A Change – Back to My Preferred Style

[paulamcg]

I’d been writing a new short story for three weeks, slowly, not very enthusiastically, adding only a bit daily, while spending most of my fandom time on Snowflake and on new friends and their fic. And on the day before yesterday, when I’d achieved the total of 3400 words, I suddenly gave up my efforts to use a third-person voice.

I went through the text and made cheerfully the quick change of pronouns, and proceeded to write a (in my view) poignant, vivid and fluent 700-word scene (which perhaps even completes the fic). I feel the text works so much better in this way. Now it’s fascinating to make a more careful revision and consider if any other changes can benefit the story in this form.

Comments

[topaz_eyes]

It's amazing how fics demand to be written sometimes. Like they want a specific voice, or a specific POV, or a specific tense, and they refuse to work until they get what they want.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for your reassuring comment! You make me feel that it was the fic’s wish and not mine, not my inability to write anything but my favourite first-person-and-present-tense narrative.

Perhaps I usually listen to what the fic demands immediately, because I seldom make any big changes (unlike you, I guess, and I mean the change-making part). This time I at least tried and proved that I could write in a third-person voice (which I’ve done before, of course, like almost whole of the novel and some short stories, even last year). It was a very limited, close third person, only formally different from my first-person style.

[paulamcg]

I can’t resist replying here again so as to thank you for the kudos you’ve just left on A Stranded Wizard If Ever There Was One, a fic I wrote soon after returning from my hiatus a year ago. The fic I’m working on now is in the same character’s POV – which, as I now realise, I’ve always written in a first-person voice (with the exception of the attempt at third person I now gave up). Thank you for the interest in my fic, and for giving positive feedback while you aren’t active in this fandom anymore (are you?) I still treasure the amazing reviews I got from you back in the day.

[st_aurafina]

Changing POV makes such a difference sometimes! It can revivify what you're writing. I'm so glad it worked for you!

[paulamcg]

Yes, it makes a difference, even when it is just a change from a third-person POV to a first-person POV, like in this case (or the other way round). If I changed the story to be told from a different character’s perspective, it would, of course, make a much bigger difference.

In most of my fics a first-person voice works better – at least for me. Towards the end of December I got renewed doubts that it works for readers, or rather that readers in general are very willing to give a chance to first-person stories. That was why I tried to write a fest fic in the more popular third-person technique. But my third-person POVs are usually very limited, and not really less close to the POV character than my first-person POVs.

Thank you so much for your comment!

[writcraft]

I always think with POV it's important to go with your gut instinct. I'm glad to hear you've made progress on a scene you're happy with, that's always a great feeling!

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I’m so glad you’ve commented. And glad I’ve finally dared – with this fic, too – follow my gut instinct.

At the beginning of the scene I mention (probably the closing scene) I caught myself shifting to first person – twice. And twice I corrected those errors in the paragraph, before I decided to revise the whole fic, instead.

Back in late December I had a discussion on first-person narrative here on my DW and got it confirmed that at least in HP fandom there’s a bias against what is my favourite grammatical person to use in short stories. Lack of feedback on my recent fest fics had already made me choose a third-person voice for my next two fics, even though they are not gift fics, just based on prompts I’ve claimed. I guess I needed one review praising my use of first-person voice, and another one praising a fic without mentioning the first person voice in it, and a rec of that fic, before I could decide to go on and write what and how I want to.