Third person intimate is what I like best, especially when the author alternates between characters. Even when the same event is rehashed, you get the satisfaction of realizing “Oh, so THAT’S what they were thinking when (said event) happened!” Omniscient seems too sprawling and general, while first person can get boring really quickly.
As for tense, simple past works fine for me, thank you very much. Present tense in small doses is okay, but more than a page’s worth is annoying.
Oh yes, I’m exactly the same way. I don’t mind first person if it’s done very well. But if the writing isn’t very even, it seems more glaring in the first person.
I generally gravitate to third person limited and intimate, alternating characters is just fine. Third person omniscient can be a little overwhelming for me, but in the hands of a very skilled author, it can be very rich and glorious.
I recently read The Virgin Suicides, and was alarmed to realize Jeffrey Eugenides used first person plural for the whole darn thing. *We did this and then we thought that and then we said this. * “Wow,” I thought to myself, “this is driving us crazy and we aren’t enjoying this book very much.”
I don’t have a firm preference for any particular POV. It all depends on the type of fiction I’m reading, and often the specific story.
First-person: This seems to work best for your basic gumshoe detective fiction. It locks you into the position of the detective, giving you clues in order and letting you try to piece them together. It also has the advantage of including a natural source of background information that you may need–the narrator simply tells you the background. This is distinct from Sherlock Holmes-type mystery stories; although technically first-person, the Watson viewpoint shares elements of the third-person limited POV, denying the reader both crucial background material and insight into Holmes’ thought processes until the dénouement.
Third-person intimate: This POV serves well in a variety of genres, and can work particularly well in detective/mystery fiction in much the same fashion as first-person (with internal monologue filling in background). I generally prefer this POV in stories that focus heavily on the development and mental/emotional state of characters. It’s well-suited for romance, horror, many fantasy stories, and some SF.
Third-person limited: The flim-flam POV. You mostly see it when the author wants to introduce a “twist” involving the protagonist. It’s difficult to do well, but it can work. Psychological horror, historical/alternate history, and straight-on adventure stories are probably the best genres for it. It doesn’t do as well with detective fiction, often requiring contrived and unlikely dialogue to supply necessary information. Besides, it’s too obvious for a mystery; if a mystery is written in third-person limited, the protagonist did it. 
Third-person omniscient: I prefer this POV mainly in quirky fantasy and SF stories. The omniscience allows lots of amusing little sidelines and diversions. A hallmark of such stories is the follow-up on minor character actions that, through a precisely detailed chain of unlikely events, leads to some major event (which may be completely unrelated to the story). It can also be used effectively in serious F/SF; I just like it better for funny stuff. It’s completely unsuited to most mysteries, for obvious resons.
As a writer, third-person omniscient is the easiest but I like working with first-person; it offers more of a challenge, you have to work to develop a character.
As a reader, as long as it’s well told, I don’t really care.
I see. I’ve not come across that usage before. I’ve only ever heard the term voice used in the grammatical sense of active (subject of the verb doing the action) or passive (subject of the verb having the action done to it).
I prefer first person, generally. A lot of my reading is mysteries, and they just lend themselves to first person writing.
Blame me for deciding to ask a different question than I’d begun when I started the post…and then forgetting to change the subject line. :smack:
See what happens when you post SOBER, people? Remember to get your RDA of vodka before you post to the SMDB!
I think you’re referring to “style” or “tone” – just the overall feel of the writing, how the words are put together. (Naturally, it tends to be author-specific.) “Voice” is a grammatical term that indicates whether the verb affects the subject or the object of the sentence.
“The car hit a dog” – Active voice.
“The dog was hit by a car.” – Passive voice.
Words can have more than one meaning.
Dictionary.com - voice
As a reader I don’t much care, although I tend to find stuff in 1st person harder to digest.
I write exclusively in 3d person limited with occasional flashes of intimince. But in general I don’t like to describe my characters’ mental states for a couple reasons. First, I think that the story’s going to have more oomph if the actions speak for themselves instead of having the narrator just list out important story points. But moreover, it just seems wrong to me to be constructing a story that requires ther eader (and consequently the narrator) to understand something about the characters other than what an observer could determin from their actions.
