When I started writing His Bewitching Guardian last year, I knew I would have to avoid sounding too contemporary.  It was set in Regency England so some things they just couldn’t say.   Some words wouldn’t have left a proper young lady’s lips and some words hadn’t even been created yet.  It would have sounded ridiculous to have my hero call his friends “dudes” or have a girl talk about PMS.

It was a tough modification, but I bumbled through.  There are definitely moments where my Linguistics major CP Jordan still points out these errors but I think, like anything else, that it’s possible to get used to watching out for things.  You start noticing when a word might not fit and where you might have to avoid informal language. 

I’ve started a new project.  It’s a YA Paranormal tentatively titled Touched.   All of a sudden, I’m able to sound as contemporary as I want. 

Now I have to worry about using contemporary language that feels clichéd.   ‘Cause really, who says gnarly anymore?

I should be breathing a sigh of relief.  I won’t be looking up the type of underpants girls in 19^th Century England wore.  Yippee!  But, now I have to worry about what kind of underpants a teenage girl in Generic American Town would wear if she were a normal girl who ran cross country, sort of hid in sweatshirts, and avoided conversations.  Not that her underpants will show up in my book (I suspect anyway) but character development is important.

My YA is also in 1^st person.  The story made it necessary, but I’m still getting used to the idea.  Thank goodness our Quartermaster writes a slamming first person and is holding my hand a little bit here.

So, this historical 3^rd person writer, accustomed to using more formal language, avoiding pronouns, and in possession of a healthy disdain for dialogue tags, is wrestling with her contemporary 1^st person voice.   A whole new world has opened up to me. 

I’m still exploring my horizons.

Do you prefer 1^st person or 3^rd person novels?  Do you write 1st or 3rd person?  What do you think are the benefits of each POV?    Do you think some stories just require a certain POV?  Any 1^st person stories that really stick out to you?  Any historicals you’ve noticed language that felt too contemporary?