Introduction
Getting the point of view wrong or inconsistent is one of
the biggest mistakes that new and inexperienced writers of prose fiction make.
It’s also reasonably easy to get right if you understand it. Often if you can
correct the mistakes you’ve made with point of view your text will improve
dramatically. So, it is a good one to get right.
What we mean by point of view
But what does it “point of view” actually mean? We’re not
talking about opinions here. We’re really talking about who the story belongs
to. You need to ask yourself “Whose story is this?” Answer that and you have
found your point of view.
Try to remember that as you
write. If you keep changing the point of view it can irritate and alienate your
reader. It can be particularly annoying in short stories. It is
counterproductive in another way in all forms of fiction. It prevents your
reader from becoming close to your character. In longer pieces, such as novels,
you may have to change point of view because the story is not always with the
main character. Then the author will often be just as close to another
character. On the whole, the more successful prose fiction writers do not
change point of view mid-chapter. This aids the reader to find continuity and
indeed to buy into the story. So, your second question is “Have I consistently
shown this point of view?” Edit just asking that question. It’s an important
edit.
Narrative techniques
Closely linked with point of view is what we call “narrative
technique” and it is often the narrative technique you use that helps you to
establish your point of view. Below are a few examples of narrative
techniques.
First person
The first person narrative is often referred to as
unreliable. In some ways it is. You are only getting the narrator’s side of the
story and arguably here the point of view does become an opinion. Also,
the reader then has to stay with that character all of the time. But the reader
is certainly seeing things as the narrator sees them. The first person
narrative does actually give a very reliable picture of the character’s view of
the world. Particularly striking examples of this are in Mark Haddon’s The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Lee Harper’s To Kill a
Mockingbird and J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Read or
reread one of these books. Here is a short excerpt from The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night Time:
Mother
died two years ago.
I came home from school one day
and no one answered the door, so I went and found the secret key that we keep
under a flowerpot behind the kitchen door. I let myself into the house and
carried on making the Airfix Sherman Tank model I was building.
An hour and a half later Father
came home from work. He runs a business and he does heating maintenance and
boiler repair with a man called Rhodri who is his employee, He knocked on the
door of my room and opened it and asked whether I had seen mother. (28)
Note that Christopher is giving
us a lot of details we might, as good creative writers, consider irrelevant to
the story. They are important, though, because they show us much about
Christopher’s personality and about how he sees the world. They give us his point of view and do almost start to give us his opinion here. So,
by getting point of view right, Haddon also gets voice and character
right. Or you may prefer to think that by getting the voice and the character
right he gets the point of view
correct.
There is, however, one really big
limitation with a first person narrative: the narrator has already had the
growth and the reader cannot enjoy that growth with the protagonist.
A first person narrative is often
used when writing for young adults. However, it is a false narrative as the
author is pretending to be someone just a little bit older or a little bit
wiser than the adolescent who is reading. They’re usually – though not always –
considerably older than their readers.
Third person close
This also allows for a very close point of view. It is as if
the writer is sitting on the character’s shoulder and can hear and see
everything they can hear and see. They even know what the character is
thinking. This works very well and does allow the reader to experience the
growth with the character.
V.S. Pritchett uses this in the
short story A Family Man in the Penguin Book of Modern short stories.
Here we have the viewpoint of Berenice, William’s mistress, who is visited by
William’s wife.
But now – when she opened the
door – no William, and the yawn, its hopes and its irony, died on her mouth. A
very large woman, taller than herself, filled the doorway from top to bottom,
an enormous blob of pink jersey and green skirt, the jersey low and loose at
the neck, a face and a body inflated to the point of speechlessness. She even
seemed to be asleep with her large blue eyes open. (46)
Notice how in this passage the
impression we are given of the visitor is really Berenice’s. It is Berenice who
sees the dominating pink jersey and that is it loose and low. She decides that
the woman seems to be asleep and that she has large blue eyes. We are following
Berenice’s story. The reader buys into what is going to happen to
Berenice.
Third person distant neutral
This is also
a common point of view. It is often found in older texts. A neutral narrator
tells us the story, in effect showing it to us almost as a film. It is a little
different from a film in that we occasionally see into the minds of the
characters. However, we have none of the opinions nor personality of the writer
in these texts. The narrator only tells us what we need to know in order to
understand the story.
This type of narrative may skip from person to person, but it does so
in a balanced way and it keeps the same distance from all of the characters. A
good example of this type of narrative is found in Joseph Conrad’s The
Secret Agent.
The evening visitors – the men
with collars turned up and soft hats rammed down - nodded familiarly to Mrs Verloc, and with
a muttered greeting, lifted up the flap at the end of the counter in order to
pass into the back parlour, which gave access to a passage and to a steep
flight of stairs. The door of the shop was the only means of entrance to the
house in which Mr Verloc carried on his business of a seller of shady wares,
exercised his vocation of a protector of society, and cultivated domestic
virtues. (14)
Thus we see a scene played out
before us. It is Mr Verloc who sees his vocation as protector of society and
cultivator of domestic virtues. He knows he is selling shady wares. The
narrator simply tells us this without any judgement. Later in the novel we have
the points of view of Mrs Verloc and other characters. Even in older texts,
this switching of point of view only comes in separate sections or chapters. In
longer works, the writer sometimes needs to do this in order to explain what is
happening to characters other than the protagonist. In the short story the
writer tends to stay with one point of
view.
It is currently rather
unfashionable. The modern reader and publisher seem to prefer a first person, a
close third person or the narrator – whether first or third person – as an
extra character.
