Lesson 6 - POV & Voice

POV = Third Person (limited)

The story is told in the third person from only one character, a little boy. He is the one who goes through the adventure because it is a dream he has. I could do first person but I'm more comfortable with writing third. Even the teen book that I have almost finished that is in first will be third person in the second draft. First person has its uses, but unless the story really call for it, I'd rather not use the POV.

For children's stories, I would choose first person for stories where the gender of the character wasn't important. I've been a reading tutor for 1st-3rd graders and noticed that some of the practice stories for testing reading level weren't gender specific (or character specific). It made for interesting interpretations from the children. For this book, I want to really develop the character; to make him come alive off the page some day. So, I think that third person point of view is better suited.

Voice

Dakoda - character reference:

ID: 1596046   (Rated: E) Title: Protagonist Sketch - Dakoda  Description: Dakoda - kid protagonist. Grade = A+ 5.0 By: Dawn♥Embers

He is a 7 year old boy and so will have to talk as such and the voice of the story must reflect his talking style since it's going on in his dream. That will be a little bit of a struggle for me. I had to fix my newspaper column because the words didn't reflect the reading level newspaper readers were expected to have (which was rather low for a college newspaper). Doing children's writing is a challenge to balance from words that aren't too hard and having some words to help develop vocabulary.