Oct
The Game: Life
When you play the game life you take turns with the other players, unless you’re playing like my sister and cheat. In our books we often write characters in several POVs, the herione’s, the hero’s, perhaps even a secondary character or two. But who’s head is the best for any given scene? Do you play favorites and tend to stick with one for majority of the story?
I was going over some of my current WIPs while RI was down and noticed a huge chunk of my writing is written in the hero’s POV. I was a bit shocked since it’s normally the heroines in the story that I identify with. But for some odd reason I really like writing from the hero’s perspective.
Well, I’ve been told several times the best way to figure out which character to write in is to figure out who has the most to lose and then write from the other’s POV. That way you can show how they react to whatever the crisis is and get the POV character’s thoughts on it. But as with anything with writing, this is up to the author and what works best for them.
So now you! Do you take turns with your characters equally or do you play favorites? And for the readers, what do you prefer? Do you like it when an author keeps with one POV throughout most of the story or do you like it when she switches out?
BTW, I’m not talking about switching within the same scene. No, this is a general topic for the over-all book.
Actually I like a variety. One author came to mind that uses a different point of view - sometimes chapter to chapter - Jodi Picoult.
October 13th, 2007 at 10:38 amAlas, I’m not a fan of first person, but it could very well simply be that of the hundred or so books I read in a year, there simply are practically none like it. Therefore not a whole lot of a chance to get used to it. LOL But I think I like it more when we have the viewpoint of both the hero/ine — I just always like having that extra info or thoughts to know. LOL
Lois
October 13th, 2007 at 11:46 amI like a variety. I agree with Catslady. I read Jodi Picoult and love her books.
Hugssss
October 13th, 2007 at 12:22 pmLindaH
I like whatever works for the story so either way is fine with me.
October 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pmHmm, I like some variety too. I’ve never been fond of first-person perspective, neither as writer or reader, so you will find very few books with that in my bookcases.
In my own writing, I change POV now and then between hero and heroine, but I do think I tend to spend more time in my heroine’s head than my heroes.
October 14th, 2007 at 12:33 pmI love, love, love writing in the hero’s POV. Fun for me, then that my women’s fiction is single pov heroine-only. Should be interesting!
October 14th, 2007 at 4:34 pm