Yes, it's salutary, isn't it. I used to read aloud a lot, and I really ought to get back to it. Very good for spotting repeated words, and also whether there are too many sentences with the same shape and rhythm. I know I have a characteristic kind of sentence which I fall into if I'm not looking out for it. Three or for of those in a paragraph and my reader would be yawning.

Emma

"There are plenty of excellent books written in both first and third persons" - can't remember who said this ... but Bleak House springs to mind.

Then there's the 'free indirect' mixed with a narrator - that can work.

Must look up 'closed third person' which I think Lammi mentioned - haven't heard of that before.

But trust the tale ... it's the way you tell 'em that counts with readers (I hope). I like to go with instinct and intuition on this. (Oops, they haven't always served me well in other areas of life.)

Jim

And now I've come out, all the publishers are saying, 'Nice writing, but all your characters are bonkers.'

Perhaps they're just a little concerned that this is because the author might be bonkers :D

Sorry Sappholit, inappropriate I know, but I couldn't resist.

I don't see a problem with different povs, so long as they are not in the same scene together - then you don't know who to cheer on. It all boils down to whether the writing is good enough to carry it off.

- Naomi

"Must look up 'closed third person' which I think Lammi mentioned - haven't heard of that before."

All I meant by that - and it's probably not the right technical term as I've never studied creative writing - is where you use Third Person but it's always tightly restricted to one character, as if someone was filming them with a video camera but that camerman was attached to them by a short piece of rope (and also, from time to time, able to catch their muttered thoughts).

In Closed Third Person, or whatever the term is for this POV, there's no chance of popping into anyone else's head for a paragraph or two. So it's a lot like First Person, just slightly less intense, a shade more formal. It allows you to use your own writing voice flavoured to whatever extent you choose with the voice of the character (whereas if you were using First Person you'd have to write in the voice of the character).

In CW classes, they call it 'Third person limited omniscience' as opposed to 'third person omniscience.'

But who cares?

Ah. Thanks. (But isn't 'limited omniscience' an oxymoron?)

Yeah, I was thinking that. I've heard of third person limited, and omniscient, but not a mix of the two. How about first person omniscient - where the MC knows everything?

An example of that is in The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. I didn't like it, though.

Also Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson.

<Added>

But yes, they are very strange terms. 'Limited omniscience' is definitely an oxymoron.

How about first person omniscient - where the MC knows everything?

Interesting area. The good old 'unreliable narrator' comes into play here. Someone who seems to know everything about everything that's going on, but actually how could they? So reader beware.

First person omniscient is surely a terrible idea.

I don't think Lovely Bones is that at all. How can it be? Ominscient is called that because the author knows everything, not the characters, else they would be rubbish characters. You can't write a first person story omisciently, it's impossible. Think about it. Lord of The Ring is ominsicent for example, and it wouldn't be if written in First Person.

Just thought I'd spice things up a bit

<Added>

Rings sorry. Not Ring. No dirty jokes at the back there, please.

It can exist, if writers want it to. In Behind the Scenes, Kate Atkinson narrates a chapter from the viewpoint of an unborn baby, who has access to her mother's thought and feelings, and also the thoughts and feelings of everyone else.

You can do anything. There is such a thing as first-person omniscience if you're clever enough to pull it off.

I could very well be wrong about TLB, cos I didn't like it and only got a third of the way through. But that was narrated by a girl in heaven, first person, looking down at her friends and family on earth, as well as her killer, and seeing all their perspectives.

Yeah but that's from HER perspective, not theirs. It's told in the first person, through her eyes as a ghost. Not the other characters.

Sorry Sappholit, but you seem to be saying you can do anything, if you're good enough, which is okay to a point, but if we're talking technically, then a line has to be drawn, and first person omniscience is just impossible.

If a story is told from a persons's POV, whether they be unborn baby or God, then it isn't ominscient. And by definition, a first person story is told by a specific person, and through their eyes and experiences.

This is the problem, because I've been told that omnisicient should be avoided by all but the most experienced writer, if you want to get to the heart and soul of your characters. If you want the reader to be listening to you and your thoughts and aspirations, and you telling a story, then fine, but if you are interested in making true, believable and interesting characters, then surely, surely SURELY it must be for the best to recognise simple little rules or guidelines and drop this you can do anything, there are no rules in writing stuff. Coz I have heard that said about music, filmmaking, writing novels. The only thing that is undisputed is in screenplay writing, which has some strict industry standard guidelines. Of course this is different - screenplays are a technical thing, a starting point for a wider creative endevour. We are interested in writing great stories, with characters that live and breath and stories that are vibrant and memorable are we not?

Unless your name is Dan Brown of course.

I put the term as a joke, then realised that people use First Person Omniscient all of the time - in pub stories. Think about it...

"I was standing there, right, having a piss round the back while Danny is looking all over. He thinks I'm upstairs so he goes up to the flat and finds it locked. I can hear him banging on the door and laugh. Course, what I didn't know was my lock was knackered, and it only took a small kick from his boot to open it. Bastard nicked all of my best DVDs"

Omiscient means "knows everything" surely? So Ominiscient First-person just means its written in the first person and that character has access to all the information, even stuff they can't possibly know. I would say Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is another good example. And it goes in and out of people's heads and POV but is all told to you in the first person by the MC.

Why don't you have a look at the beginning of Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes Davy and tell us what you think. I think its a very effective opening and doesn't push the reader away at all, but you might disagree.

PS you and I continually disagree about this topic so let's not do that again but please consider this a line of smiley faces from me, as I have no idea how to put them in.

Snowbell - no probs, I see the line

I think you're wrong though! I don't think it has anything to do with access to information. You could have a first person narrator who is God's Librarian and the story would still be from his POV. POV is determined by who is experincing the events in the story and how they interpret them, even if that means interpreting them via someone else's eyes, or feelings, like in Lovely Bones, tho in that Susie cannot feel exactly what her Dad feels, or her sister, but is telling the story from HER POV, and it is most defienitely not ominscient, as she doesn't know what is happening to her, let alone her family (she has to visit them to find out) and is just telling the story.

Lovely Bones, for me, is a fine book and deserved all the success it got.

Omnisicient, IMO, means the author is telling the story from a POV above the story, like a God, hence the term. They are all knowing, and the reader feels they are all knowing, and is allowed into the all-knowing world of this God, the author.

Writing from specific character's POV means the author is hidden, cannot be detected, or only rarely, because the character is alive and telling the story to the reader, and the author is not a part of the process. Or appears not to be anyway, so therefore you associate with Lyra's voice, not Pullman's, tho he is very skillful and sometimes does step forward when he feels necessary, but it doesn't interefere with his writing, whereas in LOTR Tolkien is the God of Middle Earth, telling the story, mainly of Frodo, but of everyone, hence the long stories and songs of folklore.

That's what I think, but I am most probably wrong, but that's how I see it, and therefore how I appraoch my writing.

;(

Sorry about the sad ones, they're just miserablies.