Point Of View

What point of view to adopt has always been a significant hurdle for me, when beginning to draft a story. I used to charge full speed ahead, only to grind to a stop and decide that a different Point of View might be better suited.

Now I spend some time considering who is the best person to be telling the story before I get started. Can the story be properly told by the protagonist, or will it require a narrator? Will a third-person limited approach work or is omniscient is the best approach to allow greater latitude and a God-like knowledge of the characters and events?

In “I Hate You”, a very short story about a young boy of four who decides to run away from home, it was important for me that the reader be allowed inside the head of the child. A first person approach provided the intimacy but problems arose when I realized I was ascribing mature words to the thoughts of a kid. Four year olds don’t think “she infuriates me!” so the challenge was to stick with first person but accurately convey the emotions of the mind I was trying to portray.

I could have switched to second person and told the story from the mother’s pov, as if she were retelling the event to a now grown Son, - You glared up at me, defiant for the first time - but I felt that would reduce the impact of the tale and the overwhelming sense of unfairness the boy feels. Besides, it would have given the story a sentimental, nostalgic feel, rather than the immediate, inexpressible anger and frustration of a child that I wanted to convey.

“Birth Marked” my first novel (a work that I will return to at some point and try to polish into a marketable tale), studied the possibilities of murder, untimely death, redemption and reincarnation. The main protagonist, Nelson, is a man faced with the choice of joining his daughter in heaven or seeking out his soul mate through reincarnation. He interacts with two other key figures – the hit and run driver who took his daughter’s life, and a dying man with ‘perfect understanding’ who explains his choices.

Telling this story in first person wouldn’t have allowed me to develop the characters of the hit and run driver or the dying man – both of which are key aspects of the story. How could Nelson narrate the events of two other individuals’ lives? Events that he was not part of and has no way of knowing? First person was therefore rejected.

A third-person limited approach would allow the narration to jump from one character to another – provided that the switch is always made very clear to the reader! In third person limited, narration describes the events impacting the chosen pov character. This allowed me to tell the story from Nelson’s point of view in one chapter and then in a subsequent chapter, jumps across the Atlantic to the hospital bed of the dying man and narrate part of the story from his perspective.

This was a better option than first person, but caused problems when the characters finally interacted with one another. The question arose: which character would be the focus when two or more were together? I could have opted for Nelson in every instance, but I feared it may become complicated, confusing and possibly too limiting, so I opted for third person omniscient. I don’t know if it was the right choice because the story is still rough as a robber’s dog, but when I finally get back to it, I think I’ll try to stick with that approach.

“Mirror Man” on the other hand is third person limited – everything is experienced from Valentine’s perspective and therefore Valentine is present in every scene. No other narrator intrudes into the story or offer opinions – it’s Valentine’s story from start to finish and I found it came very easy. It helps of course that Valentine has the ability to read the minds of others – a mechanism I employ when the limited perspective requires broadening.

I don’t think I have an affinity for any particular POV at the moment, either in writing or reading. The main thing to remember is, what ever point of view is chosen, it’s always critical that the narrator tells the story, not the author.