Four questions about point of view in fiction:
: I got halfway through the first and only novel l tried to write, I had five main characters, and five chapters with each of them owning the POV but had no idea what to do once they were all in the same room.
: If you have a novel without a single dominant protagonist, how do you assess the pros and cons of omniscient vs. rotating close third or first? Can a writer slip in and out of omniscience vs. inhabiting someone's inner thoughts?
: I've been thinking about the distinction between narrator, character, and author. I want to give myself new ways of thinking about and playing with this distinction in my writing. Can you talk about how you think about or use it in your work?
: One thing I appreciate about multiple POV is the clashes and contrasts between different views of the same event, place or character, and equally the alignments. Is multiple POV a more "feminine" way of storytelling? In these fraught times it feels more of an imperative to consider different perspectives.
Dear Elizabeth, David, Holly, & Julie,
When I first started out I was mentored by Dr Sally Cline at Angela Ruskin. Every month as my pregnant belly and debut novel grew I would take chapters to Cambridge where she would critique them and send me away with instruction. I’d never heard of POV until I met Sally. My earliest draft switched between character interiors like dust floating between rooms. Without knowing what POV was, I was doing it badly, and in spades. Every line was told through somebody’s eyes, I’d no concept that there were other choices.
Sally set me straight. “You can’t switch POV mid scene. You, and I mean specifically you, shouldn’t even be switching mid chapter. Decide who’s telling this story and stick with it.” She didn’t get into narrator’s voice, this being too far above my abilities. I was presenting her with a story about two sisters fighting over a son, a grandmother who took sides, and a daughter who was ignored, and I needed to make some decisions. Once I’d realised what she meant, I fought back. “Virginia Woolf does it.” Meaning, VW plays fast and loose with POV with a hand so deft we’re left spinning. Her reply? “But you’re not Virginia Woolf.” Still the best piece of writing advice I’ve ever received.
What she meant, apart from the literal, was that you have to learn the rules before you can break them. So here they are.
1. POV is literally you standing in the body of a character, seeing & feeling what they see and feel, relating their thoughts as if you are them, knowing only what that character knows, irrespective of what you, the writer knows.
2. It’s not the same as the five positions (see Dear Elizabeth) from god to the subconscious via landscape, physical action, and conscious thought, although it does intersect at conscious thought.
3. For your first outing, do yourself a favour, and stick to one POV per chapter, and give each POV a regularity of appearance in the plot. Whatever pattern you choose, sustain it through the novel. It will help you learn how to do it and help us follow the story.
4. Likewise, if you’re an emerging writer, minimise the number of POVs in your novel. Somewhere in a drawer is a book called After Pandora, written in the crystal meth years. It has 122 characters, each with a POV. Need I say more?
To break these rules, and there are many examples of successful breakage, you need to have a skill of storytelling that keeps us with you, no matter how often or unexpectedly you flit between heads.
And one final note before I get to the individual questions. Sticking with one POV for a whole chapter will teach you to stay in the fire from which the heart of your novel burns. If you notice a temptation to switch, ask yourself if you're running from the heat. Changing POV can absolutely serve the story, but too often it’s used as an escape hatch when things get too intense for you, the writer.
Okay. You’ve come up with a story and decided to tell it from three POVs. You’re going to contain each to its own chapter and give them a regular appearance pattern in the plot to make it easy for us to follow and ease our minds that you know what you’re doing. You’ve remembered that POV is only one way of moving and deepening your narrative, there are the five positions, only one of which intersects with POV at a character’s conscious thought. So far so good.
So, what happens when all three are in the room?
This is where the four other positions come in, Elizabeth, and why it’s important to establish your narrative choices from the beginning. In that scene when they’ve all turned up, pick a POV and stick with it. Who you pick will depend on what story you’re telling in that scene and in the novel as a whole. (They must interrelate. Think of our solar system, how every moon and planet and piece of space debris relates to the sun.) If you want to travel within the scene, entering the heads of each, do it with the god voice, and remember, they won’t know you’re there. Janet was feeling itchy, John wished he’d packed his swimming trunks, but only Mary chose the whisky over the crème de menthe. She looked at her wife and brother and wished they were different, her wife older, her brother kinder. See what I mean?
