Category Archives: Point of View

Select Your POV Character in 6 (or 7) Steps

You’re planning to write a story, but you don’t know whose point of view (POV) to tell it in. Author K.M. Weiland wrote a wonderful post on the subject, and I suggest you start there. I’ll wait here while you read that. The rest of my post supplements hers.

Credit to www.perchance.org for the images

List the Contenders

Weiland’s 6-step process starts with identifying the contenders. You could choose any character in your story, or even select an omniscient, god-like POV.

Winnow Down the List

Next, Weiland suggests you think about which contenders matter least to the story’s drama. For example, a servant or guard who rarely speaks and whom you’ve only included for authenticity—a ‘spear carrier’ in literary lingo—makes a less useful POV character.

Rate the Stakes

In the next step, you consider each character’s stakes. What do they lose if they don’t get what they want? You’ll get more dramatic impact from characters with the most to lose.

What Type of Narration?

Choose from among first person (I/me), second person (you), third person (she/he), and omniscient (god-like). I’ve written about these before.

Pitch Your Tense

Most writers chose past or present. In past tense, she ran, she sat, she said. In present tense, she runs, she sits, she says. More stories use past tense, but you may choose either one.

Final Auditions

After going through the above steps, you might still face a choice between more than one possible POV character. Weiland suggests you write a few paragraphs of the story in each of the remaining contenders’ POVs. They don’t know it, but they’re auditioning for the POV role. Choose the one with the most interesting voice, the one who tells your story best.

One More Consideration

The post by K.M. Weiland addresses all the above points better than I have, but I’ll add another thought. Nothing limits you to one POV for an entire story (though in flash fiction, you should restrict yourself to one).

You might choose a different POV for each chapter, or even each scene. As you do so, use the same six-step process mentioned above in selecting the appropriate character.

Also, make transitions between POV characters clear to the reader. In the first sentence of a section with a new POV character, include a thought, or a feeling, or both, from that character. That alerts the reader about the POV shift.

Of course, throughout the literary world, experts agree the very best point of view is that of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 27, 2024Permalink Leave a comment

Deep or Immersive POV

You may have read my previous posts about Point of View (POV) here and here where I listed several types of POV. Now there’s a new kid in town.

Known as Deep POV or Immersive POV, it forms a sub-category under close 3rd person POV. To refresh memories, an author writing in 3rd person refers to a character by name or a ‘him/her’ type of pronoun, not as ‘I’ or ‘you.’ In close 3rd person POV, the author shows the story’s world through one character’s eyes.

Deep POV shares these features, but goes, well, deeper. It attempts to convey the character’s overall experience, not just through the five senses alone, but also thoughts, feelings, insights, memories, and intuitions.

In normal 3rd person POV, I might write, “The reader read the blogpost entry written by Poseidon’s Scribe.” In Deep POV, I might write, “The blogpost’s words, so enlightening and educational, not only mesmerized but also evoked recollections of the best prose ever read. The reader recalled a third-grade teacher who spoke with equal clarity, from whom the reader gained, not just a passing grasp of the subject, but a profound understanding.”

Being so far within a character, so ‘one’ with a character and relating every impression, runs the risk of boring the audience. Therefore, the writer must select only the vital details. These details can serve as metaphors, as symbols, enhancing reader comprehension and appreciation.  

Think of Deep POV as a technique, not an end goal. Your choice of this method should serve the story. Telling the reader a good story—maximizing the reading experience—remains your prime goal.

For a better understanding of Deep, or Immersive, POV, read two posts by author and literary agent Donald Maass here and here, as well as this post by creative wellness coach Kristen Keiffer. She provides instructions about how you can write in Deep POV.

You may now emerge back into your normal world after your trip far inside the mind of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 12, 2023Permalink

Filtering Out Filter Words

Today I’ll add another set of things you should look for as you edit your writing—filter words.

What are filter words? Sometimes called ‘distancing words,’ filter words (or phrases) describe how your point-of-view character perceives and understands the world.

Suppose I wrote this:

Not bad use of senses, but this paragraph tells the reader how Cheryl perceives the world. It reminds the reader who the POV character is.

But what if I’ve already established that earlier? What if the reader knows we’re in Cheryl’s POV and doesn’t need reminding? In that case, the filter words just get in the way. The world’s out there. Plunge your reader into it, right beside Cheryl.

