by Wendy Mackrell

Created on: January 11, 2008

Point Of View (POV) decide which point of view you want to write your story from. Most prefer the third person, eg

*Susan rested her foot upon the wooden box. Her ankle throbbed out a syncopated beat from the nasty turn she gave it stepping from the boat.*

A lot of publishers will accept first person if it is done well. Trust me it isn't so easy if you don't want word repetition.

*I sat and rested my foot on the wooden box. A syncopated beat of pain thrummed through my ankle. That nasty turn I gave it stepping out of the boat had no intentions of being ignored.*

Never mix the two. You are always better off sticking with one or the other and in my opinion use third person until you have gained a little experience.

Some bad examples of first and third person

*Susan sat down and rested her foot on the wooden box. It was aching. She had twisted her ankle when she stepped off the boat. The pain was very bad.*

What is wrong with this? Firstly and probably most importantly, you are telling the reader what is happening. They can imagine how her ankle hurt in their own minds but how I imagine it may be totally different to the way you imagine it.

Here we have told reader it ached, but there are many different types of aches. We have said the pain was very bad. Okay no imagination involved there. What we want to do is engage the readers imagination and thought patterns. We want them to feel exactly how Susan felt without overdoing the descriptive (purple prose)

*Susan frowned and sat on a rough wooden box. Rustling up her petticoats a little she lifted her leg onto another box in front of her and smoothed her dress back over her leg as best she could. What was once a dull ache became a more demanding throb and she wondered just how she would hobble the rest of the distance into town unassisted.

Of all the darn fool things to go and do, I had to turn my ankle stepping off that boat in front of all those sailors, she thought. Tear prickled her eyes but she refused to let them fall. If she must hobble every inch of the way she would. After three weeks on the sailing ship a turned ankle would be a breeze.*

What does this tell us about Susan? Not only that she is sitting on a wooden box with a turned ankle, but that she has traveled a long way. She has a purpose for wanting to get to town no matter what, so it must be important. She is determined and maybe a little stubborn. She feels self-conscious about making a fool of herself. Rustling petticoats and covering up denotes a past era.

So

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