Points of View

Last night during my slow readthrough of my 2008 nanowrimo novel, I noticed that I abruptly switched viewpoints for absolutely no good reason. I had been keeping the story in third person limited -- the world through my main character's eyes. But there, apparently "just because," I switched. It stuck out like a sore thumb. And what's more, my nine year old daughter called me on it.

"Wait, how did she know what the other person was doing? Wasn't she in the records room at the library?"

Busted.

The odd thing is, the main character's viewpoint was the more interesting at this point in the story anyway, so why bother switching?

Well, honestly, it had to do with a minor bout of writer's block in mid-November, and in order to plow on and get my 1,667 words per day, I cheated a bit.

I've been playing with viewpoint these last few nanowrimos. My first two were third person, but where I jumped from character to to character to give viewpoints. Next, I took a stab at first person. That was difficult because of how much it limited what I could expose to the reader.

But I liked the restrictions a bit, I admit. So this time, for 2008, I went with the limited third person.

So, will I try second person next time? Maybe. I actually already have an idea for that, but almost think that reading a second person story would be harder than writing one.

Orson Scott Card wrote a great book about writing: Characters & Viewpoint