tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post8151422693234403337..comments2023-08-27T04:22:55.468-07:00Comments on The Literary Lab: The Point of "Point of View"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-32101485205139438972009-12-20T08:03:25.109-08:002009-12-20T08:03:25.109-08:00Point of View is difficult as there are so many su...Point of View is difficult as there are so many subtleties associated to the particular perspective the writer decides to write from. I'm having my novel re-erited to clean up a number of small literary faux pas and to address the many times I've left the POV (third person omniscient).<br /><br />Stephen TrempAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-76868289296536152732009-12-16T08:12:11.963-08:002009-12-16T08:12:11.963-08:00Scott, sorry I didn't comment on this yesterda...Scott, sorry I didn't comment on this yesterday. Yesterday was not good. Today is better I'm hoping.<br /><br />Anyway, this post is absolutely BRILLIANT. I knew it would be when you started it awhile ago. I kept hoping you'd finish and post it soon. I'm glad you did! I've been thinking about POV a lot lately. F.P. read some of Monarch and helped me understand that I was writing in POV omniscient, not POV limited. I realized, then, that POV is much more complicated than I'd thought before. <br /><br />I like your lens analogies here. Since I'm a photographer I can relate to that pretty well. I think, in this way, I like to think of POV as a set-up of cameras, each with a zoom lens, maybe some with just a prime (fixed) lens. I think beginning writers, which I consider myself to be on most days, don't realize that they have control over all of those cameras, and that they can use them effectively if they're aware of what they're doing. Which, for a long time, I haven't been.<br /><br />Anyway, thanks for this post. It's a perfect springboard for some posts I'd like to do on POV in the future. It is, indeed, a complex subject I think the three of us can have fun exploring.Michelle D. Argylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09696465137285587646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-14366773490308694342009-12-15T21:00:50.455-08:002009-12-15T21:00:50.455-08:00Wow, that was very informative. I never thought o...Wow, that was very informative. I never thought of POV that way.<br /><br />Thanks Scott.<br /><br />.....dholedolorahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08715849844092553699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-37874208375695030722009-12-15T17:16:00.794-08:002009-12-15T17:16:00.794-08:00I used to hate first person, but when I finally hi...I used to hate first person, but when I finally hit my stride in style and genre, part of my strength was using first person. In my current WIP, as constructed, I have more than one main character, so I've reverted to an intimate third, but I'll be honest, so far I'm not sure I'm satisfied with how it's working out.<br /><br />Oh well. As the line goes, "Sounds like a personal problem to me."C. N. Nevetshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00375714948653196993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-10313355543540295952009-12-15T17:11:37.064-08:002009-12-15T17:11:37.064-08:00Nevets: Perhaps what I mean (this just came to me)...Nevets: Perhaps what I mean (this just came to me) is that from the writer's point of view (sorry), the reader is an impersonal abstract thing, a hypothetical; whereas from the reader's point of view, the writer and the story is very personal and immediate. Possibly, viewing the story as a reader, if we can do that, changes our perspective on it and it's no longer a thing in a book, but an event in our imagination. Maybe that's what I mean. Maybe not. I get these moments all the time when I'm sure I'm on the verge of a creative breakthrough and then it never happens. I call those "nearpiphanies." Maybe I'm just having a nearpiphany about readers being characters in the stories. Anyway, it was fun to push the idea around for a day.<br /><br />First person? Anathema! Never again, I tell you!scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-66945120868196219882009-12-15T16:48:43.424-08:002009-12-15T16:48:43.424-08:00Scott, I won't belabor it since, as you said, ...Scott, I won't belabor it since, as you said, it's ultimately tangential to the main point of the post. One final clarification. I'm not tryng to reify the story, just trying to emphasise the indirectness of the relationship between author and reader.<br /><br />If I may wax metaphysical, the story is essentially the articulation point between the author and an array of readers, each of which experiences the mediated connection in a slightly different way.<br /><br />Okay, no more, I promise. :)<br /><br />As for the POV thing, I'm working through it some right now in my WIP, trying (as someone who writes best in first person) to impliment a shifting, intimate third.C. N. Nevetshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00375714948653196993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-69303593622940244882009-12-15T14:49:28.769-08:002009-12-15T14:49:28.769-08:00Davin: Perhaps what I'm getting at is really c...Davin: Perhaps what I'm getting at is really closer to your "moving the reader around." An awareness of the reader while writing the story does, I think, make the reader a character in the story, just as the writer is always present in the story even if he hides behind some guy named Ishmael or Horatio or whatever. There is an implied "I'm telling you this now, so pay attention," in all storytelling, I think. Anyway, really this is all beside the point and I'm not quite sure what I mean because it's a new idea to me.