Gunn ,'Power Play'
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
I find it easier to write first person than third, and I like stories written that way if they work.
My preferred poison is First Person, past tense, but it's such a huge no-no in romance that I'm relearning how to write in Third, which I avoided for years because of all the academic training. My dialogue was great, but the narrative sounded like a damned textbook. Feh. With any luck, I've gotten better at that.
I like first person past tense! I think you're right about the academic poison. My third person dialogue sucks ass.
First person in the continuing present drives me nuts.
"I am going to the door. The rats hiss. They are eating me. I am bleeding on this paper."
I can't figure out how to write in first person present, I mean I can't imagine the context in which it would make narrative sense.
Maybe in a mystery, Burrell? But then I don't read many mysteries so what the hell do I know?
It was a fairly common convention in chick lit when the genre was a hot commodity, probably a 50-40-10 split between first person past, first present, and third past.
I very rarely liked any books written in first present, to the point where even if the story sounded good, I rarely bought it. It was just too... I don't know, uncomfortable to read.
Oh, I bet that's a result of Bridget Jones' Diary.
Oh, I bet that's a result of Bridget Jones' Diary.
No doubt, but Helen Fielding actually wielded the POV with skill-- the journal format already gave it a sense of immediacy that the first, preset accented. However, she did mix it up with first, past, which kept the present from becoming overwhelming.
Plus it was a damned funny book.
I never did read that book. I may have to take a look at it, just to see if I have an opinion on first person present tense. I can't see it, personally.
It was one of the things that made me craziest in terms of people using it as the standard-bearer for chick lit, then going on to bash the genre as being all about brand names, shopping, and the Perfect Man.
Thing is, that's not Bridget at all-- there's very little in the way of name brand dropping-- the story is, at its heart, about a woman, in her thirties, watching the world around her go on, while she still seems stuck in the same place, making the same mistakes over and over again, and her efforts at breaking out and finding her way.
The Shopaholic series on the other hand, is everything mockable about the genre. Feh.