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  • Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by Account Closed at 09:08 on 01 September 2011
    Hi

    I'd be grateful for advice here.

    If the MC should be shown in first-person POV (as this works best) but comes across a bit weak and fretful, how could psychic distance be introduced so the reader isn't overwhelmed with her fretting?

    She strengthens up - which is part of her journey - but she's been through a lot in the past two years, so she would be a bit vulnerable at the moment (although she doesn't 'list' what she's been through, this is introduced as the story unfolds) and she's just about to be launched into something much more than she's ever had to deal with before.

    I really don't want to bring in another POV character. I've had some critique advice suggesting bringing in flashbacks to happier events to break-up the potential monotony of fretfulness and to reduce the psychic distance.

    I can see how psychic distance works in third-person, but I'm not so sure about first-person POV.

    Thanks

    Sharley
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by NMott at 10:22 on 01 September 2011
    Why not simply make her less fretful? Yes she's suffered, but she's a surivor. there should be more to the story than her journey towards this state of mind. Readers empathise with characters who, despite all the suffering they've gone though, aren't moaning minnies; are stoical, use black humour to push down the feelings of helplessness.
    I see a lot of mss on Authonomy which fail in the opening chapters because the main character isn't lovable enough. And it's no use the writer saying 'but they get nicer', because the reader simply doesn't get that far.

    Check out Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Although it's in the fantasy/crime genre the MC Harry Dresden does a lot of first person ruminating about himself, but he's still a likable character. Also I Capture The Castle, where the author has picked the nice sister to be the mc, rather than the whinging Rose who's story is a main thread in the novel.

    <Added>

    ...also Meg Rosoff's How I live Now, where the MC has been sent to live with her cousins because she's being horrible to her step mother, etc, and the reader can see she's got problems but the MC's self-depreciating humour, etc, carries them through.
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by Astrea at 10:30 on 01 September 2011

    I don't think I do it consciously, but I have noticed that I bring in quite a bit of humour for my MC, as Naomi suggests.

    She's got a quite a bit to cope with, and I do think it's a necessary counterpoint to what in my plot gets progressively grimmer. Also I intersperse 'heavy' scenes with less heavy ones - I have a 'best friend' character who's fun and a breath of fresh air, which I think is needed sometimes to add balance.

    Does this help? I rememember you had a fun scene in an earlier draft of your MC attending a Virgin Vie party. Maybe a touch more of something like that?
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by Account Closed at 10:35 on 01 September 2011
    TBH, I thought I had made her stronger. I worked on her voice and tried interspersing with humour.

    But I need this one chapter where she is fretting and quite low, but I don't want it to be off-putting. I was advised to reduce the psychic distance but I'm not sure how to do this in first-person.

    I'll have a look at the titles you have suggested - thank you.

    <Added>

    Crossed with Astrea - that's in the next chapter, where she decides she needs to do something about her situation. But, I can't work out how I'd reduce the psychic distance in this chapter (while she decides to get off her butt and do something).
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by saturday at 10:37 on 01 September 2011
    One simple thing would be to allow her to lose herself in what is going on around her. Instead of telling us how something makes her feel, you could focus on the thing itself a little more, so that we see/hear/smell a bit more of what she does
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by Account Closed at 10:56 on 01 September 2011
    It's sort of clicked - thank you. I'd sat here frustrated wondering what to do and then realised my added 'emotion' was actually quite distracting.

    I won't take out all the emotion, but I'll add a bit more 'showing' and take out some of the feeling.



    And read those books too!

  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by Astrea at 10:57 on 01 September 2011

    Hmm.

    Would it help if she was a little more self-aware, i.e. she knows she's being weak and fretful, and tells herself to get a grip, something like that? Maybe she says/thinks something like:
    Emma, stop it. You're stronger than this, for God's sake.

    You'd be telling the reader there's more to her than her current misery, and showing she's got something about her. Just a thought.
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by EmmaD at 14:12 on 01 September 2011
    Sharley, I think more showing is probably right on the nail.

    I blogged about this kind of thing quite recently, which might help:

    http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/08/thinking-introspection-and-spilling-tea-on-the-dog.html

    And this

    Would it help if she was a little more self-aware, i.e. she knows she's being weak and fretful, and tells herself to get a grip, something like that? Maybe she says/thinks something like:
    Emma, stop it. You're stronger than this, for God's sake.


    is good advice too. Partly because it injects some energy, which is often what's hard to find when a character's low and lost or stuck. And also because if you really do have to put in something which

    But you would need her to act on that galvanised feeling, not just to slump back, or readers might get as fed up with her as we do with a friend (or ourselves) who's always fretting about things, but never actually doing anything about it.

    <Added>

    oops!

    And also because if you really do have to put in something which the reader's liable to take in the wrong way, one way to deal with it is what I think of as 'if you can't beat them, join them'. i.e. acknowledge what the reader might be thinking/feeling, and then work round it...
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by Account Closed at 14:39 on 01 September 2011
    Thank you to everyone

    I took all the advice and have completely revised two paragraphs and added a 'bugger it' galvanising bit. Hopefully, this counteracts the self-absorbed boredom.

    Emma - at the risk of sounding like your blog groupie - I printed off the 'spilling tea on the dog' blog and I've got it sitting beside me as a checklist when I write. I think it's a really good one.

    Thank you
  • Re: Pyschic distance in first-person POV
    by EmmaD at 19:22 on 02 September 2011
    Sharley, you're welcome!

    Emma