new dilemma

The good news: I've gotten on a bit of a roll with what might wind up being book #2. I can see the story, the plot, the arc if you will...I am starting to see the characters...and I have written what might almost be considered Chapter One.

The bad news: First-person or third-person? I can't decide.

And I can't go on until I know. What comes naturally for me is first-person; I like being in someone's head and getting that inner dialogue down on paper. But the problems with that are a) I am real annoyed with all the "you" comments that have come out of the whole Beachglass thing (see previous post entitled peeve du jour under July) that is the result of people not separating between "narrator" and "author," and b) I want to be able to let the story unfold and have the few little twists be surprising, not this whole let-me-tell-ya-what-happened thing that seems to happen in first-person...

And yet, the 'voice' I seem to lose in third-person. I tried to convert what I have here from first to third and it's just ODD. And I don't like feeling like some fly on the wall, like who the heck is lurking around during these private moments, who is in the characters' heads...I dunno.

Any hot tips from you writers out there?

I thought about the old tell-the-story-from-3-different-peoples'-POV trick, being in first person for each of them, developing three distinct voices and letting them tell the story each from their "side" but I don't know if I could pull it off. Barbara Kingsolver could (see: Poisonwood Bible, AKA sheer genius). But, to paraphrase: I'm no Barbara Kingsolver.

I just really like this narrator's voice so far. She's feisty. And a little intense, almost high-strung, but in a good way. Fast. Amusingly bitter. I would even say "plucky" but that sounds too much like the small hero animal in some animated short. Anyway -- I like her and am afraid I would lose that whole voice-thing going to third person.

Hmm.