POV

I wrote an entire novel in third person. I am qualified to write that novel because I am a minister’s daughter and was a minister’s wife for 25 years. Writing that story took about five years of my life, and I blended my experiences, my mother’s life, and the lives of many ministers’ wives I have known over the years.

When I finished the novel, I thought it was quite good. I asked a writer-in-residence at the St. Thomas Public Library to read it for me. She offered this opportunity, and I was happy to share my novel with her. Her feedback made me happy, and I listened with pride as she told me it was a good story that needed to be told, and I should rewrite it in the first person.

What??? I had stopped paying close attention to the “you have done good work” part of the Zoom meeting. I asked her to repeat what she had just said. She did. Adapt the novel into a first-person narrative. “You have told the story, but you could be more honest if you told the story in the first person.”

I had to shift the story from describing my readers watching someone eat a strawberry to sharing how it felt to eat one. The process took another five years.

One of the first concerns a writer should consider is the point of view that will most effectively tell the story.