Always OctoberBruce Coville
Middle Grade
In breaking with my world tour of literature from Down Under to Italy, I decided on a good, ole-fashioned monster book that doesn't even take place in this world...much,
Always October by Bruce Coville.
Admittedly, it would seem this has a Fall slant to it, but no!, Always October is another world, a world inhabited solely by monsters who arise from human nightmares. Ghoulish, right?
But no! not ghoulish, not entirely. The monsters are actually nice, some of them anyway.
Basic Plot: A baby is abandoned on Jacob's doorstep with a note asking that someone take care of it. Jacob and his mom take said baby in. He's sweet and adorable so they name him Little Dumpling. But alas, when the moon is full, Dumpling turns into a full-fledged monster.
Methinks Coville has spent many an hour with small children.
As it turns out, Little Dumpling isn't just your run of the mill abandoned on the doorstep monster-baby. He is actually the savior of the world of monsters and humans, and there are monsters out to get him. Jacob and his friend, Lily, must travel (are first chased, actually) to Always October, world of monsters, in an attempt to save Dumpling from the bad guys, only to discover they have to cross back into the world of humans and hide Dumpling to keep Always October and the human world from total annihilation. The journey there and back again is a monster-style Candy Land with a River of Doom and Bridge of Doom and Veil of Tears and Queen of Sorrow and CliffHouse.
The action and fast-moving plot aren't what made me choose this book for my review, though (or the need for a good horror read during the doldrums of summer!). It is Coville's use of alternating first person POV between Lily and Jacob. I was excited to find a middle grade with alternating POV. I'd tried the trick before myself, and I was eager to see what someone with Coville's writing chops had done comparatively.
To keep the characters and POV separate, each chapter is labeled (Jacob), (Lily), (Jacob), etc underneath the chapter title. Coville gives Lily a quirky metaphoric vocabulary with a decidedly B-horror movie bent, while Jacob has physical quirks, e.g. he has to tap the wall three times when going upstairs, or he taps his fingers against his thumb to calm down. It's a pretty ingenious approach, connecting with expressive trends within this middle grade age group.
Nevertheless, I found myself flipping back to the front of the chapter to remind myself who was narrating, and I began to wonder why. Why does alternating POV work seemingly so much more easily in YA vs. MG? I came up with a couple of possible reasons: 1) the dual characters in YA, as in this MG, tend to divide up along gender lines, but in the YA case, love enters into the dynamic, and so we readers get two different viewpoints on love. 2) It helps that in the dual YA I've read, somebody usually is turning into, say, a werewolf, or other monster. The human/monster dichotomy goes a long way in keeping characters separate. 3) I've also read adult lit with alternating POV when both characters are of the same gender. Usually, in that case, age tends to differentiate characters and their views of the world are thus seen through the lens of more or less life experience.
Despite these de facto differences that may make it easier to write more distinctly different
older protagonists, I still believe alternating POV can work better in middle grade. I'd love to hear from anyone who has read
Always October and whether they had the same experience, or if you've got a suggestion for a middle grade title in which the alternating POV worked well. I'm on the hunt!
For more great summer adventures, paddle (here in the midwest anyway) over to
Barrie Summy's website!
I usually write first person and my narrators tend to talk like regular people. Which means sometimes they say "kinda" and "gonna" instead of the more proper "kind of" and "going to".
In my mind, when I write first person, everything in the book is being "said" by my character, whether it's dialogue or internal thought/narration. Which means that everything should be said the way they speak. But I know others feel differently. Some writers/readers feel that anything that's not actual dialogue should be written in "proper" English. I can sort of see where they're coming from and can see times where this idea of separating narration from dialogue works better than others.
For example, a character who always says "ain't", and is surrounded by people who also, always say "ain't", would sound weird to me if when narrating or describing something, they used "isn't" instead.
So I'm asking for your thoughts on this. Which do you personally prefer? Keeping your characters narration in line with their dialogue, or separating them? Why?
