A Few Pointers on Point of View, Part 1

Our discussion on point of view (POV) will be covered in two parts: Point of View and Viewpoint. Yes, there's a difference! Today we'll take a good, hard look at POV so that the Viewpoint post makes (hopefully) perfect sense.

As writers, we will always be improving our style, craft, and depth of knowledge, but one of the first things we need to get a rope around is point of view.

Beautiful and wild ideas swirl and pace restlessly in our minds, roaring to get onto the page. Writers really aren't any different from circus animal trainers—and even trainers need training before they can authoritatively tame their ideas to enter the blank-page arena with graceful flow.

Here are a few pointers to help you gain Alpha status in the ring where your published words will put on the greatest novel show on earth. It's advice that might literarily save your life as an author.

Okay, maybe it's not that dramatic—but nothing will tip off an editor to your undeveloped writing ability quicker than an unwarranted shift in your story's POV tense or unwarranted shifts in viewpoint.

 

What Is POV?

Simply put, the POV is set from whoever narrates the story. But for creative flair, we like to think of POV as the camera filming your characters when and wherever they interact. She who holds the camera holds the POV power. We watch the "movie" of your story unfold through observations available from this narrator's “lens” or specified vantage point.

Establishing a solid POV allows your story to be seen through one steady lens and gives your readers stability plus the ability to get sucked into the story's believability. Giving you credibility. Indubitably.

If your story requires it, you can hand off camera duties, but you have to be careful to do it purposefully and, we'd advise, at a natural break in your story (like at a new chapter or scene break). The last thing you want to do is throw your readers out of your story because they don't know whose head they're in anymore. Most people are okay with sticking with a chosen POV and have a trickier time with sticking to the viewpoint, but what we see as editors all too often are writers who start out in past tense and teeter-totter to present tense or even fall off into the tricky pit of past perfect.

Some POV Examples

First Person. This narrator is also a character in the story, and we know the inner workings of only this character's mind and heart. He or she can only suppose or observe what other characters might be thinking or seem to be feeling. We watch the action unfold as if perched behind the eyes of our narrator only. If the character can't see or hear or sense what's happening, the reader can't either. It limits the writer to choose this POV, but it creates a very powerful connection for readers and the main narrating character.

For example, Suzanne Collins chose her main character, Katniss Everdeen, to tell the Hunger Games story in first person present tense. This means we only know the story as it unfolds according to Katniss in the very moment things are happening. If she gets knocked out a few dozen times, there will be action we miss out on until she comes to. Strategic dialogue or other means of discovery are the only ways we can catch up on what happened while her "camera lens" was blacked out.

First person can take on past tense as well, and we commonly read books with this POV. This is when the narrator speaks in “I was” and “we went” but might be able to offer greater insight along the way since the action is all being retold from happening in the past. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a good example of this POV.

Another version of first person POV that can be effective in telling some stories is the epistolary novel, where letters between characters lay the story out, both in past and in present tense. Past for describing the action ("He called upon me at my father's house.") and present for the emotion of the scribe ("I am horrified at the thought that he will come again tomorrow."), and this method allows for shifts in tense to be common and understandably sudden.

Second Person. This narrator refers to the reader, and is somewhat uncommon in fiction. You'll hear it a lot in song lyrics, poetry, self-help books, advertising, or awesome editorial blog posts. The narrator nudges you along from one idea, one suggestion, or one scene to the next. For novels, the selected narrator will confide in the reader, share secrets, take the reader on as a buddy or sidekick, and this can be very effective for readers to connect to your story. The author narrator introducing us to the Baudelaire children in A Series of Unfortunate Events immediately catches our attention by using a direct second-person approach.

“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading
some other book.”

Think of all the books you read to little kids. "What does the dog say?" the book asks the child. The child is immediately engaged because she is directly addressed to involve herself. The fuzzy monster in the picture is asking the child to follow along for a wild adventure.

Or, an author might use second person to tell someone else's story, someone who can't speak for themselves. This would include a dying father writing to his unborn child, laying out the dream he has for him to grow up, graduate, marry, and be successful in life. Or, a young girl, feeling ambitious, who writes a letter to her older self, outlining the goals she should accomplish by the ripe old age of twenty-two. Second person has a powerful presence when artfully employed.

Third Person. This is the narrating voice above the characters that is separate from the story. This may be the omniscient author himself or a voice he assigns to narrate the happenings of all the characters. And while most authors are extremely used to reading and writing in this POV, this is where the most mistakes are made in viewpoint shifts.

photo credit.

Third person present tense would include, "She steps sleepily toward the snake aquarium as if entranced by the soft glow and hum of the heat lamps. A small noise squeaks from the brown paper bag hanging loosely in her hand."

Third person past tense would read, "He spit on the ground and saw blood. His one rule: as long as he didn't start the fight, he felt perfectly justified offering his skills to finish it."

A moment of past perfect during past tense: "Harold sat on the church steps in his rented tuxedo, retracing every moment of the day in his mind. The morning's festivities had gone off without a hitch. His frowned deepened. Now the afternoon would also go off without a hitch—the one that would have made Bernice his forever."

