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.