Monday, March 24, 2014

Switching Perspective: The Ramblings of a Frustrated Writer

So far, in Daughter of Darkness, I have yet to go into Bobby's head.  There is plenty of reasons for this, but the biggest one is because of the way I was trained in college to write.  One thing I had repeated to me over and over again was that I should never change the perspective of my writing.  As in, if I write in first person, I should keep it in first person.  If I write in third person, I should keep it in third person.

When I am writing the serials, I find myself unable to write any of the Bobby material in the third person perspective.  Bobby, in some odd way, is an extension of myself in the world of Accidental Demon Slayers.  We do share a name after all. (In reality, almost all the core characters are named after friends or former co-workers of mine.)  I find it uncomfortable writing for that character, my character, in the third person, because when I see the story, I see it through him.  He is my avatar in the world of the story.  When I see the story playing out with the other characters, my experience is different.  I see it playing as a movie, with the characters on the outside, and myself as the director.  With Bobby, though, I see through his eyes.  I feel his emotions, because he is expressing my emotions on the page.  

Now, I will switch to Bobby's perspective at some point.  His perspective is vital to the story, at least as far as I see it.  I just realize that if I am going to make the switch in perspective, I am going to have to do it for a good reason.  

So, please forgive me for breaking one of the cardinal rules of writing, but I can only tell this story the best way I know how.

And yes, I understand that I am just writing silly stories about demon slayers and tentacles, but they are still my stories, and I take them very seriously.  Too seriously, some might say... 

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