almost (as you can see) speechless

[erastes]

Cripes. This will be a bit ranty as I've had a crap day and I'm troughing my way through a wine box.

I'm the third person on my flist to stare in horror at torquere_social's announcement that they don't like 1st person, won't accept any omniescent or head hopping.

*incoherent biting of keyboard*

That's fine. It's their publishing house and if I had a publishing house I'd accept what I wanted to, but these "fashions" do drive me insane, and it's such NONSENSE. If omniescent stuff was not what people wanted they wouldn't still be buying classics by the bucket load. If first person was not what people wanted they wouldn't be buying them - and do you need me to write a LIST of incredibly successful first person POV novels starting from the earliest novels? Austen is so popular still they've just put her works into Chick Lit covers over here. (which I'm not coping with, to be frank)

Austen Chick Lit
Monday: Still not married. Lydia is a slut and I'm beginning to think that father has psychotic tendancies. We have new neighbours, I wonder if I can nip over and borrow a cup of sugar?

Tuesday: No marriage offers today. Father is definitely schizo as he refused to go and see the neighbours and then did.

Wednesday: Visited neighbours. Don't fancy Jane's much.

OMG. Is Cassie claire going to send me a cease and desist order??? *evil giggle*

They also say that if you ARE going to write 1st person between 2 people then you should alternate between chapters and make it clear to the reader (who obviously isn't intelligent enough to work it out for themselves) and I think that's a horrible idea. I'd hate to be batted from one 1st person POV to another. I beta-ed the most horrific fic once that did that, and it was the most confusing mess I'd ever read.

I did head hopping in Standish. I've done it in Transgressions. I've sold to a print market. If you do it subtely enough, then you can do it. I don't necessarily want to wait to know what the other person's opinion is for five thousand words. It IS possible to do in the same chapter.

However. There is nothing WORSE than having "Elizabeths POV" or "John's POV" written at the top of each section, because all that does is make the reader feel fucking stupid.

But all is possible in the best of all possible worlds. All you need to do is do it well.

Listen to me, world. There is no spoon!

Comments

[fleurrochard]

Um. Which announcement? *is confused*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, perhaps not an official announcement, but I noticed it on a couple of my friends LJ's and realised that it was Torquere - it was mentioned on their yahoo group by one of the editors.

[labyrinthlace.livejournal.com]

Here via friendsfriends. I didn't know anything about the announcement but your rant earns a big old "word" from me.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*blushes*

I don't think I've ever been reached by a friendsfriends before!!

Thank you, and hello!

xxx

[aunty_marion]

How do you think I got here? (And a lot of other places too...) We Can Track You Down. There Is Nowhere To Hide. ;-}

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*guffaws*

eeeeee!! Lucius! I haven't seen a nice Lucius icon for ages.

*snogs*

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

I'm an editor with TP and I just edited a first person book with the POV alternating between the two leads and not a 'Character X', 'Character Y' heading in sight. We don't do that.

First person is less written; in fanfic as well as published novels. Not to say there isn't any; just that it's inarguably less written. I read a lot; I've got a fairly big sample to base that assertion on :-)

Most of the novels TP publish involve two clear lead characters meeting and falling in love; unless it's a threesome book, they're the focus of it and omni wouldn't work so well.

Headhopping mid scene is, IMO, not a good idea.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh, that "character x" "character y" thing I beta-ed once, that was fanfic, and just - terrible. It was almost impossible to tell who's head you were in.


It's my favourite POV, I have to admit., but my tastes change, so who knows what it would be next year.

My first two novels (both about two main male characters meeting and falling in love) were 3rd POV (and what head hopping there is is minimal and essential when it does happen) but the one I'm writing now is first person - has to be, as the entire book is a letter.

So, it's interesting, and I'm learning a lot while doing it, it's also a great way to really know a character, it's like acting in a way, because you spend time in that person's skin in a way that I don't find I do in 3rd person.

The next one on the planning block is 3rd Person again, because it's more sweeping with more characters, wheras the first person one is quite incestous and tight, only a very small cast and based in a insular surburbia.

[julesjones]

I normally write in a very tight third, either one character throughout, or two characters with one character per chapter (not necessarily alternating chpaters, but any one chapter is normally one character). And with it being a veyr tight third person, I do find I'm often in the character's head as much as I would be when I write first person. Which is why a couple of my books (one published, one not) are from the POV of only one of the characters -- because I really don't *want* to be sharing my skull with the other guy for several months...

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

I don't get it. There are so many writers who use the first person POV, and they do just fine. (Austen isn't one of them, though. As far as I can remember, her novels are all third person.)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I was fairly drunk when I wrote that post. I meant to mention Bronte, and the reference to Austen was supposed to be a seperate section

Note to self: dont try and wax lyrical when drunk!