I’ll leap over to David’s question here, as I think what I’ve just written answers his, too. Assessing the pros and cons of omniscient vs. rotating close third or first without a dominant character to lead the way, like every other narrative choice, comes down to, What’s this story about, and how does this choice develop it? An ensemble piece relies on an equal spread of POV and space on the page, see Girl, Woman Other, but you’re still telling a story, whether its interlinking is embedded in the narrative, or a cultural comment, clear only once you stand back. I find answering, What’s this story about? usually solves most problems, including where to stand. And yes, a writer can absolutely slip in and out of omniscience vs. inhabiting someone's inner thoughts as long as a pattern is established.
Holly, in the longer version of your question, you reference Henry James, the doyen of this sleight of hand, and again, see my answer to Dear Elizabeth where I lay out the five positions that you can play with. I’m glad to hear you want to explore this distinction, it’s how to open up your writing to the limitless possibilities of storytelling, including the technique of misdirection. Giving an unreliable witness a point of view, and letting them lead the plot is a lot of fun, and works particularly well with thrillers and crime novels. The thing to remember if you do this, and it can be an absolute head twister, is who knows what, when. That’s you, the various characters, and the reader. You’ll have to juggle this to make it work, but when it does, it’s super effective in creating blocks and twists. See Gone Girl as a perfect example.
When it comes to my own work, we all have our habits, and mine is an over reliance on POV. I’m ever reaching for the golden ticket that is the strong narrator’s voice. I feel like it alludes me and have come to realise that it’s a matter of confidence. My tangled brain comes unstuck thinking it has to justify who that voice is, the god/narrator/author, and is there a difference between them, until I read the greats and realise that they demand an acceptance of the premise, I’m going to tell you a story as if sitting by a campfire. Exposition over, and we’re off. I managed it a few times in, In Judgement Of Others, and I know it’s really effective, but like all habits, POV slips in if I don’t stay awake. It’s something I’m constantly working on.
If you want to see it done well, study The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera moves relentlessly, seamlessly, and without apology. We go from deep interior to the author himself stepping out of the book; he expects us to go with his, and we do. It’s a masterpiece on every level.
Julie, I’ve saved you till last because I found this the thorniest question to answer. I’m going to take issue with the use of the word “feminine,” but I appreciate you’ve put it in inverted commas to imply its dodgy narrative, so let’s get into it. You’re completely right that the world needs literature which explores multiple points of view, and novelists can, if it serves their story, fulfil that need in multiple ways, including telling a single story from a number of perspectives. There are other ways to do this, the tenor and rhythm can lend themselves, in fact every facet can lean into this aim, from tone to theme, description to dialogue, there’s no limit to the ways we can produce a piece of work that illustrates the need for compassion in fraught times. But I’d like to get away from these notions of behaviours ascribed to genders. I am the least traditionally feminine woman I know, and yet multiple POVs is my bread and butter. My feminist heart rankles at the very mention of such a prism prison; at the risk of alienating my entire Substack readership, and upsetting you, I can’t stand it. So, yes, the world needs empathic stories, and yes, multiple POVs is one tool in the toolbox, and thank you for raising it so I can rant about it, and no, I don’t think it’s a feminine trait because I don’t recognise that there is such a thing outside of the patriarchal construct which has invented it for its own ends. I think it’s a human trait, and I think we should keep doing it.
Love,
Eleanor
"In that scene when they’ve all turned up, pick a POV and stick with it. Who you pick will depend on what story you’re telling in that scene and in the novel as a whole."
That's the key issue, isn't it? Why is one choosing particular points of view and what does it have to do with the story one's telling?
"My tangled brain comes unstuck thinking it has to justify who that voice is, the god/narrator/author, and is there a difference between them, until I read the greats and realise that they demand an acceptance of the premise."
Yes! They know what they're doing and why, and you will see.
Eleanor, thanks for these insightful suggestions. I’m working on a historical novel now and the narrative continues in parallel in two streams, the past and the present. I use first-person narrative in the present and introduce more uncertainty, since the protagonist does not know all. I use third person for the past stream and tell what has happened in reality, in contrast to what the (present) narrator thinks has happened. I found this as a viable method, but since the book is not yet finished, the effect is yet to be seen…