"CAN WE TALK"

                    

                                        Defining 1^st, 2nd, 3rd voice when writing

What can be more confusing than confusion in a story? We try to follow, but can’t determine who’s saying what. I’m not going to give you an English or classroom lecture on pronouns, verbs, and adjectives. My goal today is to share some practical tips to help you stave off the confusion.

Generally, in a story, you either have characters speaking in first, second, or third voice. Each point of view has a specific purpose, which allows us to follow the direction of the story.

Example 1: I or We or as it’s commonly referred to as first-person POV, mostly because I or We can be used as the subject of any sentence. Widely used for autobiographical writing, such as essay’s and so forth.

 I’ve read many books lately that are written in this form. I’ll use Diana Gabaldon because she’s one of my favorite authors and is known for writing in this format. Her style of writing presents the main character of the story speaking throughout, giving the details until other voices join the dialogs. It’s that simple.

Honestly, I had to grow accustomed to this form of writing, simply because it wasn’t what I was used to seeing when reading.

Yes, folks, before I wrote a book I read them.

My reason for not favoring this format right away was simply due to the fact I needed to retrain my mind to accept the fact she wasn’t speaking in the format, I was most acquainted or comfortable with as the reader.

In no way did this style of writing take away from the story.

However, now coming from a different perspective as a writer, once I knew better I did better, and is the sole purpose for why I am presenting this formula to you, the audience.

Now let’s move on to the next demonstration, shall we?

Example 2: Second person, that uses the pronouns, you, your, and yours. We refer to this form when we are addressing one or more than one person, and directed toward the reader.

We all learned this in elementary school, right. Okay so there is nothing hard about this process, you only need to know when to apply them in a sentence.  

It’s the best way to signify who is speaking and to whom.

The most common POV is third person traditionally used widely when writing narrative fiction. As an author, I typically use this format.

If you require an example, he, she or it, refers to a person place or thing. This POV is gender specific either feminine, masculine or neuter which points to the word it.

What you don’t want to ever do is jump from one form of POV to another. This is not only confusing but also grammatically incorrect.

We've all learned about the subject-verb agreement in English 101.

 I remember in elementary school, we used workbooks as a learning and study guide that were filled with writing exercises. There were many examples of the right and wrong usages. So this is how and where we learned to diagram sentences and build sentence structure as well subject-verb agreement.

Also, choose the sentences that were incorrect, and fix the issues. I always enjoyed English in school, one of my better subjects.

Who knew many years later I would be a writer and glad I paid attention in class, as well as excelled in language arts.

Now, just to simplify things more clearly, I’d like to share the definitions of what example means.

First- person indicates the speaker, second- person indicates the addressee, and third- person indicates someone other than the speaker.

I hope that this has cleared up any confusion over POV and Narratives as it applies to writing. I hope that I haven’t insulted anyone’s intelligence by giving out information you may already know.

My goal was to offer tips to those who might be embarking on their first writing journey and unclear on which direction they should take.