Growing and books
Okay, so my goal last year was to be pretty regular with my blogposts. In the end, I wasn't, so this year the goal is to at least have one every month, meaning with January winding down I should get to it, and therefore I am here now! 😆
Ever since I started writing, I've heard a million things you should and shouldn't do, the good and the bad, what you can do right and what you can do wrong, and I actually reached a point now where I realized that most of that is utter ... well, you know. You're not supposed to write about secret babies because that storyline is boring. The brother's best friend—boring. Billionaires—all stolen storylines. The list actually goes on and on, and I think I did at least half of the 'don'ts' because ... actually I like them. I enjoy the storylines, or the characters demand it to be that way. It's probably hard for a reader or even a writer who plans his/her stories to the end to understand how sometimes for us unorganized, go-with-the-flow writers we don't know what happens at the end. Hell, most of the time we aren't even sure what happens in the next chapter, and just as much as you all enjoy discovering stories, so do we. That said, I tend to ignore all the things I should be doing, or shouldn't be writing about.
The newest thing going around currently is that writing first person is 'the easy way out'. For reals, that's what I heard.
For me that is ... I cannot do anything but shake my head. For people that aren't familiar with me or my writing, let me inform you that I write third person POV. Always have since I started, and that's because for me it's HARD writing first person. I cannot even tell you why, but that's just the way it is for me. I admire people who can do so fluently, and with ease. If I actually try it, I stumble over words and have to restart my sentences a million times because I switch to third almost automatically. Now, you can all go and tell me that all it takes is practice, however, I want to remind you of the point I started with: First Person POV is the easy way out.
Easy? Focusing on only one person? You cannot get across your point by jumping between characters, you cannot look at a scene from above, but all you can tell is what your main sees, and that, for me, is hard work. Very hard work. I mean ... Jesus, I hardly know what others think in real life, so at least in my writing I want to be—as far as possible—able to know what's going on.
The second argument coming with that is you cannot 'show' in first person POV. Like ... what? I mean, it might be that a few authors simply can't, because show is hard. Tell is easy. In fact, I needed probably a year until I had it down what exactly the difference between show and tell is, and guess what? That means I grew as a writer. We all do, every time we type a word, every day we read a book. I've seen authors grow from confused writing to suspenseful, sexy stories that have me at the edge of my seat. I've seen my own writing go from point A to point B, and I'm honest here, others can be the judge of how 'well' or not I do now. I just keep writing. It's what writers do. And, in a way, I think it's what readers do, too. Because with every book you read you grow. You have different expectations, wishes, and hopes for a book because ... well, you've been through so many. We all have. You may have started out reading books with a lot of 'tell' and didn't realize that it was 'bad' until you had a book that showed you the world. It happens. It happens to all of us. We love a certain thing until we suddenly see a different thing. The upgraded version, so to say. So this year you, the reader, are the upgraded version of yourself, and we, the authors, are the next best model of ourselves, releasing the next step on our way to become a better writer, because we know that we always grow, and won't ever stop. Influences are everywhere, around every corner, in every show, hell, even in a song.
My point? You don't like first POV anymore because it has been overdone in your mind? Move on to third person then, because—newsflash—there are a million books out there for you. Pick what you want to read based on what you feel like and don't declare something easier or harder just because you've read it over and over again. If you keep buying billionaire books you'll read similar storylines, so maybe for you it's time to try a cowboy, or a broken boy. 😉
Writing, no matter if you're a reader or a writer, is for YOU. YOU pick what you like, and YOU write what you want, because with everything you write, and with everything you read, YOU need to make YOURSELF happy, and no one else. And here's a promise: Out there is at least one more person who'll love what you loved. Most likely even more than one person. I promise.
Be brave and try something new because life is what happens when you take risks.
Sam
