More on Point of View

In Laraine Herring's breath-taking book on writing, Writing Begins with the Breath, she begins the chapter, "Point of View," with the following quote:

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." --Schopenhauer

It's a worthwhile quote to consider when thinking about point of view because of the way it sums up both the problem and the solution to selecting an appropriate point of view for your story.

Point of view is, after all, just another way of describing what a character sees in the world, isn't it?

By "seeing," I mean how a character responds to the world emotionally. Not just what a character might see with his eyes, but what he might feel or taste or smell.

These responses to the world serve as entry-points into a character's way of being in the world.

But point of view, as Schopenhauer suggests, presents a limited view of the world.

One person's view... one person's way of being... not another's.

My view, for example, which is different than your view. Or your view, which is different from the view of the person sitting next to you, reading over your shoulder.

It's why using multiple points of view to tell a story can prove compelling.

Each point of view provides the reader with a new view of the world, a different way of looking at and perceiving the world, enlarging our understanding of the world and of the differences between characters.

As Herring reminds us: "In creative writing, point of view means the vantage point (character and distance or who and where) from which the work is being viewed."

Here's what she says about using third-person point of view:

In the third-person choice, you get to play with one of our most prized tools: distance--both emotional distance and distance of time and space--and there are varying distances you can use. You can be perched on a telephone pole three miles from your main character or you can be right behind your character's eyes. These distances are reflected in the range from third-person limited (staying with one character's perceptions and thoughts) to the godlike, third-person omniscient (all knowing) choice of the epics.

The thing to remember is this: "Distance determines scope and intimacy."

And remember, too, that point of view doesn't always reveal itself immediately.

As Herring discovered in her own work:

When I began Bone Dance it was not only in third-person omniscient, but all my characters had different names than the ones they ended up with. Ultimately, the novel is told in multiple first-person voices with a third-person objective voice interjecting in short chapters within the narrative. I had to admit, after thousands of words, that third-person omniscient wasn't giving me what I needed for the story. The story, as I grew to understand it, showed me which point of view was necessary to tell it. I had to trust the story, and I had to let go of my original idea.

The chapter is filled with wisdom gained from her own writing that will help you determine the appropriate point of view for your story.

And throughout the book her insights into the writing process will take your breath away and help you dive ever deeper into your stories.

For more information about Writing Begins with the Breath, visit:
http://www.laraineherring.com/breath.html

And for more info about Laraine Herring, take a look at her website:
http://www.laraineherring.com/

For more on selecting a point of view for your story, visit:
http://www.thecraftywriter.com/2007/10/10/writing-from-a-point-of-view/
http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/a/pointofview.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/firstperson

Side-Stroke or Crawl?

How do you decide which stroke to use when swimming through your story?

If you choose the crawl, you'll face forward as you swim, viewing the water in front of you as you forge ahead, with intermittent glimpses to the right and left, depending on how often you come up for air.

The side-stroke, on the other hand, will offer a wider, mostly one-sided perspective of the pool (or wherever you happen to be swimming), and you'll find yourself cruising through the water at a slower, more leisurely pace.

Which stroke–or point-of-view–is right for your story? How do you decide?

For a fine example of the challenges of using different points of view, you might study An Na’s emotionally evocative YA novel, Wait For Me, in which Na switches from one point-of-view to another as the story unfolds, offering readers two very different perspectives of the same story.

Indeed, Na's decision to tell this story through two alternating voices–Mina’s first-person account of events as they unfold and Suna’s third-person report–allows her to gradually reveal the deeply emotional links these two sister’s share in the face of an over-bearing mother whose thwarted dreams threaten to drown out the girls’ own dreams.

If readers aren’t entirely sure at first why the mother behaves so badly toward her daughters, it soon becomes clear. Mina, the product of a love affair gone awry years ago, is the mother’s favorite, a girl for whom the mother has sacrificed her own life so that she might succeed. Suna, the younger daughter, has a hearing impairment and must confront her mother’s disdain for her as the product of a loveless relationship with Apa, the man who, like the girls, doesn’t have the strength of will or courage to face his wife.

Two separate narratives–Mina’s in first person, Suna’s in third person–entwine the voices of each character just as their lives are entwined, each point of view showing us how it must feel to be that particular character. Mina’s first person voice reveals her visibility and vulnerability as the oldest daughter and sister. Suna’s third person voice reveals her near-invisibility as the youngest daughter, yet still allows her to express how it feels to be seen by her mother as an object of disdain rather than as a beloved daughter.

Within each of these parallel narratives Na builds the tension until it becomes clear something must change in this pressure-cooker family as the mother’s demands become more unreasonable to Mina, and as the mother increasingly ignores Suna while, simultaneously, becoming more and more angry at her (for her disability, perhaps, or for the failure that Suna symbolizes in her own life).

