPPOVs, I recommend Geraldine Brooks’ “March”. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I’m working on a YA (while working on AToD)and after writing the first chapter, I’ve realized it needs to be first person. To be honest, it scares me. I’ve never written in first person. Sure, I’ve taken a scene or two and wrote them that way to figure which POV the scene should acutally be in, but that wasn’t the it stayed in the book. To be honest it scares me. For the longest time, I thought writing in FP would oh-so-easy, not. It takes a lot of work to write in FP and still convey what’s going on with the other characters. Which you do so very well.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Patrick enjoyed this entertaining post.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I am rolling my eyes. I am so sick of all this rubbish about pov. It’s boring rubbish. Personally, I aim to have published books in all povs before I die.
In other words, what you said, Diana.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:45 am
You tell ‘em, Diana. To paraphrase an old saying: Those who can, write. Those who can’t, sit around telling other people how not to write. (And calling other people hacks for not listening to their sage wisdom.) Bah and Feh. Write the story the way it needs to be written and screw all the ‘helpful advice’ (which is often not so helpful).
:steam:
October 17th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Vive la difference!
Hmmm…wonder how many people told Picasso “you’re doing it WRONG!” ‘kay, I’m not a Picasso fan, but it was his blinking canvas and HE decided how to paint it.
back to the deadline hole.
October 17th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
[...] was surprised to read a post on Diana Peterfreund’s blog where she says she has run into arguments about first person POV being a lesser POV, only to be [...]
October 20th, 2008 at 12:17 am
As long as it works for the story, it works, and damn the torpedoes.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in first person. And if you want someone even older than Dante, I seem to recall that THE ODYSSEY was written in first person.