Developing a distinct character voice?

[Chessie]

I'd like to argue the point that 3rd limited is more immersive or intimate than omni. If that were the case, then why are there so many examples of great literature written in both styles that satisfy readers? The answer lies with an author's skill. Yes, omni is more distant in certain ways but maybe that's why it resonates with me. Irl I'm not talkative at first. I tend to observe people quietly and am somewhat shy. I take my time to get to know people. First person breaks this barrier for me and that's why I can't read or write in first. Too close too soon. There is an intimacy in 3rd but I also find it stale at times. I really believe anything can be done wrong or right...and now I better go write for reals.

 

[Nimue]

I'd like to argue the point that 3rd limited is more immersive or intimate than omni. If that were the case, then why are there so many examples of great literature written in both styles that satisfy readers? The answer lies with an author's skill.

I also think that character intimacy isn't the first aim of all books, nor does it need to be? For instance, the Lord of the Rings doesn't stand out to me as really intimate with its characters, but that's hardly a downside for a story so grand and sweeping in scope. I do think that the different POVs bring something different to the table, but I wouldn't argue that one is better than the other--only that I prefer one over another in terms of what I read and write. In that I don't believe we disagree.

 

[Penpilot]

@Heliotrope...actually...

Please, don't laugh at me. I should've known the difference ages ago. But I do today thanks to all of you.

Don't worry about things like this. A willingness to learn and recheck and relearn things is a good trait to have. It sure beats the inability to admit errors or to see things from a different POV. Forgive the small pun.

Malik is right. I really don't like 3rd limited. I know many of you write this way and I respect that. But for me? Heck no. It's not my style.

Write what works for you.

Sorry to hear about your writing group. IMHO there's no right or wrong. There's just what works and what doesn't and maybe why. For me, I never tell someone that they can't use this or that. I say I don't think this works, and maybe it's because of this.

In one of my writing groups I used to be in, a lady came in with a that was technically a mess, tense shifts, head hopping, grammar, etc. But the funniest thing was it was tremendously engaging. The writing was honest and drew you in spite of what ever issues it had. It had something raw and real about it. She later told us it was a memoir.

I'd like to argue the point that 3rd limited is more immersive or intimate than omni.

I think it's more of with 3rd limited it's easier to be intimate and with 3rd omni there tends to be a distancing effect. But just because it's limited, as you said, doesn't mean a poorly written story can't be completely cold. And omni in the hands of someone skilled enough to deal with the inherent distancing can definitely be charming and intimate.

 

[Heliotrope]

@Heliotrope...actually...

Ok, you guys are probably going to think I'm pretty dumb but I have a confession to make.

Chessie, I could never, ever think you were dumb.

Ever.

 

[Heliotrope]

Again, I feel that third limited is an absolutely acceptable narration strategy, but I don't think that third omni is necessarily distant, really... If I flip through Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude:

Bare with me through a lengthy excerpt:

Actually, Remedios the Beauty was not a creature of this world. Until she was well along in puberty Santa Sofia de la Piedad had to bathe and dress her, and even when she could take care of herself it was necessary to keep an eye on her so that she would not paint little animals on the walls with a stick daubed in her own excrement. She reached twenty without knowing how to read or write, unable to use the silver at the table, wandering naked through the house because her nature rejected all manner of convention. When the young commander of the guard declared his love for her, she rejected him simply because his frivolity startled her. "See how simple he is," she told Amaranta. "He says that he is dying because of me, as if I were a bad case of colic." When, indeed, they found him dead beside her window, Remedios the Beauty confirmed her first impression.

"You see," she commented. "He was a complete simpleton."

