31 votes
Accepted

Is head-hopping always bad?

It's fine if the switch is clearly intentional and well sectioned-off. It's fine to jump between POVs for say, chapters or whole scenes. What isn't all right is a book that mostly is one POV, but ...
  • 9,144
30 votes
Accepted

When the main character talks to the camera, is that 3rd person or another technical term for point of view?

For a character to reveal private thoughts by talking is a soliloquy. The pretext is that the character is just thinking but has to talk so the audience knows them. On the other hand, if you mean the ...
  • 8,291
28 votes

How do I portray irrational anger in first person?

To the person experiencing anger, it won't appear irrational. To them, there's a very good reason why they're angry, why they're infuriated. What you need is to show the reason. Now, the reason might ...
28 votes

How can I portray a character with no fear of death, without them sounding utterly bored?

Psychopathy is characterised by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy and remorse. (source: Wikipedia) Your character needs to care for others. Watching a person get hurt, let alone ...
18 votes

How to replace overuse of "I" in a short story, fiction, written in the first person

A technical term for this is "filtering," meaning you're often reminding the reader what POV (or filter) rather than leveraging the context of the situation to make the filter implied and ...
18 votes

How do I portray irrational anger in first person?

Well, you can try using short words to display bouts of rage, using really simple words in the speech with a slurry of verbs scattered intermittently. You can also emphasize repetition because people ...
16 votes
Accepted

Is using first person in academic/technical essays always bad?

This depends on your style guide and potentially your teacher/school/boss/etc.'s guidelines. If your teacher (for example) says to avoid using the first person you may be able to negotiate to change ...
  • 3,753
16 votes

When the main character talks to the camera, is that 3rd person or another technical term for point of view?

This sounds like the TV trope Breaking the Fourth Wall: tvtropes - Breaking The Fourth Wall But the precise thing that you remember might be a related trope. In the sitcom Liv and Maddie, the ...
13 votes

Is head-hopping always bad?

Dune head hops the whole way through and is still held up by many as an example of a Sci-fi great. The rule to any writing mechanic is that it must be executed smoothly, consistently, in a way that ...
  • 7,560
13 votes

How can I portray a character with no fear of death, without them sounding utterly bored?

I would challenge her lack of fear, if her ability can't trigger automatically as stated in comments she should still have some fear of death, things can happen around her that she isn't aware of and ...
  • 636
12 votes

How can I portray a character with no fear of death, without them sounding utterly bored?

What I suspect you're really asking here is, "How do I make scenes involving this character feel adrenaline-filled and emotional?" To answer that question, you have to realize that portraying this ...
11 votes
Accepted

Can a scene be written to be disorienting and not be too confusing to readers?

If you want the scene to initially be confusing, go ahead! Since it's written in first person, that's just realistic. However, keep it brief. It would probably be rather annoying to try to read ...
  • 226
9 votes

How to find different ways to express things that happen to the reader?

For the sensory input, instead of "you see/feel/smell/touch/taste," try moving the thing to the front of the sentence or phrase to make it the subject. Instead of "You see a shiny red rock," try: ...
9 votes

Can I state a fact in a first person story?

The subject of your sentence can be something other than the MC when you're writing in first person. For example: My phone rang or Footsteps were coming down the alley behind me You don't need ...
9 votes

How do I portray irrational anger in first person?

A trick I have learned and have been practicing recently is to stop every now and then and observe myself living in the moment instead of just living it. Its hard to do, but gets easier as you ...
  • 1,429
8 votes
Accepted

Prologue and Epilogue in third person and chapters in first person doable?

Sounds fine to me. The prologue and epilogue are literally before and after the story, so it's fine for them to be formatted differently or have a different POV.
8 votes

New style of first person pov

The narration. I'm thinking of not using the narration at all. Please don't do this. It is very, very hard to understand even when handled by a master. If this is your first book, it will be almost ...
8 votes

To what extent can a first person narrative tell someone else's story?

The most famous example of what you're describing is Sherlock Holmes, told of course from Dr. Watson's POV. Watson never becomes the protagonist of the story - the focus is always on Holmes, Watson ...
8 votes

Is head-hopping always bad?

Take a look at The Couple Next Door. There is a fair amount of the more traditionally-accepted head hopping and it works fine. It's a recent title. The advice against head hopping is, I believe, ...
  • 23.8k
8 votes

How do I portray irrational anger in first person?

Personally, I don't think there IS an internal monologue; irrational anger is all feeling and emotion, perhaps single words, and I would describe those, not try to transcribe those thoughts. The ...
  • 97.4k
7 votes
Accepted

How to write from a rich "bad boy's" perspective?

I think the best way to write from his perspective would be to emphasize the way what he means is quite different from the way people perceive him, so as to show that his 'bad boy' nature is, in fact, ...
  • 303
7 votes

First Person vs. Third Person: Advantages and Disadvantages?

Although I have read a few things I liked written from the first person, I can't write that way myself; it is far too limiting and constrained. For one, the POV character has to be in every frikkin' ...
  • 97.4k
7 votes

Is head-hopping always bad?

I am a scientist, and my first reaction to poorly argued questions is often to criticize the logic. Which I will do here, but before I do, I will say there is nothing inherently wrong with head-...
  • 97.4k
7 votes

first point of view and the problem of opinion

You can expose opinions in third person POV. In "close" third person you're extremely likely to expose the third person POV character's opinions. And even in third person omniscient, you could have an ...
7 votes
Accepted

How do I portray irrational anger in first person?

Ask yourself (or inquire) what such a person is experiencing. It could be "I remember shaking, and then the next thing I knew was...", and they know how they felt (hot, exhausted?) and are told by ...
  • 1,118

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