Summary

To use the ringmaster analogy to further demonstrate POV examples, imagine you're a journalist in the stands, watching the dramatic display of courage unfold and tweeting live updates to your Twitter followers. You'll share the action from a withdrawn third-person POV, and you'll likely use past tense: "That lion just about bit off the tamer's arm! #circussnacks" or maybe present tense: "Oh no! A second lion entered the ring. Let's hope he's trained for this. #dinnerfortwo"

Now imagine you receive a colorful advertisement about the circus coming to town. It might include such direct phrases as:
"Are you ready for the MANE event?"
"We aren't LION when we say you don't want to miss this show!"
The author of that material addresses the reader directly in second-person POV.

Finally, imagine if the lion tamer held the whip in one hand and our POV camera in the other: reading the scene as told by the lion tamer would offer a dramatically different experience—or what about the lion himself? These two characters are actually involved in the action and can share a much more intimate account of the scene.

Photo credit.

Now, for a fun exercise, take a scene from your own work in progress and try it in a new tense or from a different POV. You may find that you like the life it brings to your story, but in the least, it may just get those writing juices flowing, so give it a try! Our pointers on viewpoint come next!

Tweetable: Need a refresher on point of view? The folks at @CastleEdit have got you covered: http://ctt.ec/7yi8P+ #writetip #amwriting

Happy Hallow--WAIT, NANO IS TOMORROW!!

Hey, everybody! It's Holly again. Holly stands on tiptoe and waves to the vast audience. Remember me? First, Happy Halloween! Don't forget to hoard your kids' candy tonight (I don't have kids, so I'll just turn off all the lights in my house and pretend I don't hear the doorbell. The Jolly Rancher Chews are MINE!), because you just may need it in the coming weeks.

I love Halloween. The decorations, the candy, the pumpkin-flavored everything. Yep. This is my kind of party. But in a few hours . . . the world of witches and warlocks and goblins and ghouls becomes . . . NANO! Lightning flashes in the windows and cackling catches on the wind. Don't worry, don't worry. It's all going to be okay. Don't believe me? That's okay. Let me help you convince yourself.

Outline Time

Go on, open a word processor, grab a notepad, or steal some note cards from a nearby backpack. It's time to get down to business. Of course, as you know, we can't actually write anything for a few hours. But we can get our thoughts in order. There are a bunch of ways to outline, but I'll just tell you the two ways that worked for me.

Timeline Note Cards

With my summer manuscript, I used 3x5 note cards. I wrote titles of scenes on them and put them in order. I also drew maps of locations like a house, a school, or even a bedroom. I made lists of characters that went together. I wrote "Flashback" on a few and filled them in with background info. On some of the cards, I used specific colors of ink, so that I knew what was going on. The stack of cards was my lifeline (and I almost lost it a few times). But if chapters spilled onto the page in the wrong order, that was okay with me. I just made sure to move the cards around so I didn't forget the important stuff. Scenes got lumped together, and scenes got stretched out. But overall, the note cards stayed the same. You may like this style of outlining if you like to have something physical to connect you to your manuscript. You can hold the scenes in your hands, stare at them, scribble on them, whatever you want. If that sounds appealing, you should try the note card outlining method.

photo credit here

List of Thoughts

This is the kind of outline I used for my NaNo manuscript. I pulled up my word processor, and I made a bulleted list. But, well, things kind of got out of hand. At first, the list was practical. Something like,

• Lisa lives in Florida.
• Lisa's mom is sick.
• Lisa's dad is in jail.
• Lisa gets a letter from her dad talking about how he's getting out in a few months.

Practical, right? By the end of my outline, things became more like this:

• Lisa dives into the ocean, mere moments before the gunfire erupts behind her. She knows that Derrick will stop at nothing to capture her, so she swims with all her might. But the waves are crashing and the salt stings her eyes. Her arms flail, and soon, she's choking water into her lungs and sinking into the ocean. Suddenly, she feels fingers wrapping around her wrists! She tries to kick away, but the person holding her is much too strong. She can't open her eyes to that salt again, but she knows that she has to escape somehow. Before she has a chance to worry about drowning (or maybe she is worried about drowning), the fingers turn into arms around the trunk of her body, lifting her to the surface of the water. She coughs water out of her lungs and breathes in the sea air. Too exhausted to fight, she leans back against her rescuer and feels her hair get caught on his stubbly chin like velcro.

Yes, that was one bullet point. And that is how my outline became 6,000 words. Yeah. Just like that. Anyway, it worked for me. That bullet point, though it teeters on the edge of writing, will bring me back into the story and remind me of where I want things to go. You may like this outlining strategy if you are really worried about forgetting stuff (that's why I liked it). This strategy also helps if you desperately want to get started with your manuscript, but the clock has not quite struck midnight yet. The degree of description will help satiate your craving to write ahead of time.

photo credit here

Hopefully these two outlining strategies will help you as you fret during the remaining hours of October. But really, don't fret, just write (after midnight, of course). It will all work out. And if you ever feel stuck, just keep writing anyway. But now's not the time to talk about getting stuck. I'm sure all of that will come later.

Happy NaNo! (Oh, and Happy Halloween!)
Holly