How Close Do You Go

Do you read a book to become immersed in how the characters cope with the situation in a whole new world, or do you want one person's dilemma as your escape route.

We know that by writing in the first person, the reader can get closest to the protagonist.  We are engaged in their ever mounting struggle, and care about the situation they are caught up in.  The individual becomes our friend and their cohorts our family.  But the author treats them as someone else's children who she can't stand.  The reader is kept hanging on, coping with a way of life that is alien, but gradually becoming familiar.



A lot of people write that way, but from the books I'm reading, it seems less popular at the moment.

This may be because it's easier to present a rounded impression of the story by delving into different points of view.  It allows you to develop each character by seeing them from conflicting angles.  We know from our own experience that everyone has good and bad characteristics; which is which, can be a matter of opinion.

A positive as seen from one person can be a negative in the eyes of someone else, especially if there has been friction between them.

The book I'm working on has four points of view.  At the time that I had it professionally critiqued, the reader followed Baz more than anyone else but other characters had their say.  One comment I had to face was that, on reading the manuscript, she didn't see it as Baz's story, because other people got in the way.

In the end, I stayed with several points of view because it is the way I want to write.  But in doing so, I have to accept that the reader will not fall in love with my main character to the same extent as they would have, if I'd written in the first person.