–Cliffy
I think Douglas Coupland is a good examplae of a writer who makes first person work very well. He mostly manages this by having a set of strong and unique characters that take the attention away from the main character while still having the style remain intact (see **Microserfs **or Generation X).
I could certainly name plenty of examples of successful books using any of those four main approaches. The lion’s share of good books are written with a tight third-person point of view, what the OP refers to as intimate.
We read in order to have experiences similar to, but more entertaining than, our real life experiences. Since human beings are not omniscent, an omniscent perspective is necessarily different from what a real person experiences. Also, authors writing in omniscent are often tempted to drop large blocks of background information in the middle of the narrative. This is a particular danger in science fiction and fantasy, where poor authors often want to show off all of their oh-so-very-clever world-building concepts. Terry Pratchett uses omniscent. He tells some parts of the story from a character’s perspective, but occasionally breaks into lecture mode. His key is to keep the lectures short and sweet.
When I read, I tend to live it out so unless the author is going to take the time to hash out a single, deep character, a first person pov doesn’t really keep me in the story. I guess I prefer third person-intimate in order to allow me to live the story but hold my attention through multiple characters.
If anyone has some books written in first person that could satisfy me, I’d love to try them.
There are so many writers on this board. Am I assuming too much in thinking that writer = published? Or is it more like writer = aspiring to be published?
I love the idea of writing but the creative side of me never made it through the birth canal.
I prefer to use and to read either first person or third person limited. Expanding the POVs too much leads to confusing plots and endless tangents, plus it can lead to giving too much away too soon.
As a writer, I’d disagree with your distinctions. They’re more a teacher’s distinction than a writer’s one. A better distinction:
As for my writing, I’d say about 40% of my stories are third person, single point of view. Maybe 30% are first person single point of view. About 10% are third person, multiple POV, and 15% first person storyteller (a technique I’m beginning to like using more and more). The other 5% is “other” (I once wrote a story in the first person plural. Worked pretty well, too.)
As for tense, I probably use past tense 95% of the time.
I’d say writer=published, though I really mean to include aspiring writers as well. On the other hand, all the fiction I’ve published is stuff I don’t particularly respect (confession stories) and write only for the meager added income, so I’m not sure I count as a writer by my own definition.
As a reader: I think I prefer third person intimate or imniscient and past tense, but the latter can be diffficult to handle. Don’t like first person too much, but sometimes it works. Present tense can be a bit tiring if it runs on for long. But of course there are exeptions, like Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe books - love his style.
As a writer: Prefer third person intimate, past tense. It’s also what I find easiest to use, except that I have to be vigilant that I don’t slip into omniscient. I only like to use present tense for effect.
Omniscient can really pull a reader out of the flow of reading and it’s difficult to write so that the user is never confused about who’s speaking and thinking right now.
I assumed it meant both aspiring and published. I’m certainly only aspiring, and I only do it as a hobby and for fun (fan fics and short stories). I imagine that some time in the future I will be a good enough writer to actually try for something really serious. I’ve only written for a short time and so I need to practise a lot more. But sometimes I do daydream about being published I just don’t see it as a career.
Well, so could I. Or at least four books I like that. See the OP.
I do quite a bit of critiquing on CritiqueCircle.com, and most of the new writers who try simply cannot write 3rd omniscient. It’s their excuse to explain away their poor head hopping, but the truth is, they simply don’t know how to do it right.
I prefer to read 1st single and 3rd limited (single or multiple POVs are fine, but no head hopping). I write both, but I do 1st more naturally. The first novel in my unpublished thriller series was written in third person, and I couldn’t quite figure out why I was struggling so hard. I started the next one and got about a third of the way when I decided the reason I was finding it so hard was because I was fighting against the book. I stopped the second book, rewrote what I’d written as 1st person, and the words practically flew from my fingers. I haven’t re-written the first one yet, but I’m working on a third.