Writing in third-person intimate point of view (POV) allows the author to write deeply from a character’s perspective as in first-person POV, but it also allows the story to be told from several points of view—the changes just have to be carefully done to avoid head hopping. The reason to choose third-person intimate over omniscient POV is that the reader gets right into the mind of the character and so gets to know the characters more deeply than they would with omniscient POV. Because the story is told in the character’s voice, it’s more interesting and engaging than omniscient, which is a very remote way of telling a story. See my last post for an explanation of the difference between the two points of view. Beginner’s faults Unless they’ve done a lot of previous study of the writing craft, beginning authors who use third-person POV often think they’re writing in omniscient even if they’re not, and they usually start by writing in expositional rather than descriptive prose … [Read more...]
How Important are Beta Readers to an Author’s Career?
What are beta readers? Beta readers are people an author asks to read their book and give feedback on it before it’s published or sent to an agent. How important are beta Readers in the development of a novel? The main point here is that authors can get so close to their work that they don’t see the holes in it. They think their book is ready for publication, but they can’t see it the same way as someone who has never read it before, and all readers who purchase the book are in that category, so it has to work for them. Authors need others’ opinions to help them see their book from a reader’s perspective. It’s better to get feedback while you can still change the book than either have poor reviews after self-publishing or an agent or publisher stop reading and discard the book because the author has not had the perspective of other opinions on their work. An agent or publisher will not tell you what’s wrong with your book; they will just discard it. Readers, however, … [Read more...]
