Wednesday, November 5, 2014

First and Third

Looky looky, another post about my upcoming novel, Coetir: The People of the Woods! I hope you're not tired of them yet.

This one is both a description of how the novel works, and something to help you spice up your own writing if you're looking for a way to do so.


See, the entire Druid saga has something that makes them a little unique, that sets them apart from a lot of other novel series' that I've read (and trust me, that's a fairly large number).

When I started writing the saga, I was working primarily in third person. It's my comfort zone, it's where I'm most happy, and it's the place that I most like to work. But as I got through the third or fourth chapter I realized that there was one particular character, Ellya, who didn't want to be written in third person.

She wanted to be written in first, and as her writer, it's not my place to force her down into third.

Since I finished Coetir, I chose to continue the line. Each of the Druid books are written in third person, with a single character being written in first person.

The trick to doing this, if you're considering it for your own work, is not to shy away from having your first person character in a third person scene.

It's trickier than you might think.

The trouble is that every first person character wants to be written only in first person. So you'll have to be extra careful when you put them into one of the third person scenes. Make sure they're still the same person, even though they're being written in an entirely different way.

And if you want to try something even more fun, try having a single character in second person, while the others are in third.

If you decide to try it, I'd be highly interested in taking a look to see how you've done!

[love and so many words]

{RD}

P.S. The release date for Coetir has finally been decided! The information will be released in a matter of weeks, so keep your eyes peeled to find out when it will be available! 

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