Stronger, bolder writing, it immerses the reader into Cheryl’s world without unnecessary signs stating we’re in Cheryl’s head.

Sure, there are times when filter words are appropriate. Often it’s necessary to inform the reader whose head we’re in, such as the point just after a POV shift. On occasion, the whole point of a given written sensation is to be clear about who’d experiencing it. Sometimes it just fits better to use a filter word. Like most things in writing, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.

You can read more about filter words at this post by Suzannah Windsor Freeman, this one by H. Duke, this one by editor Louise Harnby, this one by the staff at Invisible Ink Editing, and in the book The Author’s Checklist by Elizabeth K. Kracht.

For now, please excuse me. I’ve got to go hunt down and delete a bunch of filter words from the rough drafts of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 25, 2021Permalink

Avoid the Dreaded POV Wobble

What’s a POV Wobble? Why should you dread it? What happens if you encounter it? How can you avoid it?

POV WobbleFour vital and weighty questions. An average blogger would shrink from the challenge of answering them all in one short post. But you’ve surfed to no ordinary website. I laugh at such challenges, or at least chuckle in a menacing way.

I’ll assume you understand Point of View (POV) already, perhaps by having read this, or some lesser source. The phenomenon of POV Wobble is when the writer shifts to a different character’s POV without a break in the narration. Here’s a blatant example:

Jetta stared at Cliff over the breakfast table and wondered if he was still happy with their marriage. Cliff thought she must have forgotten he preferred grape juice over orange juice.

That’s not so much a POV wobble as a POV fall flat on your face. We shifted right from Jetta’s mind to Cliff’s mind in the same paragraph. Here’s another example:

Jetta looked up toward the window as she heard a loud, warbling sound from outside.   Neither she nor Cliff could have known an alien spaceship had landed in their back yard, nor understood then the consequences for the human race.

Not only did we leap from just Jetta’s mind to encompass both hers and Cliff’s, but that’s very poor foreshadowing, too. Here’s more:

Her heart pounded. Jetta heard the creak of the outside stairs and sensed the grip of the alien’s hand on the kitchen doorknob.

Sure, she knows when her heart is pounding, and she can hear noises. But she can’t sense anyone else’s hand on a doorknob. Another example:

Jetta and Cliff edged their way to the kitchen’s far side, afraid of making any noise. Flat against the wall, Jetta stood with her hand to her mouth, ready to scream, appearing as if posed for a horror movie role.

Here, the first sentence states they’re both afraid, but we shouldn’t know about Cliff’s fear since we’re not in his POV. In the second sentence, we’re seeing Jetta from the outside, posing, which she couldn’t see unless by reflection in a mirrored surface.

The trouble with POV wobbles is, they mark a shift from third-person limited to third-person omniscient. In other words, you’ve gotten the reader comfortable with being in one character’s head, and then suddenly you lift the veil and reveal stuff that character can’t know. You bounce the reader (maybe only briefly and with subtlety) into another character’s head.

It’s possible some readers won’t notice, or will notice but remain unbothered. Why take the chance? First of all, an editor may catch it and that POV wobble might be enough to get your story rejected before a paying reader even sees it.

You’re thinking, “This seems pretty basic stuff. The POV wobble thing will be easy to avoid. I’ll never fall in that trap.”

Good luck. POV wobble is a sneaky problem. As an author, your aim is to tell a story, to provide maximum emotional response in the reader. It’s too easy, as you’re writing along, with your godlike knowledge of the plot and all characters, to forget (even for a moment) that you’re conveying the story—or at least the chapter—from the limited POV of one character alone.

Someday you’ll want the reader to know something the POV character can’t know. Or you’ll need to describe something the POV character can’t sense.

Avoid POV wobble by (1) choosing your POV character wisely, (2) concentrating on staying in that character’s head. Really put yourself in that character’s mind, and (3) making it obvious as soon as you shift to a new character’s POV, at the beginning of a chapter or after a section break.

You’ll find more great info about the POV wobble phenomenon here, here, and here. That’s it, from a blogger who will never go wobbly on you—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 27, 2014Permalink

Who’s Telling This Story, Anyway?

As you plan your fiction stories, one important consideration is figuring out how they will be told. In other words, who is the narrator? You have several choices, each with benefits and drawbacks.

Narrative VoiceI’ve discussed Point of View (POV) before, but this is slightly different. Today I’m talking about Narrative Voice. Wikipedia’s article on Narrative Mode discusses POV and Narrative Voice as separate items.