It seemed as if some penetrating lucidity permitted her to see the reality of things beyond any formalism. That at least was the point of view of Colonel Aureleliano Beundia, for whom Remedios the Beauty was in no way mentally retarded, as was generally believed, but quite the opposite. "It's really as if she's come back from twenty years of war," he would say. Ursula, for her part, thanked God for having awarded the family with a creature of exceptional purity, but at the same time she was disturbed by her beauty, for it seemed a contradictory virtue to her, a diabolical trap at the center of her innocence. It was for that reason that she decided to keep her away from the world, to protect her from all earthly temptation, not knowing that Remedios the Beauty, even from the time when she was in her mother's womb, was safe from any contagion. It never entered her head that they would elect her beauty queen of the carnival pandemonium. But Aurelionao Segundo, excited at the caprice of disguising himself as a tiger, brought Father Antonio Isabel to the house in order to convince Ursula that the carnival was not a pagan feast, as she said, but a Catholic tradition. Finally convinced, even though reluctantly, she consented to the coronation.

Note the above is all very 'telly' and very distant in the sense that we aren't shown people standing around in rooms talking to each other and arguing about going to the carnival... And yet it is deeply intimate, because what the narrator is focussing on the deep moral dilemma in each of the characters. Their thoughts and fears and feelings instead of actions.

 

[Nimue]

Again, we come to the idea that a great author can make anything work, or more to the point knows exactly what they need to make it work...

But to me, that passage isn't intimate at all? I don't feel much for any character involved. Rather, it's revealing, even penetrating, but the end result is that the reader gains clarity, not attachment or sympathy.

 

[Heliotrope]

Mmmmm, then perhaps we must define what we mean by "intimate".

I think then, that for you intimate means feeling intimately for the characters, perhaps? If that is the case, then yes I agree that third limited does that really well. Some of the books where I felt most connected to the characters were written in third limited.

And for me, intimate means intimately understanding the characters, which I think can be done well in all matter of narration styles.

There is, perhaps a difference there.

 

[Nimue]

Yes, I was just thinking that. I'm not sure the word adequately describes it. I'm trying to delineate the difference between fleetingly seeing into someone's deepest and most private thoughts, and the sense of understanding and identification you get from riding with one character for the length of a story. Both have their uses in drawing in the reader, of course. It really depends upon the feelings you're trying to achieve--it would be wrong to think that all of us, even working in the same genre, are trying to deliver the same end result to our readers. It simply can't be true, from the variety of people that we have here.

 

[Chessie]

Lol this conversation has me enraptured. Damn it.

At least we're all having a lovely discussion and learning from one another. Our goals with writing differ, as do our means of communicating story. The passage Helio put up doesn't sound that distant to me and in fact, I love it because someone - the narrator - has made an attempt to get involved with me by telling me a story.

I wanted to share this tiny passage from my WIP (which is still raw after 3 pass throughs) to use as an example:


One last photo remained in his hand, lingering like the residual feelings for her in his heart. Someday he'd eventually forget about her. But the others back home were right: it would take a while to heal and find love again. If he wanted love again.

Thick creases stretched across the black and white photograph of him and Lila, taken at a park in Jamaica Plains the day of their engagement. The unfortunate thing was that everyone else thought her beautiful, too. Large, perfectly golden curls hanging down her shoulders. Sultry red lipstick on those full lips. A body he enjoyed getting into. Her arm through his on the bench and they were both smiling, supposedly eager to start their lives together.

Looking at himself in that photo, unaware that she wasn't planning on marrying him from the start, made his stomach turn. She had lied and for that he couldn't forgive her. Damn, he'd even cleaned up for her that day. No grease stains across his forehead. Dishwater blonde hair neatly combed and slicked back with gel. A nice suit instead of the mechanical jumper he always wore when she visited his workshop at lunch. He wanted to give her the world. Instead, she decided to get it on her own.


So my crit group had mixed feelings about this chapter in general, but especially this passage. Too much telling, they said. Too many thoughts. Not enough action. They didn't really feel close to him. BUT...with the exception of one lady...they said that the chapter held their interest. It's like ok, would it have been better in 3rd limited? Idk maybe. But I enjoy giving readers perspective that yes, maybe they could get on their own but my job is to tell a story clearly and effectively. My work is to entertain. If I'm doing that in first or third or omni, what does it matter?

