Edition 4 – Part 3: Spawn Me a Character
A/N... Two words that you should really know by now;
Protagonist: Main character
e.g... Harry Potter is the protagonist to the 'Harry Potter' series
Persona: The mask/role/character that a person adopts in relation to their circumstances. Persona is not another word for the protagonist.
e.g... While at work, John Smith has a hard-working, diligent persona. While at home, he has the persona of a lazy slob.
Narrative voice is paramount to any piece of creative writing, and is a lynchpin to the audience’s view of your book. Depending on your perspective into your story, you can evoke certain emotional responses to your story. As an example, I have created a generic sentence that I will restructure depending on perspective (“Today, ____ went to the shop where ____ saw ____ arch nemesis, Bella Swan…”)
1st person
“Today, I went to the shop where I saw my arch nemesis, Bella Swan.”
1st person is written wholly from the point of view of the characters, with the use of the pronoun of ownership, “I”. 1st person allows the audience to directly relate to and empathise with the protagonist. It conveys a perspective from the biased perspective of the protagonist, who, in nearly all cases, doubles as the narrator. The audience will only experience what the narrator experiences. Mark Haddon utilises first person narration to provide insight into the perspective of mentally impaired characters in his book, ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’, wherein the narrator is a 15 year old boy with autism. Alice Sebold’s ‘Lovely Bones’ is also written from the perspective of a deceased first person narrator.
2nd person
“Today, you went to the shop where you saw your arch nemesis, Bella Swan.”
Extremely difficult to maintain, 2nd person is written explicitly using the pronoun, “you”. There are little variant, and I honestly would advise you to avoid using this perspective in anything more than a short story, if ever. Provided you are an exceedingly prodigious author, you can attempt 2nd person, but it is extremely difficult to maintain a story in this writing style. 2nd person narration centres the audience, but can create feelings of unease and alienation. R. L. Stein’s, ‘Give Yourself Goosebumps’ and Sophie Talbot’s, ‘Fabulous Terrible: The Adventures of You’ are some examples of books written in 2nd person.
3rd person limited
“Today, Amber went to the shop where she saw her arch nemesis, Bella Swan.”
3rd person limited is written from the perspective of an exterior narrator, i.e.; the author, and is conveyed using pronouns “he”, “she”, etcetera. It is the most preferred writing style for getting published – yes, my friends; 1st person is generally avoided by a lot of published authors. 3rd person limited focuses on the point of view of the protagonist. While the audience does not directly relate to their character, they experience only the situations that the protagonist is a part of. However, the character does not have full control over what the audience knows, rather the narrator, so the character’s flaws can be more evident. It also permits occasional POV changes.
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Feed My Thoughts
Non-FictionJoin the revolution! Abolish mediocre plots and generic characters. Save our stories! Written by AmbersEatingCake, and co-written by Yzabella_Pen, Feed My Thoughts is our exclusive advice for you; the writers of 抖阴社区. Every week, we'll upload det...
