How does first person reflect on the writer? How does it draw in the reader? (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

I happen to like the first person point of view. Many of my schoolgirl scribblings were in first person, and so were my favorite novels.

But somewhere along the line, I picked up the idea that first person wasn’t ideal. It was kid stuff, it was for amateurs, it was a bit narcissistic.

So, I started working with tight third person. I kidded myself that it was practically the same, and I got along OK with it, most of the time. Then I started thinking that a single third person POV was also too baby-ish. I wanted to try working with multiple POVs. And that’s where my muses went on strike. Oh, everybody inside my head agreed that multiple POVs, alternating every chapter or some other mystical and complicated schema, would be a grand idea. A rococo drawing room of an idea, full of interesting insights and various opinions. Continue reading →