Pronoun Trouble

 

I'm at least four months out on The Early Fox but am already thinking covers. Kindlepreneur is doing a thing with 100 Covers. 100 Covers wants examples of similar books on their order form. So back to Amazon -- PublishRocket does this now, but I am not in the headspace to figure out how that part works -- to find "similar genre."

There are more books showing up in my searches that take smaller liberties with history -- that don't require aliens or magic as part of their "Archaeological Thrillers." I still can only think of maybe one series so far, though, where the action is more towards Cozy Mystery and less wild shoot-outs and exploding helicopters.

But that got me thinking again about rewrite, relaunch, restaging...and POV. Because there are problems with doing this sort of thing in First Person, and advantages to Third. 

I originally picked First because the plot for that book had her mostly alone without anyone else to talk to, and because I really wanted her to talk about history. As of the current book I am working so hard at backing off on all the internal chatter even she has noticed it. First is also an easier POV to lie in. It seems paradoxical, but Third Immersive (the standard approach) is almost forced to reveal things about itself that a First Person POV can chose not to talk about.

The advantage to Third that got me thinking about this now is that so many of these other thrillers are more thrilling. More action. And it isn't as easy to look heroic and badass from inside. That bit of narrative distance of Third makes it easier.

In the case of the basic conceit of the stories, that protagonist Penny is often called and confused with "Athena Fox," First actually confers one huge advantage. And that is that they don't usually talk about themselves in the Third Person.

In the Japan books, my protagonist can be dealing with her complicated feelings about becoming the mask, as various people address her by her name or as "Athena Fox" -- but she remains the same person within her own head, as she is always "I" there.

The same thing with The Murderbot Diaries; the name "Murderbot" is rarely used. In fact, while the protagonist will at various points answer to "SecUnit" or "Rin" (a thin-as-paper disguise of an "augmented human" who works as a security consultant), it is usually "I" within its own head. The same way it isn't gendered, or even explicitly non-gendered (aka "it") -- again, simply "I."

(A problem immediately faced by the AppleTV show, as there is a male actor under the helmet.)

The other difference is in background information. A First Person POV can dump background but at the risk of attracting attention to the artificiality of the narrative. When a First says something like; "I was educated at the Sorbonne" it immediately implies that they are aware of the reader. That they are in fact narrating their experience. "Dammit, six years at the Sorbonne had not prepared me for this!" instead maintains that fragile fourth wall, keeping the reader from having to think about why they seem to be able to hear this person's thoughts.

This isn't hard-and-fast; the mirror scene alone demonstrates that you can't do everything in Third. But you can get away with more before you break that fourth wall.

To me, though, this is much like the secrets issue above; First is handy for when you want to keep secrets, but it is lousy when you want the reader to understand who they are and what they are thinking, because they just might not want to talk about it. And if they appear obligated to talk about it, it immediately distances from riding along in their skull while they have the experience, to being told about this great experience sometime after the fact.