Confluence Day 3--Everything At Once
Aug. 1st, 2006 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jpskewedthroneSo Sunday at Confluence was my busy day. I woke, got around, and got to my last panel, "Point of View". This is a common panel at cons that I've been on before, so was expecting the usual but on the plus side Michelle Sagara West was supposed to be on the panel and since I'm a fellow DAW author and am reading one of her books now I thought that would be cool.
Michelle did not show.
So Tamora Pierce moderated the panel and it seemed to me that we ended up talking almost exclusively about first person and the fact the first person is good because it is so much more emotionally attached. The reader is FORCED to be emotionally involved with the character (and the writer as well of course) because of the POV, whereas third person allows a certain distance between the reader and the characters. Ostensibly we were supposed to be discussing how to choose your POV if you are a writer, but we didn't get to alot of that. Tamora started by asking us which POV we use most often and why, etc, and of course I started with first person since my novels are in first person. And I told them I chose first person because Skewed Throne is so focused on a single character, and on her transformation--emotional transformation--from gutterscum to assassin, with all the moral problems along the way since she is, at heart, a decent person. I stressed though that first person will only work if you have an extremely strong voice from that character, because you have to emotionally get involved with the main character. Tamora said she mainly writes short stories in first person, novel in third, but her newest novel is in first person, journal format.
That opened up a whole other discussion about how journal format is so much more difficult that just first person. It also brought up a discussion on the inherent "fakeness" of the different POVs. First person journal is extremely fake because we don't actually include what would normally be put in a journal. I mean, go back and look at your own journal a few years after the fact and you see entries like "Today I ate M&Ms for dinner, drew smiley faces on my chest, and napped for 8 hours." Stuff like this generally doesn't go in a short story or novel in journal form, because everything there has to be there for a reason, and while M&Ms are a reason for pretty much anything . . . So journal entries are fake. Third person is also a somewhat fake, with the fact that the reader knows all that's going on, from all sides. First person is the most natural, because it's relegated to a single person's head, just like all of us. This brought up the unreliable first person device, which is extremely hard to do (where the first person narrator is actually "lying" to the reader). The reason is because you really can't lie to the reader, because the reader gets pissed off and won't read anything of yours again. BUT if you play it right, when the reader realizes you've "lied" to them, they also realize that you've told them the truth all along the way, they just didn't notice. Think "Sixth Sense".
Overall, the panel was good, and didn't go in the usual direction. We never got to second person and such. Hopefully the audience also had fun.
After that I went and paid Larry for my books and chatted with Sam Butler. Then I had my reading, in which no one showed up, so I chatted with Sam some more. After that, he had to leave to catch his flight, and I had my final event: kaffeeklatsch. I figured no one would show, but there were 3 people on the sign up sheet. So I assumed they were there for the other author at the klatsch. But they weren't. They were there for me. *hugs self* But we also had a packed room (apparently not everyone signed up) and a lively informal discussion about books and such. Nothing major to report, but it was fun. And I have fans!!
After that I suffered through the long drive home, making it back a little after midnight, almost getting killed by a porcupine in the road on the way.
And now I'm dying of heat exhaustion. I wrote this morning, but had to quit at 2:30 because it was too hot to actually focus. I need to start writing earlier tomorrow so I can get in a few more hours before the heat kills me. I'm sweating as I type now as it is. Tonight is going to suck.
Michelle did not show.
So Tamora Pierce moderated the panel and it seemed to me that we ended up talking almost exclusively about first person and the fact the first person is good because it is so much more emotionally attached. The reader is FORCED to be emotionally involved with the character (and the writer as well of course) because of the POV, whereas third person allows a certain distance between the reader and the characters. Ostensibly we were supposed to be discussing how to choose your POV if you are a writer, but we didn't get to alot of that. Tamora started by asking us which POV we use most often and why, etc, and of course I started with first person since my novels are in first person. And I told them I chose first person because Skewed Throne is so focused on a single character, and on her transformation--emotional transformation--from gutterscum to assassin, with all the moral problems along the way since she is, at heart, a decent person. I stressed though that first person will only work if you have an extremely strong voice from that character, because you have to emotionally get involved with the main character. Tamora said she mainly writes short stories in first person, novel in third, but her newest novel is in first person, journal format.
That opened up a whole other discussion about how journal format is so much more difficult that just first person. It also brought up a discussion on the inherent "fakeness" of the different POVs. First person journal is extremely fake because we don't actually include what would normally be put in a journal. I mean, go back and look at your own journal a few years after the fact and you see entries like "Today I ate M&Ms for dinner, drew smiley faces on my chest, and napped for 8 hours." Stuff like this generally doesn't go in a short story or novel in journal form, because everything there has to be there for a reason, and while M&Ms are a reason for pretty much anything . . . So journal entries are fake. Third person is also a somewhat fake, with the fact that the reader knows all that's going on, from all sides. First person is the most natural, because it's relegated to a single person's head, just like all of us. This brought up the unreliable first person device, which is extremely hard to do (where the first person narrator is actually "lying" to the reader). The reason is because you really can't lie to the reader, because the reader gets pissed off and won't read anything of yours again. BUT if you play it right, when the reader realizes you've "lied" to them, they also realize that you've told them the truth all along the way, they just didn't notice. Think "Sixth Sense".
Overall, the panel was good, and didn't go in the usual direction. We never got to second person and such. Hopefully the audience also had fun.
After that I went and paid Larry for my books and chatted with Sam Butler. Then I had my reading, in which no one showed up, so I chatted with Sam some more. After that, he had to leave to catch his flight, and I had my final event: kaffeeklatsch. I figured no one would show, but there were 3 people on the sign up sheet. So I assumed they were there for the other author at the klatsch. But they weren't. They were there for me. *hugs self* But we also had a packed room (apparently not everyone signed up) and a lively informal discussion about books and such. Nothing major to report, but it was fun. And I have fans!!
After that I suffered through the long drive home, making it back a little after midnight, almost getting killed by a porcupine in the road on the way.
And now I'm dying of heat exhaustion. I wrote this morning, but had to quit at 2:30 because it was too hot to actually focus. I need to start writing earlier tomorrow so I can get in a few more hours before the heat kills me. I'm sweating as I type now as it is. Tonight is going to suck.
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Date: 2006-08-02 12:50 am (UTC)Re journal being fake--it's just as fake as dialogue (people seldom talk in grammatical sentences, more like runons with a million you-knows, uhs, and repetitions.) But making it convincing is the challenge, I think.