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-43289098444818010402009-12-15T14:46:27.130-08:002009-12-15T14:46:27.130-08:00C.N.: Hmm. Well, in a way, there is no story, eith...C.N.: Hmm. Well, in a way, there is no story, either. There's really just you and the reader. The story is a sort of abstraction, if you will. But I don't think we're talking about the same thing, and I have a feeling you're being far more literal than I am. I think that the image of story as a solid object like a sculpture is possibly less useful for good storytelling than is the image of story as an interactive space. Every time someone picks up your book, there is a "the reader." No, I haven't quite got it worked out, what I mean by this. The theory is a work in progress. But I maintain that at the end of the day, there really is just you and some reader, possibly a reader you'll never meet, born after you die. Focusing on the story as an object, a <i>thing</i>, seems wrong to me. I admit to some surprise at this metaphysical turn of mind; usually I'm ever so pragmatic and literal. Doesn't matter, though. This post was about point of view, not the separateness of art from the artist and a theory of audiences. So I'll shut up now, shall I?scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-71657309743027156372009-12-15T14:38:12.642-08:002009-12-15T14:38:12.642-08:00Scott and C.N., I think I'm getting caught up ...Scott and C.N., I think I'm getting caught up on this same idea, and I do wonder if it's just semantics. Perhaps the definition of "character" is different in our minds. I tend to lean more towards what C.N. is saying. We move the reader around, but I see that as moving a chair in the audience rather than a character on the stage. But, I'm willing to entertain this reader as character idea because I've never thought of it that way before.Davin Malasarnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09385823575081492949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-63603089822276180112009-12-15T14:34:13.864-08:002009-12-15T14:34:13.864-08:00I'm still digesting the overall notion of shif...I'm still digesting the overall notion of shifting POV's, but I'm not sure I'm liking the notion of the reader as a character in the story.<br /><br />I understand that the reader's experience of the story is ultimately what makes the story matter or not matter, but that experiences happens through the reader's internalization of the characters, plots, and ideas that writer presents. If the reader were already in the story, that wouldn't be necessary.<br /><br />I hope that doesn't sound like I'm playing semantic games. I think it's an important distinction. The reader is not present during the crafting and preparation of the story, because there is no "the reader." There are readers -- individuals who have their own particular experience with the story. Because their experience is an interraction with something the author has created, the author influences that interraction, but not in the same direct way that the author influences characters.<br /><br />While I think that it is important for any storyteller to have a feel for what it's like listening to the story he's telling, I don't think crafting that story alone around the fire means that the listener is present. The listener, like the reader, comes in after the fact and deals with the finished the product.<br /><br />I can't see my way around that.C. N. Nevetshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00375714948653196993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-81400975737802989772009-12-15T14:15:35.222-08:002009-12-15T14:15:35.222-08:00Thanks for the post. I especially like your though...Thanks for the post. I especially like your thoughts on storytelling being primarily a relationsip between teller and audience. Reading or inventing stories for my two-year-old brings me back to that relationship every day. I love it when the storytelling becomes a collaboration between the two of us, and I often think about how to bring that same spirit to my MG novel. <br /><br />Another thought: The thing I love about writing in a limited POV (usually 3rd person for me) is that it forces me to write more clearly. If I can't just skip into someone's head, I have to really work to find a way to express how they're feeling or what they're thinking. I have to search for the perfect way to describe a look or a gesture or the rhythm of speech so that my reader will know that Tom is feeling dejected--not disappointed or upset, but dejected (without ever actually using the word). This lets the reader feel a sense of discovery, a sense of understanding a character who doesn't realize they're being watched. I suppose all this is saying, "show, don't tell." Writing in a limited POV forces a writer to show more, which is always good. All too often, when beginning writers switch point of view, they end up usuing it for exposition, which puts the reader at a distance.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07697071777092163740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-2736982953093819202009-12-15T13:31:51.837-08:002009-12-15T13:31:51.837-08:00Scott, your excerpt in the comments was eely good....Scott, your excerpt in the comments was eely good.