A Change in Perspective: Understanding POVs in Writing

 Writing a story of any kind comes with its own collection of characters and sometimes it's hard to tell who's telling the story. It can be fun to mess with perspective in your writing, but it can also be dangerous. 

I had a story I was writing for an anthology that was told in third-person, from the perspective of the male main character. Meaning, that it was completely focused on my male MC- his emotions, his thoughts, and the way he was seeing things. 

In this story, Midnight Magic, Aiden is accompanied by three other characters. There's Sabrina, Marshall, and Penny. Aiden's focus starts off completely on Sabrina, so the story talks a lot about what he feels when he looks at her, his memories of her, and how he watches her trade in one guy after another for a newer model. 

Since both Sabrina and Marshall were side characters, it wasn't hard to keep them out of the narrative. They were there because of the plot but how they felt and saw the world did not influence Aiden. However, Penny showed up.

When I started writing I'd fully intended for Aiden to end up with Sabrina, so Penny was an afterthought. She kind of just popped up out of nowhere. Literally. I was writing a scene at a gala and Marshall was all, "Here, meet this chick" and then...boom...Aiden and she had an instant connection. Penny quickly took on elements of a main character and Aiden's focus started shifting to her. The problem was that my focus was also shifting to her.

At one point in the editing process, I received a note from my editor saying, "You switched perspectives. Penny's telling the story now."

My initial reaction was, "Nuh uh," but then I read the paragraph my editor highlighted and she was 100% correct. I'd unconsciously switched to Penny and instead of the story saying something like, "Aiden couldn't help but think Sabrina had chosen the perfect dress," it sounded like, "Penny pursued her lips as she noticed Aiden's stare lingering a bit too long on Sabrina's curves." This completely changed the feel of that paragraph and could have caused a hiccup for readers if left uncorrected. Needless to say, as much as I adored Penny's paragraph it had to go. I had to keep the focus on Aiden.

Like in life, sometimes our focus will shift in writing and we have to be conscious of that. When it happens we need to ask ourselves, why? The answer might be that it just happened spontaneously, or it might be that you're telling the story from the wrong perspective. 

In the case of Aiden and Penny, I knew Penny's perspective was wrong. Midnight Magic is Aiden's story. Penny is, for lack of a better term, always a bridesmaid and never a bride. I don't think she'll ever have her own story, but she'll play a role in several.

In another instance, I've had to shift perspectives altogether. I was working on another short story and something wasn't working. I liked the character and the plot but the narrative felt off. So, I closed my laptop, pulled out a notebook, and started completely from scratch. Behold, the story's perspective completely changed. Instead of being from the main guy's point of view, it was from the main girl's.

I know it sounds a little corny, but you'll know if your story isn't being written from the right perspective. You'll have to force the story if it is.

Another thing to be mindful of is point of view. Point of view [POV] is often used interchangeably with perspective but it's not exactly the same thing. Think of it like you're standing in a room with two other people. All of you are in the same space, with the same temperature, the same sights, and the same sounds, right? No. Not at all. 

Person one is you, person two is someone narrating your life to you, and person three is narrating the entire situation in an unbiased way. To help break this down, I've created some graphics for you.

Let's go back to grade school for a second. One of the first things you learn when you start writing is POV. There are three basic POVs. 

1) First-Person: This is a story told from and through the eyes of a specific individual. It uses phrases like, "I was walking down the street and saw a man" and "My stomach churned as Violet showed me Brenda's scrunchi". 

2) Second-Person: Is a narrator who inserts the reader into the story. They would say things like, "It was a sunny morning and you awoke feeling refreshed," and "Your mom appeared frazzled."

3) Third-Person: This is the most common. The third-person POV allows for an outside entity (such as the stereotypical narrator) to tell a story without themselves or the reader being involved in the story's events. An example of this would be, "Sarah's stomach churned as Violet showed her Brenda's bloody scrunchi. What could have happened to their friend for her scrunchi to end up in such a state behind the old video store?"

The first thing you do when you sit down to write is choose a POV and your main character. If you choose first-person POV your main character will tell the story, if you choose second-person POV your main character is your reader, and if you choose third-person POV then you are the narrator. If you pick to use the third person - which is my preferred choice - then you have another decision to make. 

Third-person POV has two subcategories - Omnimicent and Objective.

1) Omnimicent: This type of narrator knows everything. They are gods. They are reliable and can give information about every character's thoughts and feelings. Omniscient narrators are used in fiction and will sometimes change the main character every few chapters. An example of this would be Rick Riordian's Heroes of Olympus series.

2) Objective: This type of narrator is primarily used in research, essays, and media. This narrator is not all-knowing. They know the facts they've gathered and that is all. They do not have insight into a character's personal thoughts or emotions. An example of this would be a research paper.

Having reviewed this information I want you to think about your current writings and answer the following questions. Print off the graphic...write it in a notebook...I don't care, but get those answers on paper. Getting them down makes them concrete, which makes your brain acknowledge them.

For one of my many current projects, my answers would look like...

1) Willa Caldwell

2) Third person

3) Omnipresent

4) Yes

5) Arthur Hitchcock 

Willa will be my main character and I will primarily tell the story from her perspective in third person POV. Every once in a while I will switch perspectives to Arthur in order to express information that Willa does not know but that Arthur and I know. 

This is a handy little graphic to keep on hand and pull out whenever you need to work through who your narrator is, so tuck it away somewhere safe and use it when you need it.