Third-person Point of View

Third-Person point of view uses the pronouns he, she, they, them and the possessive adjective their, as well as people’s names. A narrator tells the story but she/he is more removed from the story than if he is using the omniscient point of view. In fact, the third-person narrator tells the story from only one character’s point of view, and only as that character can observe.

First-person Point of View

First-person point of view uses the personal pronouns I, me, my and our. It permits the author to tell the story from the pov of a narrator or one of the characters in the story; only those feelings, observations, and reactions which that narrator or character experiences can appear in the story. The advantage of the first-person pov is that it puts readers close to the action.

Point of View

This is the place from which, or way in which, something is viewed. Semantically, that means that there can be three points of view: my point of view, your point of view, and other people’s points of view. These are generally referred to as first-person, second-person, and third person points of view. Within the third-person pov, however, short-story writers recognise three distinct perspectives: third-person, limited third-person, and omniscient (god-like) third-person.

Publishing Houses Jargon

I remember, when I first began to think about sending my work out for publication, being faced with some terminology that I did not understand. For those of you in the same boat, here are a few interpretations of some of those words.

The slush pile: All manuscripts and proposals/query letters that arrive at a publishing house with no editor's name attached to them. (Some publishing houses refuse to read slush.)

Over the transom: Another term for 'slush pile'.

the Backlist: These are those books that just keep on selling, year after year. If one of your books makes it to the backlist, you've arrived.

the Frontlist: This is a list of new books coming out. Only a very small percentage of these will go on to the backlist.

the Midlist: These are the books that do not have the potential to become best-sellers. Many publishing houses no longer accept or publish these kinds of books because of the low return on their investment.

Genre: This is the type of book - romance, western, crime and so on.

Trade Publishing: This is commercial publishing of general interest books, as opposed to scholarly and reference, or academic (although there is sometimes a crossover).

Trade Paperback: These are the larger sized paperback books, hardcover size with paper covers.

Mass Market: Mass Market books are small paperbacks.

Multiple Submissions: This is when the manuscript or book proposal is sent to more than one house at a time. Sending submissions to one publishing house at a time is too time consuming.

Remainders: This is how the publishing house gets rid of excess stock after the book has had all the sale it's going to have. Authors generally have the choice of buying up these remainders at a much reduced cost.

The Editor and Editing

Writing is fun; then comes the hard work - the editing. It's difficult to cut pieces from your baby, the story or article you slaved over for so long, but it must be done. It's easy to fall in love with your prose, with that sweetly constructed sentence, but if it doesn't belong in that story, it has to come out. You don't have to throw it away; file it somewhere and use it in another story or article.

The creative side of writing is best done when you are rested. I write early in the morning and edit in the late afternoons or evenings. When I first began to write, I had a lot of trouble with my editor, who wanted to be present for every word. I soon learnt to banish her from the room when I was in creative mode. In the late afternoons, when I begin to run out of steam, I invite my editor back in and let her go to work. She slashes and cuts and moves things around and leaves some suggestions for when I start back in the next morning.

When the work is, in my view, finished, usually after about the 3rd or 4th draft, I put the manuscript away to rest and begin on the next. Only when I have another work ready for resting, do I take the first manuscript out. I then let my editor read it with a fresh eye; I am no longer surprised when she finds mistakes, or more suggestions to improve the work. Time seems to put a distance between me and the story so that I can read it as my readers would. Only after I have finished this stage do I send my work out to find a home.