Who’s on First?
Teens babble about everything interesting. Today in the car (I spend many hours driving so many teens places they cannot get to by themselves) two teens were talking of an upcoming event. The male was explaining how 80% or more of the participants at this event were just background characters. He was, however, the protagonist.
The girl argued that maybe he was exaggerating, that perhaps everyone sees themselves as the hero of their own story. (Pretty good insight for a 14 year old.) She went on to say that our stories are entirely first person, like a first-person shooting game. It’s all from our own point of view, so of course we are protagonists.
This is a complicated conversation in real life, one that you perhaps want to take up with yourself. Here, I would extend the idea of just who’s the hero on over to my novels. I do not want to set off any spoiler alerts, but I do have a thing or two to say…
All of my novels are written from multiple, alternating point of view characters, chapter by chapter. (I could, and should, get into my take on POV sometime, but again, not here/now.) These varied POV’s make it more of a challenge to just point a finger and say, “There. That’s the guy. The book’s about him.”
Will that frustrate readers? Does it mean I am somehow an inferior writer? Time will tell and reviewers, please, be the judge of this and all things.
Meanwhile, I’d say that my tack on things gives readers a deeper dive from multiple angles. It’s not “head hopping” as we were forewarned of in writing class. Instead, it’s dwelling in one character, then another, then another, but not erratically, and not inaccurately. You know when it’s time, say, for another Alex chapter. You can feel it coming on. You can tell by the first sentence of the chapter just who’s carrying the POV (otherwise, I need to revise). Being immersed in the thoughts, speech patterns, demands of focus and interest, readers get a more whole exposure to a character that’s more reliable than a first person perspective.
I hope you enjoy it.
