Thanksgiving and Novel Perspective
Thanksgiving was good, though I'm wiped from it. Got up too early, drove more than I wanted to, had a little wine and (of course) turkey. My parents had some friends over, so we had six people and three dogs at their place. Still, it was pleasant enough. After getting home, I called my mom to get caught up there. Turns out she and my step dad moved from to Rapid City, SD a couple months back. News was slow in coming, and I had worried a little when I tried to call her for her birthday in September only to get a message about the phone number being disconnected. My half-sister's now living the post-high school, pre-college life: moved in with her boyfriend and his cousin, with friends who drop by frequently. She's been traveling around the region some of late, and is working a couple part-time jobs with some thoughts about college.
---
On a completely different topic, I recently had something of a minor revelation regarding novels and perspective. I grew up mostly on fantasy/sci-fi novels. By and large, they're written in third-person. More recently I've been reading modern supernatural (not sure if that's an official genre) books thanks to my roomie's supply. Those seem frequently written in first-person. At first, the change was striking and intriguing. Then I stopped noticing. After reading enough of them, I started to see it as a genre-specific pattern and thought about it some more.
And I can see some reasons for it. When the author is describing a world that is alien or fantastic, they have to place more emphasis on the setting. We don't automatically have an idea how a church of looks, and even dragons can vary in appearance from setting to setting. Events based on history that isn't real must be described in greater detail so the reader has some idea what it means to the world. On top of that, fantasy/sci-fi stories are very often as much about the events (heroes save the nation/galaxy from demons/aliens) as they are about the people.
When the setting is modern, things are different. Most readers of modern supernatural novels have a basic understanding of history and can conjure their own images of a bus or airport with little help. The characters also tend to be easier to connect with because their lives are inherently more familiar. This all frees up more 'space' for the intricacies of personality and the protagonist's perceptions. In fact, some might argue doing otherwise makes such a story less interesting.
I just wonder how much thought goes into these things. Why do writers follow (or deviate from) these patterns? Is it habit based on what they've read? Is it a personal desire for one style or another? Or do they sit down and weigh the options based on what would be best for the story?
---
On a completely different topic, I recently had something of a minor revelation regarding novels and perspective. I grew up mostly on fantasy/sci-fi novels. By and large, they're written in third-person. More recently I've been reading modern supernatural (not sure if that's an official genre) books thanks to my roomie's supply. Those seem frequently written in first-person. At first, the change was striking and intriguing. Then I stopped noticing. After reading enough of them, I started to see it as a genre-specific pattern and thought about it some more.
And I can see some reasons for it. When the author is describing a world that is alien or fantastic, they have to place more emphasis on the setting. We don't automatically have an idea how a church of looks, and even dragons can vary in appearance from setting to setting. Events based on history that isn't real must be described in greater detail so the reader has some idea what it means to the world. On top of that, fantasy/sci-fi stories are very often as much about the events (heroes save the nation/galaxy from demons/aliens) as they are about the people.
When the setting is modern, things are different. Most readers of modern supernatural novels have a basic understanding of history and can conjure their own images of a bus or airport with little help. The characters also tend to be easier to connect with because their lives are inherently more familiar. This all frees up more 'space' for the intricacies of personality and the protagonist's perceptions. In fact, some might argue doing otherwise makes such a story less interesting.
I just wonder how much thought goes into these things. Why do writers follow (or deviate from) these patterns? Is it habit based on what they've read? Is it a personal desire for one style or another? Or do they sit down and weigh the options based on what would be best for the story?
I think it's a conspiracy. Glad your thanksgiving went well :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I stopped reading YA books and started reading science fiction, I noted the same thing. As a direct consequence, I shifted my own writing from first person to third person. A decade later, I'd come to the conclusion that you learn different things, as a reader, from a first-person narrator than you do from a third-person perspective. Sometimes I chose the perspective for my stories based on this; sometimes, I wrote from whatever perspective the protagonist spoke to me from. Lately, I've decided that first-person perspective lends a story more immediacy. A lot of the modern supernatural stuff is really suspense--suspense needs immediacy. On at least one occasion, I've been unhappy with the way a story is going and decided that the reader didn't care enough. I specifically shifted it to first person for more immediacy, and it seems to be working. So I guess that's my current thinking.
ReplyDelete