Don't Try This At Home

(And then Rani got caught up and forgot she was supposed to post a blog at noon!)

Some might call these pet peeves, but I think they’re things you need to know if you want to write seriously (especially if you’re new).

One thing you should never do, from each point of view.

First Person:

• Never have multiple first person points of view in one novel, unless you break them up. 

A good example of breaking them up is (I almost hate myself for saying this) Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer. She broke it up into three segments, the first narrated by Bella, the middle by Jacob, and the last by Bella again. She broke it up in a way that was easy for the reader to follow, and it didn’t get confusing, and she did them in large enough segments that no reader became boggled by the shifting narrators. 

If you don’t break it up like that, it gets confusing for your readers. It makes it difficult to know whose head we’re in, and it even makes it hard to know what gender we are.

So if you simply must have multiple first person points of view, follow Meyer’s example.

Your readers would thank you, if they knew how much work you put into it. *wink*

• (because you need to know this, if you ever write in first person) Never write from the perspective of an animal, without telling the reader that you’re an animal.

Only one or two authors have ever successfully pulled this off, and no one else dares to try.

There’s a reason for that.

Second Person:

• Never make your narrator (because second person is a non-committed first person) do something that would make your reader feel incredibly uncomfortable.

For example, don’t make your reader imagine what it’s like to kill someone and examine all their guts. No one really wants to do that, unless maybe they’re a little twisted. So don’t make them do it.

And don’t make a narrator rape another character, or be raped by another character.

Chances are, it will be too much for your readers to handle, and they’ll never want to read your work ever again.

Trust me.

Third Person:

• Don’t spend all of your time in your character’s heads.

Something that really annoys readers is when nothing happens at all ever. This tends to be when the writer really wanted to stay in one character’s head and didn’t know when to get out.

If you find yourself repeating, it’s time to end the scene and move on.

I hope you find these helpful in your writing endeavors! 

Remember, if you ever have questions about writing that you’d like answered, or you'd like me to take a look at your writing and give you some pointers, I’m always available by FB message or email, or you can drop me a comment on here!

Happy Hump Day, everyone!

{Rani}