The Deal with POV

Exercise Your InkTank

Perspective is an issue we’ve returned to fairly often in this group. And I think one of the reasons it keeps coming up, is because we’re so tempted by the siren song of the mobile third-person perspective. How nice, it seems, to be able to shift in and out of character’s minds and stories. And what’s stopping us from doing that if that’s what we want to do? Here’s where the conversation went the last time it was raised:

1. RULES: There is no rule against the use of an omniscient narrator—of course there isn’t—but it is true today that many stories written in the third-person perspective, are written in the third-person limited perspective. This means that the story resides near one character, though it may shift to another between chapters or sections or even paragraphs. You’ll find that stories that are written from an omniscient perspective generally have something in common: a very strong narrative voice that is the controlling force of the story. Think of One Hundred Years of Solitude. We follow that story from character to character because the narrator leads us there carefully. Each move that the narrator makes in that novel, is made for a reason that is clear to the reader. The voice is thick and big and easily identifiable and consistent.

2. READERS: Frequent shifts between characters in the third person that take place without an apparent system of logic irritate readers. They can become lost, they can feel violated, and worst of all, they can lose faith in the writer. Frequent shifts between characters in the third person can also prevent readers from fully entering the world of the story. Readers would rather understand the story from one character’s perspective, than know what everyone in the book is thinking about everything that happens, if it means that they can spend a little quality time getting to know that one character. In other words, rather than opening the story, frequent POV shifts often close the story to readers, restricting them to an unsatisfying surface level.

3. TRAPS: Many writers fall into the POV shift trap early on because they simply don’t know the stakes. But others fall in because (in truth) it is easier to tell readers what characters are thinking or hiding than finding ways to show it. For many readers and editors alike, shifts in the third-person are signs of laziness or sloppiness. Even if you’re making a deliberate choice, that choice may be interpreted in that way. You should know that before you decide to take the risk.

4. PREROGATIVE: It’s yours. But a little time spent deciding exactly why you’ve made the choice you’ve made in terms of perspective is a gift you should give yourself. You deserve it and so do your readers.

I wanted to revisit these ideas tonight because they bear repeating and because it’s time to move the conversation past them now. Let’s start looking at the issue of perspective in a more holistic way. Like choosing the genre in which to place your story, choosing a narrative perspective requires a bit of contemplation and meditation. While it’s true that sometimes the choice is instinctive and immediate—we know exactly how to tell the story as it comes to us—investigation can only enrich our choices. In other words, it pays to know precisely why a particular story fits a particular perspective. It’s information we can use to take the story to a new level of consistency and artistry and it’s information we can carry to the next story we write.

Different choices result in different effects, tonal and otherwise. The selection of the narrative perspective should have its roots in the needs and desires of the story itself, (which you must investigate in order to determine) and the selection should be an informed process. It helps to know the advantages and disadvantages common to each perspective first-hand, but we can summarize for you here because we’re so damn nice.

GROUP GENERATED LIST
1st person perspective:
2nd person perspective:
3rd person limited perspective:
3rd person omniscient perspective:

Let’s write a passage together, using the same story, but different perspectives and see how it all falls out.

You Are Not Me Are You

Exercise Your InkTank

The debate over whether or not we are entitled to write about experiences that are not our own is one that occurs often in workshops. It arises more often when men write from the perspective of women than it does when women write from the perspective of men. And it arises even more often when white men write from the perspective of people (men and women) of color. “What is the deal?” those of you who are white men among us might be thinking. Others of you might be thinking, “What is their deal” of the white men among us. Before we get too carried away with all of this thinking, here is the deal:

As writers (and particularly those writing from a traditionally dominant perspective) we should be aware and respectful of the history that problematizes stories that may appear to intend to voice the authentic and true experiences of a traditionally marginalized people as authentic and true. As the story. When a story tries to be about what it’s really like, for example, to be a black woman, the identity of the writer may justly come into play. If the writer is not a black woman, readers are often inclined to ask questions: What makes you think you know what it’s like? What makes you think you have the right to tell (or take ownership of) that story? These are good questions insofar as they engage us in a discussion about the politics of identity and their stakes in storytelling. But when they’re compelled first by a certain cloying tension present in the storytelling and second by the fact of the identity of the writer, they’re even better questions.

We’ve all read stories wherein we begin to feel the lining of the perspective pull from the storytelling surface and fray. The story suddenly feels less “real” because the details aren’t quite right or because the voice is off or because the storytelling is trying too hard to prove a point. We’re pulled out of the world of the story long enough to wonder about the writer behind the storytelling and sometimes that’s all it takes to devastate the experience for us or to call it into question. It isn’t wrong to write about experiences that are not your own, but it is sometimes hard. Most failures that occur in this regard occur on the level of imagination and investment. The worst of these failures occur as a result of a lack of respect or consideration for the perspective assumed and those are the stories that get everyone upset.

For those with concerns about how “real” the story can be when the gender, race, ethnicity, age, nationality, or class of the writer does not match the character’s, consider the challenges facing the fantasy writer. Can people who aren’t hobbits or dragons or aliens write from those perspectives? Of course they can. Just as you can write from any perspective you choose. But the choice should be INFORMED and CONSIDERED and the execution must be INVESTED. We can learn a good deal about others by writing from their perspectives. We learn about them just as we learn about those characters that are like us. To inhabit the world of the story wholly is our responsibility as writers, as well as our aim. If we can’t maintain that focus in our work, how can we expect our readers to do so?

The Old Switcheroo
Choose a perspective that is vastly different from your own. Imagine a character that inhabits that perspective. But instead of writing from that character’s perspective, write from the perspective of a character (very much like yourself) who is observing that (very different) character from a distance.

Salon Writers Write Conflict

Joe's Approach-Avoidance Conflict
by Roger

The smell of freshly popped popcorn drifted from the basement up to the second floor. Joe's mouth watered and his stomach cramped. His mouth watering was real – he was hungry, especially for buttered popcorn. His stomach cramp might have been real, his diveriticulitis acting up. Or it might have been his imagination, a conditioned response, his gut reminding him how it ached after he ate popcorn.

But Joe couldn't close his nose; he couldn't avoid that fresh popcorn aroma. Maybe he'd eat just a little this time. Or eat it slowly, monitor his stomach's response, stop before it cramped up on him.

He got up and tiptoed downstairs, approaching the basement like a thief – a petty thief. A petty thief wondering if he'd get away with it this time.