 

[Nimue]

Throwing out a wild lob here, based on crit groups I have known, I'm going to guess that the reaction to that passage might be due not to POV (It seems pretty limited-with-narrative-conceit-overdescription to me) but rather to the writer's instinct to groan at a passage where routine details are passed across one after another. All the physical description, all the setup, gotten out of the way.

And the writer-critter's instinct is to say, "I've seen this a hundred times before! Why isn't it more creative! I can see this coming from a mile away--they look at a photo, a mirror, a puddle, yadda yadda, we know what the main character looks like."

And on the other hand...is the reader going to care? Is the indie romance reader you, Chester, are aiming for, going to care that they've been *told* what the MC looks like and what his motivations are rather than being guilefully fed those things over the course of the first five chapters? I kinda doubt it. Romance novels in particularly have that moment where everyone's hair color and eye color and tragic past is doled out.

This is a matter of priority, for sure. Yes, in some ways, it's a missed opportunity to tell the reader all about something. Is it possible you could draw out more tension about why and how Lila left him? Maybe. But what if it fits your story pace and tone to say it right there? It's hard to tell. I think a lot of exposition can not only be forgiven, but can be the best way of informing and engaging with the reader, particularly towards the beginning of a story.

A lot of the times writers do make terrible critters (and I am on the bullseye for this one) because we see all these patterns and tropes so many times that they begin to rub us the wrong way and we see them always as errors. When they're really subjective as heck based on audience, genre, style, intention, etc etc etc.



Ahaha, this is an entirely different topic. This poor thread ^^

 

[Heliotrope]

Chessie, if that is how you want to write, then please read this story by Margaret Atwood (a short)

http://faculty.scf.edu/glanvip/ibis.pdf

Cut yourself some slack, and wave your crit group good-bye.

 

[Chessie]

Cydare we've hijacked your thread! Sorry. (maybe we should begin a new one on whatever the topic is now)

 

[FifthView]

The issue of intimacy is fascinating.

A little out of the ballpark here, but I've often been amazed by how some television shows have the effect on me that, at some point, I "snap out" of the world and realize once again I'm watching a television set. I mean, it's "3rd cinematic" and yet for a long length of time I've been inside the scene, inside the characters, experiencing the events as if I was in that world. Attachment to characters can be emotional as well as intellectual. BUT, interestingly, I may not be viewing that world as they view it, and I'm often not.

It's "immersion" rather than "intimacy"?

But I think the same thing happens with books, and I think most cases of third limited do not remove that sense of separation from characters that I also experience with third omniscient. Sometimes I "blend" with the character—we are in agreement emotionally, intellectually, seeing the same things—but it's by no means a long-lasting experience and I'm soon outside that character again viewing the character as a separate individual.

I suspect this is largely because I, FifthView, simply am not a female assassin or a male magician's apprentice with a mixed heritage of dragon, human, and elf. I am not longing for my parents to still be alive (because, they already are) or for respite from the tortuous visions caused by a curse. I can sympathize, hopefully, but cannot be them.

I also think this is because much third limited being written simply doesn't "do that"—develop strong intimacy of the sort where I remain inside the character's POV for longer lengths of time. I mean, the writers take for granted that whatever they put down on the page automatically does that because, well, "third limited." This is probably why so much of it seems stale to me. Not all of it, of course. But there simply are waves and waves of it being churned out.

The same applies to third omni for me. One can write the MRUs of third omni in such a way that the very same sort of intimacy occurs as occurs in the best third limited. But I wonder if too often writers these days simply look at the two approaches as being fundamentally, diametrically opposed. And so when 3rd omni is written, no special attention to building intimacy happens. (Yet I must remember what I wrote in a different comment: There are multiple types of both.)

The single typical difference might be in the fact that third limited tends to stick with one POV for a much longer time. Anyone else have that experience with some multi-POV third limited books where you're reading, extremely "into it," and then comes a chapter from another character's POV and you groan because you know you'll have to wade through it? That happened a lot to me with ASOIAF, but it's not alone. Now imagine transitioning 2-3 times within a single chapter of omni. But is the single-POV chapter of 3rd limited fully "intimate" all throughout? See above.

