Saturday, April 6, 2013

Point of View Newbie mistake #4 POV

Point of view is a problem for many new writers. It was a frequent problem of mine until I finally understood exactly what the deal was. Later, you'll have to decide if you want to write from first person, I, me, we, or from third, she, he, Bob, whatever, but first, concentrate on controlling point of view throughout your writing.

Let's assume you're writing in third person. It's the easiest. I remember one place in my Golden Hope manuscript that I had a problem with POV. I was telling the story from Danielle, my main character's, POV, so everything I wrote had to be written as she would have seen it or lived it. In one spot, she and her mother were arguing and I wrote something like, Lisa ran her hand through her hair and sighed. I couldn't write that because, Danielle wouldn't think of her mother as Lisa, so I had to change it to something like, Danielle saw her mother run her hands through her hair, a sure sign she was getting frustrated. See what I mean. I couldn't change from what Danielle was observing to how her mother felt, at least not in the same paragraph. You can switch to someone else's viewpoint, but not usually until a scene change and you should try to keep the POV with the same character as much as possible. Now there are books that switch POV from one character to another, which is fun to do, but usually the POV switch will be a new chapter. So, check to see that as you're telling your story you make sure everything that is observed or thought comes from the same character.

Ex: John was tired. It had been a long day, and now his wife was pestering him with questions he was in no mood to answer. He sat down at the table and took a sip of his coffee. Nancy looked at John and noticed his eyes were red. He was rubbing his forehead too as if he had a headache.

Fix: John was tired. It had been a long day and now his wife was pestering him with questions he was in no mood to answer. He sat down at the table and took a sip of his coffee. He saw his wife look at him and frown. "Your eyes are red, John. Didn't you sleep well last night?" John rubbed his forehead to relieve the tight muscles.

Okay? Got it? If not, drop me a line and I'll be happy to try and explain it better.  Let me know if I can help you in any way.

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