Saturday, May 16, 2009

Point of view

I had a writing teacher once who said that when you write in the third person, with a point of view character:
"The reader can feel TRAPPED in that character."

I feel this way when I read some books....sometimes, I just don't WANT to know every detail of what's going on inside a character's head. But that seems to be how many character-driven children's books are written.
Jane Austen used the third person with a point-of-view character, too, but she slid in and out of her heroine's minds. And she was very selective about when she went in and how long she stayed. She never overstayed the reader's welcome.

That is the kind of point of view I most enjoy reading, and writing.....can you do it in a kid's book, though? Or does that kind of sliding in and out make a novel too adult?

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