Voice and distance
I don't have a groovy / daggy image for this post. Suggest one if you can.
I'm just interested in canvassing people's views on narrative voice because I've been ploughing through a few YA and adult books I've had on my TBR pile for the last, um, 2 years, and the POVs have been astonishingly different and varied.
First person narrator: Love? Hate?
Ditto first person duelling narrators.
Third person alternating narrative POVs (hellooooo, Game of Thrones I'm looking at yooooouuu): Indifferent? Excited about?
When you're working on something and trying desperately to get the voice and pacing right, it really becomes apparent how very different these approaches are. Each has its own limitations and possibilities.
First person is so immediate and intense and almost claustrophobic. You're utterly reliant on the narrator's good graces in a sense. And you're right on top of them almost, seeing what they're seeing, feeling what they're feeling.
With third person the world broadens out, you gain that Godlike power of omniscience, but it's a cooler, more analytical way of bringing all the elements of the story into play and maybe some urgency gets lost, some added distance gets imposed between the reader and the main players.
Interested in hearing what people like.