Readers can feel the tension rising and falling in the words that Na uses to tell each girl’s story, such as in this scene after the mother has thrown a bowl of scalding stew at Suna in a fit of anger. Na manages to craft this scene as dream-like so that Suna 's ambiguous feelings toward her mother are fully explored:

Uhmma’s face, as though appearing from a dream, steps into the room, a white washcloth in her hand. She steps quickly, quietly across the room and comes to sit on Suna’s bed. Uhmma brings her finger to her lips and then points to Mina sleeping. Suna nods. Uhmma gently places the cool wet washcloth on Suna’s burn, patting it in place with the palm of her hand. The dark puffy skin around Uhmma’s eyes makes her look tired. Old.

Before Suna can reach for her, Uhmma is gone. Across the room, quietly closing the door behind her. And when Suna blinks, she believes for a moment that it must have been a dream. A ghost. Except for the cool weight of the washcloth on her chest. Suna falls asleep holding the cloth as though it were her heart.

Such an image to end the passage! Suna falls asleep holding the cloth as though it were her heart, drawing the reader deep into her experience of longing for a mother’s love... but feeling, not a real heart, only the weight of a wet washcloth on her chest.

With the arrival of Ysrael, a young man hired by their parents to help their father in the dry cleaning shop, the lives of the girls begin to change.

Before Ysrael ‘s arrival, Mina’s heart is deeply weighed down with guilt over stealing receipts from the register drawer of her parent’s dry cleaning shop (so that one day she might have enough money to set out on her own) and from lying to her mother about what she wants in life.

But her feelings for Ysrael force Mina to confront the lies that she's told her mother--that she plans on going to Harvard; that she's studying for the SAT’s to get the best score possible; that she's asking help from Jonathan, the son of her mother’s friend, who is going to Stanford and who Mina has--through her inaction--led to believe she might feel affection for, even though she feels nothing but disdain for him and the advances that he makes toward her.

Look at this scene in which Mina finds herself confronting the truth of her emotions toward Ysrael:

His hands slipped through my hair, behind my neck, cradling me against him. I closed my eyes and let myself fall forward. This was my world. I stood up on my tiptoes and ran my hands through his hair. Touched my cheek to his cheek. Glanced my lips across his forehead. This was my world. I pressed my lips to his and tasted the sweet gentleness of his tongue. A weakness stilled my heart. He was my world.

But it requires a huge effort on Mina’s part to leave the world of her mother and sister and actually take the steps necessary to make the words “He was my world” come true.

In fact, one of the astonishing things about this novel is the masterful way that Na holds back the action until the last possible moment, keeping the reader “waiting” for Mina to act, just as Mina must “wait” for her life to emerge from the shadow of her mother’s hopes and dreams.

By holding back the action, Na manages to construct a novel around a character who is frozen with guilt... to such a degree that she cannot make a decision about how to live her own life. She is unable to act until her emotions reach a tipping point ... which comes when her love and desire for Ysrael and her growing desire for a life of truth outweigh the lies that she feels she must tell her mother.

It’s to Na’s credit...and her amazing talent as a writer... that she draws readers deeply into Mina’s world despite this lack of action. Na probes beneath the surface, using these alternating points of view between the sisters to let readers experience the emotional and psychological struggle that both sisters must undergo in order to find their own lives, their own voices.

After Ysrael arrives, Mina can no longer deceive herself. As she finds herself falling in love with him, everything about her life–the lies, the ongoing deceitfulness, the thefts–appears false, a fraud, because she cannot stand up for herself... or choose how she wants to live her life.

But it’s not easy for Mina to go off with Ysrael once he decides to head to San Francisco and music school.

“Then stay,” I begged. “Why do you have to go?”
He shook his head slowly. “I can’t. I have to do this for me. I want to learn how to really write songs and play music.”
I nodded. I wanted that for him as well. Ysrael pulled me close. I sank back against him. We stayed that way without speaking. I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to his heartbeats. The slow start, stop rhythm. Forever beginning. Forever ending. His life. My life. Heartbeat. Heart.

This discovery of her own heartbeat, through Ysrael’s pulse, brings Mina to life, giving her the courage to make the decision to do what she must to live her own life.

Torn in the end between her love for Ysrael and her love for her sister, Mina finds the courage to perform a selfless act that takes into account her sister’s life as well as her own, remaining at home with her sister until Suna, too, can emerge from the shadow of their overbearing mother. But she will stay in touch with Ysrael, too.

It’s an ending that shows the reader how tightly bound the sisters are to one another ... while also revealing the depth of Mina’s love for Ysrael... and reinforcing the poignant multiple meanings of the book’s title.

