Monday, January 22, 2018

Point of View: Clarity is the Key Part 1

I recently received an email asking my advice on how to change point of view (POV) in a story. There is a lot of advice floating around about POV with plenty of “rules never to be broken” countered by just as many “well, Famous Author did it this way.”

Truth is, I read a lot and I’ve seen a variety of techniques used to change the POV. I’ve also seen many definitions so just to be sure we’re all on the same page, let me define what I mean by point of view.

  1. First person is the “I” viewpoint. The story is told completely from one character’s POV which means the reader can only experience what the character experiences. 

  1. Omniscient is an all-knowing POV and the story is told through a “godlike” narrator who knows the thoughts and feelings of every character. With this POV, the reader experiences the story through the actions and feelings of the various characters.   

  1. Third person is a compromise between first person and omniscient POV that offers the best of both worlds. The reader gets the intimacy of first person with the perspective of omniscient since the story can be told by multiple characters.

There are pros and cons for using each type of POV, but knowing the type of story you want to tell helps a writer decide which POV is best for that story. First person can be limiting, but also works for many stories. An intimate memoir type story often calls for the first person. Some series are written in first person, but remember if you chose that POV, the main character must be someone interesting enough to keep your readers returning book after book.

With first person, there are no real worries about shifting POV since it’s always “I”,  but care still has to be taken that no other POV slips into the story by accident. Every emotion, reaction, and thought must be filtered through the main character’s world view.

When using either omniscient or third person, the writer must provide a clear transition when changing POV from one character to another. Often the POV change is separated by a line break which indicates to the reader that a scene or POV shift is about to happen. Another popular method is to shift with a new chapter. These techniques cue the reader to anticipate some change so they aren’t caught off guard.

However you chose to shift POV in a story, be sure and anchor the reader immediately to keep the reader aware of which character’s POV has become the filter for the story.

I’ve seen a more subtle signal of POV change in romance novels. These stories usually involve only the heroine and hero and writers sometimes shift the POV from the heroine to hero (or vice versa) within a scene to increase the feeling of intimacy. This gives another layer of emotion and perspective to the scene, but this type of POV shift must be done carefully. 

A transition sentence puts the reader firmly into the other character’s POV. This is usually done by using the character’s name to slide the reader over during an intimate exchange that involves only these two characters. Thus, the scene has been divided into two parts with the heroine’s POV first, then the hero’s (or vice versa). There is no jumping back and forth between their POVs with every sentence or “head hopping” which I’ll discuss in Part 2.

Whenever using any POV, the writer must remain faithful to the chosen POV, filtering descriptions, interior monologue, observations, and emotions through the same viewpoint character. 

Head hopping is the POV sin to be avoided. I’ll discuss that in part 2