<br /><br />I do use third person limited in Fate's Guardian. I choose a focal character for each scene and the narrative follows that individual. <br /><br />In some places I have slight overlaps in action, e.g. showing the start of a fight from one character's POV and then a scene break and I show the end of the fight from the other character's POV.<br /><br />In EARTH'S END I use focal characters in a similar manner for the scenes, but the narrative is more omniscient.Rick Daleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05173516899130463413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-24076098229092805542009-12-15T12:22:48.529-08:002009-12-15T12:22:48.529-08:00C.N.: Thanks for dropping by and giving your views...C.N.: Thanks for dropping by and giving your views!<br /><br />Judith: I love omniscient, because you can do whatever you like in it; you can draw way back and look from a bird's eye view or you can go as intimately into a character as you can in first-person. Although one of my favorite novels is Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" which has a different first-person narrator in each chapter. Orhan Pamuk's mystery "My Name Is Red" does this as well (as do lots of other books). With the omniscient POV, you can do this all you like and aren't limited to chapter breaks if you don't want to be. I think that the mistake a lot of writers make when attempting this is to constantly be very close to their characters and shift abruptly from these close-in POVs.<br /><br />Charlie: Really, I hope there's something useful in this post. Sometimes, you know, I think I'm just beazling and prolixing on about nothing and don't even know it.<br /><br />Rick: You're going with a limited omniscient POV in FATE's GUARDIAN, aren't you?<br /><br />Susiej: I know a lot of agents/editors argue against changes in POV, but I think they're thinking of poorly-done changes (headhopping and POV slips), and warning beginners against trying something possibly difficult. My last novel was in first-person, and I've sworn never to do that again. My current novel is in 3rd-person omniscient, and I'm letting the action of the story and the emotional arc of each scene determine the POV and emotional distances. It seems a much more natural way of telling a story.<br /><br />Davin: Further thoughts: I'm beginning to imagine storytelling as a relationship between author and reader, where the story is an activity rather than an object that the reader sits back and views. Which entails shifting emphasis from plot/action to character/emotion.<br /><br />Simon: Everything Hemingway wrote not explicitly in first-person had shifts in POV, though often those shifts were subtle. It's easy to miss the shadings of emphasis in stories like "Hills Like White Elephants." <br /><br />I don't like the scalpel image; I'll go with smaller and finer paintbrushes, if you don't mind.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-58435616993471502672009-12-15T11:22:34.706-08:002009-12-15T11:22:34.706-08:00Davin: I think that the reader is too often forgot...Davin: I think that the reader is too often forgotten, and that we should try to imagine ourselves telling our story to an actual person. A lot of writers, I think, are aware only of their story, their characters and themselves. They forget about the reader. In my current project, I am trying to keep the reader firmly in mind. Not to cater to some idealized reader's taste, but to work with the emotional distance.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-24010838040498547482009-12-15T11:12:09.180-08:002009-12-15T11:12:09.180-08:00"When you "drill down" from third-p..."When you "drill down" from third-person to first-person like this, you are in effect allowing characters to speak directly to the reader, person-to-person. Which is cool; don't tell me it's not."<br /><br />Okay, I won't. 'Cause it is cool. I do so love elegant POV shifts in 3rd person narration. You know that movie technique used in The Matrix and pretty much every Jerry Bruckheimer film? The one where the camera does these wild, arcing swings out and around the action or a group of characters, taking in a multituded of perspectives in one short scene? I think of well-done head-hopping like that.<br /><br />I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but my classic example of this is in Hemingway's Francis Macomber, where the camera pans through the minds of the white hunter, Macomber, the lion (!), the white hunter, Macomber, and Macomber's wife, all in the space of a couple of pages. It's exhausting, exhilarating, and inspirational. I felt like I had whiplash at the end of that story. I was almost out of breath.<br /><br />As you say, the best of writers wield POV like a scalpel. I'm working with a machete right now, but I hope to work my way up to bowie knife, then eventually santoku paring knife. I'll always keep the scalpel in mind as the ultimate goal, though...