You might invent your own new type of Narrative Voice, but for now, the main categories are Stream-of-Consciousness, Character Voice, Epistolary, and various Third Person voices.

  • Stream of Consciousness. You’re in my mind as I tell this, getting every little thought. Some connected, some not (doesn’t matter), even partial. What I’m conveying is the scattered, haphazard/fleeting nature of a human mind’s thoughts as they carom-collide-cascade around inside a skull. The advantage (good news!) is getting that intense/inside/intimate sense of one person’s—a character, or outside narrator (you choose)—perspective on the story’s events. A downside-disadvantage-drawback-(damn!) is that it can be hard to write, hard to read, hard, hard, hard to pull off well.
  • Character Voice.  Yeah, I’m a character, but the author’s makin’ me do double duty by also tellin’ the story. You readers’ll see things through my eyes, and I’ll let you know exactly what I think about everyone else. I’m a main character, but the author coulda picked one of them spear carriers. My author also picked first person, but he mighta picked third person instead. By the way, you can trust me. But some o’ these other character voice narrators in other stories? They lie. They’re what you call ‘unreliable voice narrators’ and you gotta sort out the truth yourself. Another type you might come across is the ‘naive narrator.’ Sometimes ya get these kids tellin’ the story, or worse is, some adult whose cheese ain’t sittin’ square on top of his cracker, if you know what I mean. With Character Voice, you’re gonna feel like you’re right with me, part of the action. Still, even I can’t really be everywhere and see everything, so pick your narrator character carefully.
  •  Epistolary Voice.  Epistolary
  • Third-Person Subjective. Jane knew her author was using her to tell his story, and she secretly resented it. All the story’s actions got to the reader through her eyes and other senses. Worse, the author was just telling the reader many of her innermost thoughts. In her story’s case, the author used Third Person Subjective – Limited in that he never strayed from Jane’s mind. She wished he had chosen Third Person Subjective – Omniscient instead, and told the story by switching into other characters’ minds every so often. It certainly didn’t help matters that this was known as the most popular and currently most common type of narration.
  • Third Person Objective. James saw what his author was doing. He was narrating the story by describing what James sensed, but only what James sensed. No feelings or thoughts were involved at all. James drove past a sign that said this method maintained a neutral, unbiased narrative, similar to the style used by news reporters.   James said, “This technique helps the reader appreciate how reliable the narrator is, but some readers may miss the inner emotions.”
  • Third Person Omniscient. As the sun rose, no one in the tiny town suspected their story was being told by an omniscient narrator. The narrator knew everything about everyone, including each person’s secret desires, hopes, and wishes. Alone in her ranch style home, Jane suspected that this once-popular technique would work well for epic stories with many characters and widely-dispersed action. But as James drove by Jane’s house, he wondered if the technique could be disorienting to readers, or introduce too much distance between story and reader.

There you have the various types of narrative voice. For your story, make your choice based on your experience with each technique, as well as what’s best for the story. For this blog post, your narrator has, of course, been—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 20, 2014Permalink

Giving and Receiving…Critiques

‘Tis the season for giving and receiving, so I thought I’d discuss critiques of fiction manuscripts.  Last time I did so, I said I’d let you know how to give and receive critiques.  My critique group meeting 2experience is based solely on twenty years of being in small, amateur, face-to-face critique groups; not writing workshops, classes, or online critique groups; so the following advice is tuned to that sort of critique.

First of all, to give the critique, keep the following points in mind:

  • Read the submitted manuscript straight through once, and just note where you were “thrown out of the story” for some reason.  Jot down why and come back to those points later.
  • Re-read the manuscript again. You could mark some of the grammar or spelling problems, but don’t concentrate on those.  The author wants you to find the bigger stuff.
  • Where there are stand-out positives (“Eyeball kicks” in TCL parlance) note those and praise the author.  The word critique should not have solely negative connotations.  A positive comment from you could keep the author from later deleting a really good description, metaphor, or turn of phrase.
  • Be clear and specific in the comments you write; avoid ambiguity.
  • Look for the following story elements and comment if they’re not present or they’re weak:

