The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: point of view

  • First-person, Past Tense: Playing to My Strengths

    I am a slave to first-person point of view.

    As I’ve said before, whenever I write a story, I want to connect with the reader. I like the storyteller approach, and I want the audience to feel like I’m talking directly to them, or at least give the illusion that my main character is.

    For me, first-person point of view is the ideal vehicle to accomplish this. First-person is a “warmer” viewpoint than third-person in that it provides direct access to a character’s thoughts and feelings. It makes it easier to sympathize with a protagonist if a reader is experiencing his or her trials and tribulations in real time. (As much as reader time is real time.)

    I can, and have, written in third-person, but when I do, I am very aware of an increased distance between myself and the story. I’m not as in tune with my characters, and the feelings and reactions I write in third-person never seem quite as authentic as they do when I’m tooling around in a first-person protagonist’s head.

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  • Perplexing the Perspective

    When I’m reading books, I recognize the importance that point of view can have on the story. Having something written in first person creates an automatic connection with the reader, while a story in third person allows the reader to leap from one head to another. Multiple character viewpoints can be used to create a broader look at the world, allowing the reader to put together their own theories based on what they know about the beliefs of the characters.

    While I recognize the importance that point of view can have in the telling of a story, it rarely factors into my decision about what perspective to write from. Sometimes I just feel like a story needs to be written from a certain point of view, but generally it’s not even that sophisticated a reasoning. (more…)

  • Letting It Flow Naturally

    As with most things, I don’t think a lot about the mechanics of my writing — I just sort of put words down and figure out how it works later. This has lead me to abandon projects because holy shit, it needs wa~y too much mechanic work.

    By default for many many moons I wrote in what I sort of think of as the standard point-of-view: third person past tense. (I know there’s more than one type of third person, but go ask one of the English majors if you want more of that nonsense.) It came naturally, and I ran with it.

    Eventually, that changed.
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  • What is your preferred point of view?

    I’ve always had a problem with separating my characters from myself when I’m writing fiction, and so more of my main characters have been female than male and the POV third-person limited. Makes the POV less connected to me that way.

    Nevertheless, I did experiment with writing one novel in first person from a male’s POV, and after some slips at the beginning, the novel took off on its own, and I finished it successfully.

    The latest trend is for YA authors to use present tense (a few even use second, at least in a few separated spots), but present tense just doesn’t fit my style.

  • Establishing Trust

    In technical writing, there is really only one useful point of view, that of Godlike Omniscience. The tech writer’s challenge is to present information that can be complicated, confusing, incomplete, and flat-out tedious to the reader in a way that supports decision making. Furthermore, the information has to be structured in a way that makes sense the first time it is read, but also allows the reader to go back and easily reference key points.

    You can’t achieve a level of trust with your reader unless you speak with a voice of authority. This is no time to play games for the sake of artistry. Simple, direct, I-know-what-I’m-talking-about language is what is needed.

  • Come to Your Own Conclusions

    I don’t like being told how to feel, and I don’t want to tell a reader how to feel. When I’m reading a piece of fiction and I feel like the author was trying to force a specific feeling on me, I get mad. I generally stop reading. I realize this is somewhat immature, because aren’t most stories built with the idea that they’re going to make me feel something?

    When I write, I write in third person. First-person works best, I think, when the reader is meant to relate to the word through one character. I recently read The Hunger Games trilogy, which is in first person. As the readers, we’re obviously supposed to feel the world through Katniss’ experience of it — we’re supposed to relate to the cruelty and kindness of other characters as she feels those things. It’s not wrong. Obviously, it works pretty well for Collins.

    But in the same way that I don’t want to tell the reader how a character looks — because it rarely has any bearing on the story what a character looks like — I don’t want to tell a reader how to feel about any character or institution in the story. Where I find a character to be a flat villain, another reader might see that character as a tragedy. I don’t want to force the reader to feel the same way about a character that I do. Maybe it means I’m doing it wrong.

    For my writing, third person is the most effective way to share a story without getting too wrapped up in a single character’s thoughts and feelings.

    (And much like with Highlander II, I shove my fingers in my ears and refuse to acknowledge that second person exists. Absolutely refuse.)

  • It’s All a Matter of Perspective

    Let me assure you that, despite being stuffed and mounted, this buffalo is very much alive and performing at Walt Disney World. Photo from http://disneyatdisleelandiablog.blogspot.com/2011/04/country-bear-jumble.html

    When it comes to point of view in a story, you don’t have a lot of choices.

    You can go first person — “I ran naked through poison ivy and got a rash on my butt.”

    Second person, engaging the reader directly — “You opened the door, shrieked when you saw the dead buffalo bleeding on the carpet, and dialed 911.”

    Or third person — “He wept when he discovered there was no more cheese in the house, for cheese was now illegal in the state of Alabama.”

    There are variations, of course, mostly a little weird. I once wrote a short story in first person plural.  I did it because I had an assignment in a writing class to write in a PoV I’d never tried before. It was sort of a hive-mind kind of thing, effective in this one instance, but not something that should be done often. Really, first, second, and third person are your big choices.

    So, what’s my favorite? That’s today’s question, right?

    I don’t play favorites. When I start writing a story, I choose what I think is going to be best for it.

    Sometimes, mistakes are made. (more…)

  • Shutting Out the Voices With a Single Point of View

    When we talk about the events of our lives, we often switch tenses without thinking about it. We easily transition from the present to talking about the past. But we rarely shift point of view, because our lives are from our own point of view and no one else’s.

    View Point
    Sometimes a single point of view offers more clarity.

    But art, unlike real life, affords us the opportunity to write from different points of view. As writer gods, we can peek into the minds of multiple characters and see what everyone is thinking at a given time. It’s an omniscient power that some writers embrace.

    Writing from multiple points of view allows the author the freedom to do almost anything in a narrative.  For one thing, a story can have multiple stories in multiple places. Think, Game of Thrones, for instance.

    I used to be a writer god, creating worlds filled with characters — each with a story to tell. The result was the most boring, bloated crap anyone would never want to read. My first manuscript was like Stephen King’s The Stand, but with multiple characters and storylines that all converged — in Kansas. And it had a religious message. And it was bad. Really bad.

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  • Love Me! Confessions of an Attention Whore

    I have two sons. One is a quiet, reserved kid, but the other … not so much. My younger boy needs an audience. He craves affirmation the way some people crave ice cream, and he will go to great lengths to get it. (The attention, not the ice cream. Though he’s a fan of that as well.)

    I’d be lying if I said it didn’t drive me batty sometimes. This is a kid who will go through multiple iterations of the same routine just to get a reaction out of you, and if your response isn’t quite what he’s looking for, there’s a good chance he’ll cry.

    In case you’re wondering what exactly it is the 5-year-old is crying about, allow me to quote him directly.

    “Because you didn’t think I was funny.”

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  • All the POVs in the world, and you had to walk in to mine.

    “It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.” – Carl Jung

    Point of view is a great tool for spicing up writing. A plot might be a totally different story from a different perspective. The classics are third and first person.

    My preference is for a first-person or third-person limited point of view. I’ve never been a fan of omniscient narrators. They don’t connect well to normal life. I stick close to a specific character and let the audience learn what drives him. Other characters are more interesting when viewed through the eyes of someone with their own prejudices.

    A limited perspective allows the reader to learn with the character. When the protagonist says “Aha!,” the reader says it, as well. When a character is hurt by his failures, hopefully the reader understands. (more…)