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-9790013408022384902009-12-15T11:07:37.988-08:002009-12-15T11:07:37.988-08:00Very interesting post, Scott. I never thought of t...Very interesting post, Scott. I never thought of the reader as a character in the book. It's a new concept that I'll have to meditate on for a bit. <br /><br />The distance of point of view has always interested me because I tend to admire writers who use a variety of distances. In my earlier drafts of Rooster, I was trying to use a closer point of view for one timeline and a more distant, objective point of view for another timeline. But, the more I revised, the more they converged. Now, I think there is still a trace of that difference, but it may come off as looking more like a mistake than a conscious technique because of how close they are. I wrestle with that. <br /><br />And, did you know that in a section of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy writes from the point of view of an eel?Davin Malasarnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09385823575081492949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-28308879809229767882009-12-15T10:18:30.704-08:002009-12-15T10:18:30.704-08:00Thanks for this. Some of my critique group and a f...Thanks for this. Some of my critique group and a few agents/editors I've spoken with encourage one to stay with a single POV as the more common and therefore commercial way, particularly with YA, but as a reader, I get bored of the close first person of many of the books published today. Very few stories are really all about a single person. <br /><br />My own story varies its pov and two young readers have had no problem understanding who is thinking or speaking. Its the adults who keep saying- don't switch your POV in teen books, unless you start a new chapter. But I like beginning a scene with one person and ending it in another's perspective- same situation: different thoughts.sbjameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06986950185596914217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-42744565171673671432009-12-15T09:54:20.081-08:002009-12-15T09:54:20.081-08:00"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Eel,...<i>"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Eel," said Mr. Unagi, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."<br /><br />"Are there no prisons?" asked Eel.<br /><br />"Plenty of prisons," said Unagi, laying down the pen again.<br /><br />"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Eel. "Are they still in operation?"<br /><br />"They are. Still," returned Unagi, "I wish I could say they were not."<br /><br />"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Eel.<br /><br />"Both very busy, sir."<br /><br />"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Eel. "I'm very glad to hear it."<br /></i>scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-86513949355704649862009-12-15T09:35:03.790-08:002009-12-15T09:35:03.790-08:00Great post, you nailed it. But you forgot the eel...Great post, you nailed it. But you forgot the eels.<br /><br />With my first draft of FATE'S GUARDIAN (which is the first novel I attempetd) I was very guilty of head-hopping. The disparity in points of view is part of the core problem that led to a full re-write, rather than just revisions. The difference in readability is like night and day. Same story, but a very different novel...Rick Daleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05173516899130463413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-88615615750464713192009-12-15T09:11:35.976-08:002009-12-15T09:11:35.976-08:00Charlie: It's not really brilliant, it's j...Charlie: It's not really brilliant, it's just written <i>as if it is</i>. This sort of assertive writing style is the only thing I learned at university.<br /><br />Mostly this post boils down to: "Dude, mixing POVs is cool if you do it right."<br /><br />Somebody remind me that at some point I want to write about how experimental and brave SF writers of the 60s and 70s were when it came to structure and style. But first, I must have coffee.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-40581195041776633172009-12-15T08:56:34.878-08:002009-12-15T08:56:34.878-08:00Scott, this was truly a brilliant post. The bigges...Scott, this was truly a brilliant post. The biggest problem with my current WIP concerns POV and where to use which one. Thank you!!!Charlie Ricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02347938747849177632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-59219976048181544632009-12-15T08:43:20.002-08:002009-12-15T08:43:20.002-08:00Great post. Over the years, I have forced myself ...Great post. Over the years, I have forced myself to experiment with alternative points of view in telling a story, whether in novel or short story form. That was a good learning experience, but in the end what feels most comfortable for me after many novels and stories is to alternate third person POV by changing the chapter. That is, the s/he telling the story is singularly consistent within the chapter. In the next chapter, another of the characters will tell the story from his/her POV, even if within the same scene. What has felt least comfortable has been the omniscient, which feels distancing to me. What I don’t do is decide ahead of time what the POV will be. Once I set up the characters and the situation needing resolution, the correct POV seems to emerge naturally. At least for a while in the first draft, I let that happen and only later determine if it is optimal for the project.Judith Mercadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13739476600999112092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092805684169371138.post-28531458849694407392009-12-15T08:30:11.651-08:002009-12-15T08:30:11.651-08:00Great post, and timely for me since I'm having...Great post, and timely for me since I'm having a minor POV struggle with my WIP.<br /><br />I appreciate the perspective.<br /><br />No pun intended.<br /><br />Mostly.C. N. Nevetshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00375714948653196993noreply@blogger.com