And then there are those 3rd limited approaches that are more objective—not Intimate but merely Limited. Heh. Ok, I've blathered on and on again.

 

[Chessie]

Nimue, you're absolutely right in that using the photograph to show what the hero looks like was a cheap trick. But you know what? I stand by it because I figured that I could be cheesy for once. I like to play around with my writing and sometimes it backfires. Interestingly enough, the other readers didn't care about the photograph itself...just the narration.

Regarding intimacy: not a fantasy novel but Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie is a fantastic example of omniscient. The first chapter starts out with Poirot hearing a conversation on the balcony above his bedroom window. Christie then moves to the siblings having that conversation, which is a very spirited one, and although she's moving quick and breaking every single rule ever given, the dialogue is delightful and highly engaging. I understand their desperation. I sympathize with their sadness, feelings, and fear. Even though the story is told by many characters that are excessively described for a couple of paragraphs and then they're gone, I'm drawn in. I do feel close to them and by the end of the book when the murderer is revealed, I sympathize with them, too. I do believe that there can be closeness with omniscient but it's a smaller window than 3rd close. And do I really need to be that close with characters anyway? I don't really care about that and never have. I just like to read a good story and move on to the next and don't re-read anything. Anyway, I've run out of things to say about this conversation.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Groaning through some multi-POV chapters is commonplace for sure. Heck, with Martin, I've skipped a chapter here and there. And with his huge books, sometimes a character you are enjoying might not show up again for 100 pages.

I have a different experience... I don't "immerse" as a reader or a viewer, not since I was 12 anyhow. Reading LoTR, and maybe seeing Star Wars (the good one) for the first time in the theater, but other than that? Not really.

The issue of intimacy is fascinating.

A little out of the ballpark here, but I've often been amazed by how some television shows have the effect on me that, at some point, I "snap out" of the world and realize once again I'm watching a television set. I mean, it's "3rd cinematic" and yet for a long length of time I've been inside the scene, inside the characters, experiencing the events as if I was in that world. Attachment to characters can be emotional as well as intellectual. BUT, interestingly, I may not be viewing that world as they view it, and I'm often not.

It's "immersion" rather than "intimacy"?

But I think the same thing happens with books, and I think most cases of third limited do not remove that sense of separation from characters that I also experience with third omniscient. Sometimes I "blend" with the character—we are in agreement emotionally, intellectually, seeing the same things—but it's by no means a long-lasting experience and I'm soon outside that character again viewing the character as a separate individual.

I suspect this is largely because I, FifthView, simply am not a female assassin or a male magician's apprentice with a mixed heritage of dragon, human, and elf. I am not longing for my parents to still be alive (because, they already are) or for respite from the tortuous visions caused by a curse. I can sympathize, hopefully, but cannot be them.

I also think this is because much third limited being written simply doesn't "do that"—develop strong intimacy of the sort where I remain inside the character's POV for longer lengths of time. I mean, the writers take for granted that whatever they put down on the page automatically does that because, well, "third limited." This is probably why so much of it seems stale to me. Not all of it, of course. But there simply are waves and waves of it being churned out.

The same applies to third omni for me. One can write the MRUs of third omni in such a way that the very same sort of intimacy occurs as occurs in the best third limited. But I wonder if too often writers these days simply look at the two approaches as being fundamentally, diametrically opposed. And so when 3rd omni is written, no special attention to building intimacy happens. (Yet I must remember what I wrote in a different comment: There are multiple types of both.)

The single typical difference might be in the fact that third limited tends to stick with one POV for a much longer time. Anyone else have that experience with some multi-POV third limited books where you're reading, extremely "into it," and then comes a chapter from another character's POV and you groan because you know you'll have to wade through it? That happened a lot to me with ASOIAF, but it's not alone. Now imagine transitioning 2-3 times within a single chapter of omni. But is the single-POV chapter of 3rd limited fully "intimate" all throughout? See above.

