Lesson 4 Hacking the First Draft
Tense and POV
I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Where I live it's supposed to be cooling off a little. But then, the weatherman doesn't control the weather, he's only supposed to report it, so we'll see what happens! Aside from having a nice weekend, I hope you had a little bit of time to develop your characters, at least two or three of them. Did you give them some wants and needs? How about conjuring up a monkey wrench to throw in their game?
Today we're going to make one more decision before we start writing.
We're going to decide who is going to be telling the story, and what tense it will be told in. This lesson might be the hardest part of storytelling because whatever you decide, you must stick with it. As you get more comfortable with writing, you'll be able to alternate points of view (POV). But stick with one for your first novel as practice. You can't alternate tenses, and people who have edited my work, know this is something that I still struggle with.
Most writers have a default setting. They automatically write a certain way, be it past tense or present, first-person POV, or third person. Figuring this out ahead of time can make a huge difference in terms of rewrites, revisions, and editing.
I almost always write in the third person past. It's how I like to read a story, and I find it more exciting because I can switch POVs easily and follow more than one character. That gives me the ability to develop subplots and create a large and detailed world. But I write fantasy and this fits well with that genre. (When we explored the genres, we might come across popular POVs and tenses that readers expect, so make a note of that.)
Only once did I switch from writing in third-person and that was with my novel Dylan, which I wrote in first-person. Why? Because what I wanted to do with the story was better told from Dylan's point of view.
The story is inspired by my passengers on the ACCESS bus I used to drive for the physically and mentally impaired. I felt such compassion for so many of the individuals, I wanted to write a story that showed how I conceived their innermost wants and needs. I did this by diving into Dylan's thoughts, to show how intelligent he was, but how the world viewed him as different because he lacked communication skills. There was no other way I could do that but to write it in first-person.
POV choices.
First-person: Written from the perspective of the I. We get to learn all of the character’s thoughts and feelings this way (unless they are an unreliable narrator). It can be very immersive, but it is hard to pull off more than one POV in a manuscript like this and make them all feel unique. It can be used most effectively from one person’s POV.
Second-person: This is from the perspective of the “you.” It is sometimes used in short stories and never used in manuscript-length work in a sustained way. It is very limited and for the most part distracting.
Third-person objective: The facts of the story are reported by an impersonal observer. This can work well in short stories but is very tricky to pull off in manuscript work.
Third-person omniscient: An all-knowing narrator interprets events and also conveys the thoughts and feelings of the characters the book contains. This is more common, although still unusual. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket is narrated this way.
TENSES
Using present tense (is, hopes, walks), is comparatively rare, but more common than it was a decade ago. The present tense is more common in debut novels, short stories, and literary fiction.
Past tense is more common in everything else, particularly genre fiction. Past tense is more familiar to readers and they are less likely to notice it at all. It reads more seamlessly.
Yet present tense gives you a sense of immediacy that past tense doesn’t.
Either way, it is something to figure out when you start writing.
HOMEWORK
Questions:
What is the most comfortable POV for you to write in? Write a brief paragraph in that POV.
Tomorrow we'll begin plotting. That's the fun part so have lots of paper ready.