Point of View in novel writing

Turner Hahn

The next Turner Hahn/Frank Morales novel will be different. Different in a couple of ways.To begin with, I'm going to write the next novel in a Third Person Multiple Point of View. And secondly, I'm going to introduce two detectives who happen to work on the same shift with Turner and Frank.

I'm experimenting.

In writing . . .writing fiction in particular . . . there is this ever-constant debate as to which POV tells the better story. Usually the debate revolves around First Person Singular (I shot the sonofabitch between the gonads just for the hell of it!)  and any one of the two or three versions of Third Person POV's (He shot the perpetrator between his rather dried up, shriveled canaries with great sense of emotional release.)

The last three Turner Hahn/Frank Morales novels I've written have been in the First Person POV. But I'm wondering if maybe . . . just maybe . . .a Third Person Multiple POV might make for a clearer, more interesting portrait of the two.

So far I am 100 pages into the fourth Turner/Frank novel using Third Person Multiple.The change of venue in looking at the story is different, even unique.The story itself is flowing along nicely (when I finally get the time to WRITE!!!) 

Oh.Sorry.That's one half of me who believes working for a living and paying the bills is as important as the other half in me . . . who thinks writing and telling stories is just as important (even if you don't have money to buy food and toilet paper and other such luxuries a person expects to have around.)

But I have, in this first 100 pages, made one conclusion. Naw. I'm not giving up writing in First Person Singular. The act of enticing the reader into the mind of the fictional character to participate in a voyage of discover cannot be achieved as effectively in any other format.

On the other hand, I don't mind writing in the Third Person voice, either. A different view. A different flavor. A wider take of the world around the characters.

Frank Morales

So there's that. The other thing, about more cops in the next novel, is something new. I'm populating Turner and Frank's world with more people who work alongside them. Maybe making the novel a more complete police-procedural ensemble in the process. 

Turner and Frank work the second-shift homicide desk. The squad room has other detectives assigned to different desks. It's time to bring them in. Time to get them to assist Turner and Frank and vice-versa. 

Just time to make the world more whole.