Where am I today or it’s all about your POV
I worked on the rewrites of a couple chapters that had to change to accommodate the changes in the first chapter yesterday. I think that the rewrites are truer to the characters as they evolved later in the story so that is good. Also I am hoping it makes the information I have to give the reader a little more spread out this may be good or bad depending on your point of view. In my opinion it makes it easier to take in, but it leaves the reader waiting longer for certain details.
Speaking of Point of View… I have been working on that too. I have been reading several books in my attempt to become a good writer. One of these is Orson Scott Card’s book Characters &Viewpoint. I have read and re-read the section on point of view (POV) as I know this is a major point in storytelling and editing.
I struggled with what POV to use in my story. I started writing in the limited third person, and then switched about midway through to third person omniscient. I knew I would have to go back and pick a POV and stick with it throughout and I am working on that now. So what did I pick?
Well, after much indecision I decided to go with a shifting limited third person POV. What does this mean, in different chapters we will see the story through different people’s eyes. In a few chapters the point of view will change mid chapter to let us see the scene from more than one persons POV. I try to limit in chapter changes though to where it is REALLY necessary.
So why did I choose limited third instead of omniscient. There are so many characters in the book and most of them will have at least one chapter told from their personal POV. Including Lexi, Damian, Meredith, Sonya, Farrell, Micah, Tali, Brinna and in a few places/chapters Drew, Garin, Ellsa, and Levi (I probably forgot someone). It would seem that the omniscient view would be easier to adapt to this many characters. I made the decision based on primarily one thing. A quote from the above mentioned book by Orson Scott Card in which he shares the best way to get the reader emotionally involved with your character is the limited third POV. (Characters &Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card page 162 copywrite 1988.)
That is my goal; to get the readers to emotionally connect with the characters I have written.
Consider this, a portion of my query letter:
As an avid reader I am always searching for characters I would want to know. Often I feel let down by characters who are either too perfect to be real or to flawed to be likable. In Coradonna Lost I have created characters the reader will wish they could know. These are people with real human flaws who make mistakes but are also compassionate, caring and driven by the need to help others.
Lexi is a young woman struggling to fit into a society that rejects her greatest gifts. Suddenly she finds herself faced with the decision of whether to help a group of survivors from a crashed spacecraft or protect her own interests. Damian has always assumed his life would progress down a predictable path, but now finds himself in a situation no one could have predicted. Meredith has always been told her body was her greatest asset despite her brilliant mind. Asked to use both to protect others she must make a choice she may regret for the rest of her life. Levi has trained the majority of his life to protect and defend others. Forced into a situation where he can do neither, he must ask another to sacrifice to save everyone. Sonya is pushed into leading a group of children depending on her to save their lives. Can she protect the children including her own unborn child?
Much of the editing I am doing right now is getting everything into the limited third and making sure that the POV changes are consistent and clear throughout the story. So that’s where I am today.