POV Issues In Writing

I have completely rewritten the first fifty pages of my book to achieve the following:

• Introduce my main character “Indiana Jones” style
• Keep the Point-Of-View from him for the first forty or so pages

This took a lot of work, as I had previously (mistakenly) cut away to another POV after only seven pages. My book, being an epic, has a lot of intertwined plots and a lot of characters, and I wrongly felt I needed to get them going quickly. This was wrong.

The problem is that cutting away too soon diffuses the focus of the reader and makes them confused as to who to latch onto. They subtly and subconsciously distance themselves from the book, and thus will be more likely to put it down and not pick it up again.

I need to be careful that the reader latches onto my main character, Merlin. Part of the reason I left him to take other character’s POVs was because my main character is blind, and as a new writer, it was difficult to write from his perspective.

Now that I have matured in my writing (and gotten excellent advice from Randy Ingermanson and a blind friend of his), I have figured out how to write from Merlin’s perspective. Thus the rewrites and fixes.

Mostly I am excited about Merlin’s new introduction. Much more fantastic, ominous, and book-worthy way to begin my book.

I’ll try and get this version posted soon!

PROGRESS REPORT: Now that my first fifty pages are fixed, I am back to editing and cutting on the rest of the book, and I have cut over 10,000 words from the document, and am now over 25% done with my cutting. This may make the book around 110,000 words, and if I can’t get it cut down further, I will have to live with that.