Fictionalised narrator
This doesn’t have to be first person but often is. Imagine,
for instance, the rather eccentric woman next door, the landlord of your
favourite pub, or an interesting minor character in a book you like telling the
story. An extreme first person example is in Adam Rapp’s 33 Snowfish.
Then he points to my other pocket
and goes, “What’s wrong with your hand?”
I go, “I cut it.”
But he’s like, “I mean the one in
your pocket.”
I go, “Nothin’.”
“You steal somehtin’ from my
yard?”
“Ain’t shit to steal.”
“You sure?”
I’m like, “You deaf?”
And then the nigger pulls my
other hand out of my pocket and he looks at it.”
We may well be shocked at the
word “nigger” but this is part of the way this character talks. It is part of
his voice and his point of view.
Some common mistakes
Study the three examples below:
1.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he danced. Back and neck
straight. Gaze fixed. Arms rigid by his sides. His feet never missed a beat and
always came down in exactly the right place. My own feet started tapping to the
music.
Then Patrick looked at the
others. He winked at me. He showed them who was boss. He was so proud of me. He
was thirsty now. He wanted a drink. But I kept on pushing him.
Problem:
The point of view has shifted from the narrator to Patrick.
How can s/ he know what Patrick intended or whether he was thirsty?
Better might be:
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he danced. Back and neck
straight. Gaze fixed. Arms rigid by his sides. His feet never missed a beat and
always came down in exactly the right place. My own feet started tapping to the
music.
I worried as he looked at the
others but then he winked at me. I wanted to make him proud of me. He was
sweating and he must have been thirsty. I know I was. But I kept on pushing
him.
2.
George pushed pressed the buzzer
on the entrance to the sales office. If this is supposed to be housing for
everybody, why are they trying to keep people out? he thought.
Mandy Prior stopped painting her
nails, patted her hair and called out in her best secretary voice: “Good
morning. How can I help you?”
“George Morgan, Artist in
Residence, Peppwood Council,” replied George.
Mandy pressed the buzzer. “Yes,
Mr Sullivan is expecting you,” she said. George found himself in a type of
exhibition area. His eyes were drawn to some huge photos of modern flats and
town houses. “Big Plans for Gorsall,” he
read.
“Welcome, welcome,” said the
short, middle-aged man with greying hair and a very red nose.
Problem:
The point of view skips between George, Mandy and an unknown
person. The reader may get confused.
Better might be:
George pushed pressed the buzzer on the entrance to the
sales office. If this is supposed to be housing for everybody, why are they
trying to keep people out? he thought.
“Good morning. How can I help
you?” chimed a voice that suggested dyed hair and painted nails.
“George Morgan, Artist in
Residence, Peppwood Council,” replied George.
“Yes, Mr Sullivan is expecting
you,” said the same made-up voice. A buzzer sounded and the door swung open.
George found himself in a type of
exhibition area. His eyes were drawn to some huge photos of modern flats and
town houses. “Big Plans for Gorsall,” he
read.
“Welcome, welcome,” said a
voice.
George turned to find that the speaker was a short,
middle-aged man with greying hair and a very red nose.
3.
The boy had a lump in his throat.
It had been a grey old day and
the first drops of rain were starting to fall. He turned on the windscreen
wipers.
As the little blue car turned on
to the motorway, it was raining heavily. Before it got into the heavier traffic
there were flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. Tom turned on the radio
to try and drain out the noise. He pushed his right foot down to the floor,
bringing Binky up to her top speed. The music matched his mood. Rousing rock.
He was going to fight this and he was going to win.
The car was now in the middle
lane. The rain was now pouring like a waterfall over the windscreens of all the
cars. Everybody’s wipers were going full speed. It was that sort of weather
where you can’t see at all. The cars and lorries were chucking up spray and
were being buffeted from side winds. No one seemed to be able to drive in a
straight line. .
Problem
We move closer to the main character and back again. It’s
like watching a film that has been made by someone who has little control over
a camcorder. The zooming in and out can leave you feeling nauseous. Whilst this
can be quite effective if executed elegantly – Philip Pullman uses this a lot,
for example, particularly towards the end of The Amber Spyglass – it is not really appropriate or effective in
so short an extract.
Better might be:
The lump was in his throat again.
The first drops of the rain
they’d been promising all day fell on the windscreen.
He turned on the wipers.
By the time he got to the
motorway, it was raining heavily. As he filtered into the traffic there were
flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. He turned on the radio to try and
drain out the noise. He pushed his right foot down to the floor, bringing Binky
up to her top speed. The music matched his mood. Rousing rock. He was going to
fight this and he was going to win.
He steered Binky into the middle
lane. The rain was now pouring over the windscreen like a waterfall. The wipers
were going full speed, but he still couldn’t see all that well. As he overtook
the slower cars and lorries he also had to put up with the spray and the
buffeting from the side wind as he drove out of their shelter.
Try this
1. Rewrite
a fairy story, a myth or legend, one of Shakespeare’s stories or something from
the Bible from the point of view of a minor character or the “bad” character.
2. “Patch
test” a piece of your own writing. Write a couple of paragraphs using one of
the narrative techniques described above. Then try it with two others. Which
works best?
3. Take
two paragraphs from a piece of fiction you have enjoyed and decide which
narrative technique the writer has used. Now choose another narrative technique
and rewrite that passage using that. Was the author right? Why do you think
they used their chosen narrative technique?
Working with this in the future
1. Before
you start a piece of work, make conscious decisions about whose story you are
telling and which narrative technique you wish to use. Try to keep this in mind
as you write.
2. Once your work is finished you should read it
though checking just point of view.
This should be just one of several edits.