1.  Strong opening or hook

2.  Compelling, multi-dimensional, non-stereotypical protagonist with human flaws

3.  A problem or conflict for the protagonist to resolve

4.  Worthy secondary characters, different from the protagonist, who do not steal the show

5.  Vivid settings, not overly described

6.  Consistent and appropriate point of view

7.  Appropriate dialogue that moves the plot and breaks up narration

8.  Narration that shows and doesn’t tell.

9.  A plot that builds in a logical way, events stemming from actions that stem from understandable motivations

10.  A story structure complete with Aristotle’s Prostasis, Epitasis, and Catastrophe (beginning, middle, and end)

11.  Appeals to all five senses

12.  Active sentence structure, using passive only when appropriate

13.  Appropriate symbolism, metaphors, similes

14.  A building of tension as the protagonist’s situation worsens, followed by brief relaxing of tension before building again

15.  An appropriate resolution of the conflict, without deus ex machina, resulting from the striving of the protagonist, and indicative of a change in the protagonist

  • If your group shares comments verbally, do so in a helpful, humble way.

You think all that sounds pretty difficult?  Ha!  It’s much harder to receive a critique.  When doing so, here are the considerations:

  • Submit your work early enough to allow sufficient time for thorough critiques.  Be considerate of your group members’ time.
  • While being critiqued, sit there and take it.  No comments.  No defensiveness.  Just listen to the honest comments of a person who not only represents many potential readers, but who wants you to get published.

So, when it comes to critiques, is it better to give than to receive?  In contrast to most gifts, it’s harder to receive them, but it’s still a toss-up which is better overall.  But perhaps both are just a bit easier for you to deal with now, thanks to this post by—

                                                      Poseidon’s Scribe

December 30, 2012Permalink

All Depends on Your POV

Every story has a point of view, and because POV is a basic element of story-telling, it’s important for beginning writers to understand the term.  There are some choices to make, and you’ll want to select the one that maximizes the reader’s enjoyment of your story.

Think of POV as knowing who’s holding the camera that “sees” the story.  There are three basic types.  First person POV is told from a single character’s perspective as if the narrator is the character–“I walked into the room.”  Second person POV is told from the reader’s perspective–“You walked into the room.”  Third person POV is told from a perspective outside both reader and the character–“She (or Susan) walked into the room.”  There are two kinds of 3rd person POV:  omniscient and limited.  In 3rd person omniscient, the narrator can relate the thoughts and emotions of any character.  In 3rd person limited, the narrator can only get in one character’s head, and can only describe other characters as sensed from that one character’s viewpoint.

In the early years of novels and short stories, 3rd person omniscient was, by far, the most common POV used.  I guess that’s because it’s easier.  Since authors feel a strong need to make the reader understand what each major character is thinking, 3rd person omniscient is a logical, safe choice.  Today, the most common is 3rd person limited, with 1st person coming in second.

Of the types, 1st person is the most personal.  The POV character may or may not be the focal character for the story, but the POV character should have an interesting, engaging personality, and not be just the boring person who happens to be standing there whenever something interesting happens.  The POV character can be an “unreliable narrator,” a person who sees things that aren’t there or thinks things that aren’t true.  The challenges with writing 1st person are to avoid repeating the word “I” an annoying number of times, and ensuring your POV character has a reason to be in all the key, dramatic scenes.  The major uses of 1st person are in horror and Young Adult (YA) fiction.

2nd person is rare in fiction, but more common in songs.  It can really make the reader feel a part of the story.

As I’ve said, 3rd person limited is the most common.  It allows a more objective view of the story.  Some markets accept only stories with this POV.  The challenges with 3rd person limited are (1) choosing a POV character who is intriguing to the reader and has a reason to be right there in every dramatic scene, and (2) avoiding what’s known as “POV wobble.”  POV wobble is where the writer shifts to a different character’s POV without a break in the narration.  This can be disconcerting to readers who suddenly find themselves “in another character’s head.”  This mistake sounds easier to avoid than it is.

For beginning writers, I recommend using 3rd person limited as the default POV for your early stories.  If you find a story not working, you could try rewriting it in a different POV.  It’s amazing how you can gain new insights in trying this.  Leonardo da Vinci invented the idea of various perspectives in art and engineering.  It’s a technique used in engineering drawings ever since.  Artists find that by looking at an object from the front, above, and one side, they understand more about its three dimensions.  There’s an analog there for POV in fiction, I think.

So whether it’s “I’ll conclude by saying I’m–” or “You’ve been reading a blog entry by–” or “He signed off by stating his name as–” the ending is the same…

                                                                        Poseidon’s Scribe

 

June 3, 2012Permalink