Current word count: 29,056
New words written: 541
Words til goal: 10,944 / 332 words a day til the end of September
Writing was a bit slow this morning, and just when I was getting somewhere, my hour was up. But I’ve put in notes so I can get started more quickly tomorrow.
I caught up on some blog reading yesterday and found Brittany Lary’s Point of View post on the Four Corners Writer’s Group blog. She ponders first person and third person and asks how readers decided which format to use for their books. Like most of the commentors on her post, I think the story and characters dictate which to write in. Both my first novel and my current novel are in third person limited, but that’s how the stories came to me. I do have a story idea — for down the road — that feels as though it has to be told in first person, but other than that one, my ideas tend to lend themselves to third person.
I read a lot where people say they love first person because they feel as though they’re really inside the character’s head. But for me, first person limited does the same thing. The book is telling the story through one character’s eyes and thoughts, and if the character doesn’t see it, or wouldn’t think it, it doesn’t get in the book. It’s not like omniscient, where the book is narrated by an all-seeing being that reveals all action and all the thoughts. To me, that style is distracting and makes it difficult to be really pulled into a book.
But with third-person limited, the reader is just as much inside the head of the character as in first person. The only difference is, with third-person limited, you’re like in Being John Malkovich, you’re still yourself but looking through their eyes — and better than the movie, hearing their thoughts. But in first person, you are that person. Everything is I, so the reader has to become that character. For me as a reader, that can be distracting sometimes, because if the character does something I wouldn’t do, it immediately takes me out of the story. With third-person limited, if the character does something I wouldn’t do, I can still enjoy it because I’m seeing their life, not living it.
Does that make sense?
Just my two cents on it. What’s yours?
Write On!
Today's consultation challenged conventional point of view and arrangement. Most stories revolve around a protagonist who is changed at depth over time by the dramatic action that happens to her. The story is arranged into chapters and told through either:
First person present -- I revel in the balmy ocean breeze
First person past -- I reveled in the balmy breeze
Third person present -- she revels in the balmy ocean breeze
Third person past -- she reveled in the balmy ocean breeze
Today's consultation revealed a story more about the transformation of a culture which is changed over time by the dramatic action that happens to the characters who live in the culture than to one particular character.
Some of the most difficult aspects of writing a story, be it a screenplay, novel, or short story, are deciding where the story begins, who's tells the story -- POV, and how best to arrange the overall flow the story.
We seem to gravitate toward a favorite way of telling a story. First person allows the writer and thus, reader closer access to the character. Third person allows the writer and thus, reader less intimate access to the protagonist from her point of view but more access to information beyond the character herself.
What's your favorite?
Gog and Magog
Everybody can probably rattle off a religious myth, or name an urban myth or two, but what about those of the cartographical variety? They aren’t so common anymore, and yet for centuries much of what was known about the world was little more than the figment of a mapmaker’s imagination. From about the seventh century, European maps went so far as to locate Paradise on the eastern edge of Asia, surrounded by a wall of flame, or later, simply water. (more…)
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It's a fine line because a reader could get annoyed if they think it's too much, but I'm beta reading an ms now where it throws me when the narrative is in proper English because the character doesn't speak or think like that. Her thoughts would be in the same style as her dialogue so it seems strange when there's an 'isn't' instead of 'ain't.' That's just my opinion--and I've never written anything where that was an issue. So not sure how helpful my comment is...:)
I agree with you when it comes to first person PoV. It totally depends on the writer, and your reasons are valid. As a reader, if you've ever read Mark Twain, his narrative was always consistent with his dialog. I'm a stickler for SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) though; I would only tolerate this if the MC is the narrator, and there is a noticeable twang or dialect in the dialog that tells the reader that the character always uses improper English, not just now and then. Hope this helps.
I'm a huge stream-of-conscious writer, so usually if my character would say it, they narrate that way too. It's hard, though, not to go too far.
Hmmm... I agree with Kristi that it's a fine line. I will use some words that my character wouldn't use in dialogue. But at the same time, I make sure to include lots of her words in the non-dialogues sections. So, yup, that's my politician's answer for you. :)
I like both. I think as long as it's used where your character would naturally use it, it'll be fine :)