*G*

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, "ewww headhopping" because that is the bane of my readerly existence -- I do NOT want a bunch of slidy pov's in my reading, thank you very much.
I don't mind an omsicient narrator, if it's done well, but it has to be done well. And I don't mind first person, either, again, as long as it's done well. But head-hopping, God, no! NEVER! It makes the experience I want from my reading (which is to be immersed in a character's mind/heart,) totally incoherent. YMMV.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. And I was hoping you'd like Standish...

[julesjones]

I hatehatehate headhopping. I don't hate omniscient or multiple tight third POV. They're not the same thing.

But what it comes down to is that things can be done well, and they can be done badly. I hate headhopping because to *me* that term means that the writer bounces around from one head to another because it's too much like hard work to convey necessary information to the reader from one POV throughout a scene. It's the sort of thing that happens when the scene starts in one point of view, but the writer wants to show something that character doesn't know, and hops over to another character's head for a few paragraphs, or a paragraph, or a sentence within a paragraph. It's *not* omniscient POV, which is another animal altogether.

Even headhopping can be done well. But it's a damned hard trick to pull off, and in my experience of fanfic it's usually done by writers who are doing it because they don't yet have control of POV. I can see why a publisher in a market where there are an awful lot of "good, but not quite there yet" new writers submitting might decide that the gem/dross ratio in their slushpile might be improved by discouraging omni.

In spite of which, I still think that refusing point blank to accept a particular style/genre because it's not currently fashionable would be a really good way to miss out on the next fashion. I am, after all, an m/m writer still with the publisher who took me on before m/m took off as a genre.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

You are right, there are people who can do things right, and people who completely cannot. I've read some stinking first person fics, but then, lets be frank, there are a LOT of stinking 3rd person stories too!!!

*G*

[julesjones]

Well, *I'm* certainly not going to be down on first person, seeing as three of my ten books at Loose Id are first person -- including the one in my icon on this post, and the one I gave actual sales figures for in my LJ a week or two back... :-)

[maidenform.livejournal.com]

I've heard about that ML on Evremonde's and RWDay's journals today, and it still annoys me.

Also, that whole chick-lit thing disturbs me. You just can't do that to Austen.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I just don't like absolutes of any kind, specially with fiction.

Who wants homogenised same same same things everywhere? Where's the fun in that?

If I want homogenised I'll go to Mills & Boon. And I don't!!!

[annowre.livejournal.com]

Thursday: Wonder if bum looks big in Empire line.

Friday: Wonder if Darcy's bum is as hard as his marble statues.

etc. & c.

The Austen Chick Lit horrified me, as well. (And made me wonder about the average intelligence of young women.)

/rantyness

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*dies giggling*

That so deserves to be written for real.

And it makes me wonder about the intelligence of bloody publishers!

hmm, large blue-clad cartoon superhero may be upset

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

The Tick will be so upset. That's his war cry, you know: "SPOOOOON!"
Just saying.

Re: hmm, large blue-clad cartoon superhero may be upset

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Who's the Tick?

Re: hmm, large blue-clad cartoon superhero may be upset

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

A bumbling cartoon figure, in the animated version, with very funny writing.
http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~stinerkt/Tick.html

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I'm terrible about head hopping
I want to get all the input on a scene from everyone and let the reader sort it out.

Because what may be good sexz for one is manipulation for another, just as an example.


I do change paragraphs between people.

[cicirossi.livejournal.com]

If you read again, you'll note that omniscient is acceptable but it must be done well. Head hopping is not the same. And it was also noted that the *readers* don't like 1st person. Not the publisher.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I don't know what they consider to be "readers." I'm sure they can only mean "readers of torquere fiction". I can't for a moment believe that in general people object to first person. If that were true, they wouldn't be selling in their millions all over the world, classics such as Cervantes (credited as the first, and still selling well 500 years later) Dickens, Steinbeck, Bronte, Melville, moderns such as Bridget Jones the multi-first person view of Alvarez etc etc ad infinitum - - not to mention autobiographies which are hugely popular.

I frequent a hell of a lot of writers groups, critique groups etc and I find that – especially when it comes to homosexual sex – that people prefer to write in the first person, and therefore, it goes without saying it that is true, they prefer to read in it too. It saves confusing with pronouns, and people who can't cope with all the "he did" and "he did" find it easier to work in 1st. I do both.

My point was, of course, that there is more than enough room for both, and that no-one should rule out one form and attempt to homogenise the way people write. No-one wants to hear "Oh god – all homosexual fiction is in 3rd person, it drives me mad, why can't someone be creative?" (whilst recognising that it is completely Torquere's choice to make of course, for their own imprint)

If it works and it's done well, then any style or pov should be acceptable – whether it's head-hopping or not.. It doesn't take long to read into a manuscript and decide whether someone can manage a first person voice or not – but by refusing all of one particular pov – someone is passing up the next great novel without knowing it. What I object to is people saying "all lit fic/headhopping/omniescent/first person/second person/" is "wrong"

Anything goes. As long as it's GOOD.