And then there are those 3rd limited approaches that are more objective—not Intimate but merely Limited. Heh. Ok, I've blathered on and on again.

 

[Nimue]

And do I really need to be that close with characters anyway? I don't really care about that and never have. I just like to read a good story and move on to the next and don't re-read anything.

And this is fascinating to me because sympathetic characters are of paramount importance to me and I have books I've re-read upwards of a dozen times! It really does underscore the fact that we all have our own goals and priorities and styles--and thank God we're all writing different kinds of books, because readers have that same variety of needs and desires.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Dragon, you're a very young writer still. Perhaps first is the right narration tool for you atm because you're still learning skills and maturing. It's easier for you to relate to your story and characters in this way. But in the future sometime, as an adult, you may see things differently. We evolve throughout our lives and one way isn't better than another. I wrote in first person at your age however since my 20s, I've been writing in 3rd. It provides me with more freedom to tell my stories whereas now I find first person difficult to engage with. YA is mainly written in first person & present because readers of that age group identify better with stories narrated in that way. Who knows why that is. What I'm saying is that discounting 3rd is only shooting yourself in the foot early on. Try new things, explore challenges in your writing, grow as an individual and be okay with looking at things differently someday down the road.

Or maybe I just prefer it for reasons completely unrelated to my age, as some writers apparently do

And yes, I don't think any one POV is *better* than another. Different stories are better told in different POV's, and, as you say, different authors do well in different POV's too, but there's none that are *bad...* Not even second person. I'm quite sure it's possible to write a great story in second person.

It's not that I don't like or don't use 3rd either. Generally I prefer 3rd for shorter things (because typically I'm trying to focus on setting and mood in shorter stuff and that's harder to do in first) and 1st for long stuff (because the character is central in importance). That doesn't mean I won't try stuff the other way around...I'm thinking third omniscient might be the right POV for a historical fantasy novel I'm planning on writing soon. I haven't done much in third omni except the beginning of a novel I didn't finish and a short story I wrote to a Two Steps from Hell song (which was really badly written, but I still love it) My current projects are all in first, though, because my characters are full of personality and perspective and snark and it's just really, really fun.

But, trying new things is almost always a good idea (I say almost because you shouldn't do drugs)

P.S. Being a teenager on the Mythic Scribes community sometimes feels like: "Look at the newly hatched baby author!" *collective 'Awww, how cute!'* I know you aren't pulling a "You'll-Understand-When-You're-Older," so this isn't really in direct reference to your post...but I am just so outside the bell curve here I really am the Newly Hatched Baby Author, lol.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

And, I have no idea where this conversation has gone since last I was here because it basically exploded.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I guess it all depends on what's important to you in a story, and what kind of stories you write...

Like...for me the characters are very important, especially their relationships. How much I enjoy a book is basically dependent on how well the characters and their relationships were developed. A great story won't hold my attention unless the characters are well done. Likewise, I will forgive almost any sin if the characters are great.

I mean, I've REALLY loved books in which I couldn't relate to the characters very well. George Orwell's 1984 was one of those. But generally characters are very important to me. All my favorite books are those with great characters (though not many of them are first-person, actually.)

In the case of first person, I think who your character is has a lot to do with which POV you should pick too. Some characters are good narrators; some aren't. Some let you right in; some are very, very difficult to crack (my male MC was like this at first). Some won't let you in at all. I would really like to write from my villain's POV, just for fun, but I know I couldn't do it in first. He wouldn't let me that far in! Third I could manage with him. But some characters aren't good for narrating. Maybe once I get to know him better, though...

First person is hard though. How does my reader find out information if my character can't witness it? Also, today I wanted to describe my villain's eyes as like rippling glacier ice, but then I realized my MC lives in the tropics and has never seen or heard of a glacier or ice. Sad times

 

[skip.knox]

>First person is hard though. How does my reader find out information if my character can't witness it?

Read more detective novels! Chandler and Hammett and Cain, of course, but more modern ones as well. First person is very common for that genre.