Side-stroke or crawl? Which perspective best serves your story? Take a look at An Na’s Wait for Me to better understand the challenges of crafting a story with more than one point-of-view.

For more information about An Na and her work, visit her website at: http://www.anwriting.com/index.html

For more information on point-of-view, take a look at these links:

http://www.toasted-cheese.com/ab/02-07.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module20p
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/viewpoint.html

Also, you might enjoy an interview that Cynthia Leitich Smith conducted recently with Barry Lyga, who discusses the challenges of writing his first novel, Fan Boy and Goth Girl, from the first-person point-of-view of a fifteen-year-old boy:

http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2007/03/author-interview-barry-lyga-on.html

Multiple Points of View

Isn't it strange how two people can gaze out to sea and, depending on their positions on land, observe different things?

From a certain spot along the coast one may notice the lights of a ship sailing toward the horizon. But from further down the shore, the other person may view a school of dolphins... or the waterspout of a whale... or a lighthouse's beam sweeping across the surface of the water.

If you place five observers along a beach and ask each one to record what they see, you'll find yourself with five very different accounts, each contributing in some way to your understanding of what it means to be at the beach on that day.

Multiple points of view work the same way in our stories.

While some critics claim employing multiple points of view sacrifices depth of characterization for breath of view, many writers find multiple points of view a compelling tool because such a narrative approach most accurately reflects the many-sided nature of reality.

How do you decide on telling a story from multiple points of view?

And how many points-of-view are enough... or too many?

With one point of view, you can pretend--and ask the reader to pretend--that the portrait painted within the pages of your story is an accurate reflection of reality... or skewed in a manner that raises questions about the narrator's truthfulness or reliability.

Either way--whether the narrator is trustworthy or unreliable--as soon as you add a second point of view, you raise the stakes in the reader's mind, and ask her to question the version of reality that each point of view represents.

No longer is there merely one view of the world. Now there are two views, and each one lays certain claims on the reader's trust, while, at the same time, calling into question the credibility of the second point of view.

A story told from two different points of view intensifies the potential for conflict in the reader's mind.

Two different points of view not only raise the question of which view is truthful, but which view is more accurate. (Since each of us views the world through our own idiosyncratic lenses, perhaps there is no such thing as accuracy, merely personal interpretations?)

Telling a story from more than two points of view raises even deeper questions about the nature of truth and reality. That's because the picture presented by multiple voices is broken into so many fragmented views. The reader is given a multi-faceted vision of the world...with different "truths" ... or a single "truth"...to select as the most faithful account.

It comes down, I think, to a question of trust. Which voice or view-point can the reader trust? And which view-point is problematic... raising doubts about the version of reality that the narrator presents?

Multiple points of view is a very difficult tool to use... a technique that requires a master craftsman to pull off successfully (as Virginia Euwer Wolff did in Bat 6 with more than a dozen different view points). But when it succeeds, the technique suggests an orchestra, with each instrument contributing its own voice to the total sound of the musical composition.

How do you decide on which point of view to adopt for your story?

Much of that, I think, comes down to your own characters... and how you hear them speaking to you about the story.

Do you hear a single voice... overwhelmingly clear and open... sharing his or her version of the story with you? Is there any doubt in your mind that this voice is the one voice needed to tell the story?

Or do you hear more than one voice... each voice offering a different perspective of the story, or perhaps contadictory information about what actually happened? In that case, you might try working with both voices in alternating sequence to determine if one seems stronger and more compelling. Perhaps you'll need both voices to tell the story... or perhaps only one.

Multiple points of view can help a writer probe the nature of reality in unique and challenging ways, and can serve as an excellent tool for replicating a sense of the fragmented reality that we find in our own lives.

What is gained from such a perspective is, of course, a wider angle into the world of the characters, and a chance to explore corners of the world that are often hidden in a story told from a single point of view.

But what may be lost is the depth of focus that comes from presenting the story through the viewpoint of one character.

It's a question of balance, and how you relate to your characters, and how they relate to you.

For more information on multiple points of view, take a look at the following resources:

For a list of some books using multiple view points: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flbklists/view.html

For Sci-fi and fantasy author Tara K. Harper's exploration of multiple points of view: http://www.tarakharper.com/k_pov.htm

For the risks of head-hopping vs. multiple points of view: http://www.romantictimes.com/resources_research.php?article=153

For seeing through your characters' eyes: http://www.gillianroberts.com/lesson06.html

For a screenwriter's observations on point-of-view: http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp41.Point.of.View.html

And for an interview with Virginia Euwer Wolff: http://www.hbook.com/publications/magazine/articles/may01_wolff_sutton.asp