Mary McCarthy reading.
The second issue Elaine Ash raised about this manuscript was its very tightly constructed third person POV. Every scene is through the eyes of my protagonist Violet Hart, and she lives in a very small world. Her interests are narrow; her friendships few; she sticks close to home.
This can get claustrophobic after a while--for the reader if not for me.
How to break out of this world without adding a second voice. A second strong POV might dilute the most important fact about Violet--she is very alone in the world, very cutoff.
In the story, twelve news items open various chapters. What if instead of just citing the news articles, I played out these stories. That would give me twelve new POVs-- if only for a page or two each. It would also give the reader a break from Violet's obsessions-widening the reader's world if not hers. These stories impact Violet in only a peripheral, artistic way. But the can impact the reader.
There is some difficulty in doing this: creating 12 new and separate voice for people who on paper look fairly similar and will only be around for five minutes. But it is turning out to be fun-although the research aspect is time-consuming.
So what do you think about single POVs which are very tight? Do you get tired of seeing the eyes through one pair of eyes?
12 comments:
Works for obsessive characters or intense situations. If your novel was happening in real-time, so to write, over a brief period of time, it would be a natural choice...and still could work.
When it's done well, the first-person narrative can be most powerful. The problems occur when the writing isn't compelling and the character telling the story is dull and boring.
Sometimes a strong, singular POV is what draws me back to books. I'm thinking specifically of John Fante's Arturo Bandini novels, Spillane's Mike Hammer series, or Prather's Shell Scott books.
On the other hand, something like Jim Thompson's "The Kill Off" or Vera Caspary's "Laura" are superb because they give you a new perspective with each chapter.
Both styles have something different to offer - really depends on the story you're trying to get across. I think the idea of the 12 news stories sounds exciting. Perhaps you should try a couple out, just to see if you like how the idea develops?
I actually prefer a nice, tight POV, but I think your/Elaine's idea of a predominantly single-POV story with vignettes told from other POVs (in lieu of news clippings) would open up the story nicely. Tess Gerritsen often does this; snippets of the story are often told from the point of view of a victim, a bystander, etc. I admit, that approach doesn't come naturally to me, but done right, it reads nicely.
I have the standard, and much reviled, answer: it depends. As Todd said, in certain situations it can be almost a necessity. If the person whose POV we get is sufficiently interesting, it can work in skilled hands, but both of those elements increase exponentially in difficulty the longer the story goes on. A novel could be really hard to pull off.
I think the narrow pov works wonderfully for short stories, especially horror stories. I think it would definitely be a bit tough for a novel lenght piece, though.
George-and the author is not always the best judge of that. Is 20 pages on a recipe for gazpacho too much?
Yes, I have written almost all of the stories-the one on a rapper has me stymied. Chris-it doesn't come natural to me either but I do like what amounts to flash fiction within the tale. It does depend. It makes rewriting it a bit different.
And that is exactly the question Charles and Todd, does it work in a longer work that happens over three months.
Cornell Woolrich did narrowly-focused third person sometimes, though he did love the first person. Likewise Hammett, both at novel length. I suspect it isn't 20pp of dicing vegetables and chilling broth, but something else is going on, eh?
I hope so. But I think WIP 2 is probably livelier.
For me to depends on what kind of a story you are trying to tell. Personally I like personal one POV stories-- as long as they don't overstay their welcome. I don't know how you would open the story up without adding another voice, unless you want your narrator to have another voice, one in her head or in dreams or something like that.
It's third person POV, but just hers. Back Alley will be publishing a short story version of it sometime soon. Maybe you can see my dilemma then.
I have just finished a book from a single third person point of view.
While you think that it's all about him the writer expands it with the use of conversation and, coupled with the character's own observations, broadens the spectrum.
BTW - I'm back with a new batch of 'forgotten' books.
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