Filed under Writing.

I’ve been writing more than five years off and on. But only this past year I’ve worked on this novel and had direct instruction on popular fiction style of writing through the University of Washington. The course improved my craft. I know this without a doubt because I’m trying to fix my first four chapters I wrote before attending the writing program. And it’s a bitch. As part of the process I’ve asked my writing critique group to take a look and give some feedback. Especially since later this month I plan to present these chapters to a published author for critique. I want to put forth my best effort!

 

Now to the POV. My books are first person…but…and here is the big but…I wrote a prologue in third person. I made this choice specifically because I wanted the prologue to have distance, and to stand out.  It takes place two years before the opening of my book. Because I mainly write in first person I worried and fretted over my ability to write in third. This made me work extra hard to get it right. Lucky for me, my critique group helped me to refine it, and polish it. I poured myself into it because there was a chance the prologue would be published in an anthology.

 

The problem now is that when compared to my first person writing, my third person piece is a stronger piece of writing. That makes sense right? But as an author I can’t help but worry. Worry sort of comes with the territory, and as a newbie who doesn’t know what they’re doing, I worry even more.

 

Does this mean I should be writing the whole book in third person? Should I remove the prologue? Will I get my first person writing to be as strong? I’ve had several members of my critique group suggest I change over to third person – but I have more than one whole books worth of content I’d have to transcribe – seems a daunting task. Just the thought makes me shudder.

 

At this juncture I’ve made the decision to continue on the path of first person POV…but make it shine…revise until my fingers bleed…get it to the same level as my third person POV piece and then decide if I need to make a drastic change. I’m confident I won’t have to take that last step, this is just a matter of raw work being reviewed and compared to polished work. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

 

Do you have POV blues? Let me know in the comments, or share on Twitter.