Get Out of the Gloom and Into the Driver’s Seat: 4 Instances Where POV Skills Can Level Up Your Writing
Author Leah De Forest shares four instances where an attention to POV skills can level up your fiction writing.
You’re in a workshop group, taking enthusiastic notes, and then: The Gloom descends.
This character is too passive, one reader says. I just don’t believe he’d jump out that window, offers another. Why are they in the bank again?
How many times can you rewrite the building description, rework your character’s thoughts, tweak the dialogue to explain the window leap?
Enter: point of view.
This character is too passive may not mean you need an action hero. It might be that this character shouldn’t be narrating, or she should be narrating from a different point in time (from whence she has more snark).
I just don’t believe he’d jump out that window might mean your window-leaper needs interpretation from an omniscient narrator—or at least, you might try that.
Most writers are readers first; when we start out, we’re educated passengers at best. We may have a default technique. We know how first person present tense feels (comfortable); we know what it does (gets the story down in a familiar way). And that can work. But what if there’s more you can do?
Studying point of view—more than any other craft tool—is what put me in the driver’s seat as a writer. Here are four instances when POV skills can make all the difference to your writing.
When your project is stuck (aka: The Gloom).
When your vision for the story dims, it might help to change the setting or adjust plot. But what can really open up a piece—literally give you a new perspective—is switching up the POV. As an exercise, try reworking a page or two of your piece in different POVs. If it’s in first person, try it in third, with one focal character; then try it with a whole cast of focal characters; now switch it to second person; then try first person direct address (to whom is your narrator speaking?); finally, switch to a different narrator.
If you’re not sure how to “drive” a POV technique, a great first step is to find an example in your book collection or at the library, read it closely, and work backwards from there.
The story feels trapped in the narrator’s head.
First person can feel intimate. But sometimes, it’s limiting. If your narrator doesn’t know enough, you might find yourself overly reliant on strategically placed newspaper stories or serendipitous phone calls for exposition. You could try multiple first person narrators or serial third person narrators (so you get the perspective of the person down on the street during the window-leap).
Flexible omniscience might be your answer: a god-like narrator who can dip in and out of multiple minds. This technique may seem intimidating, but it can be fun. You might start by finding a text that uses this technique and marking it up in different colors: one color for the narrator’s voice and another color for each character. Notice how the author makes transitions. Then try it out yourself.
When your characters feel remote (not in good way).
It’s a common misconception that third person narration lacks intimacy. Skillful modulation of psychic distance (the gap between a narrator’s voice and a character’s mind and body) can take readers from a narrator observing an ocean to a character’s deepest thoughts and feelings. But if the balance of narration and interiority is off, readers may struggle to connect with the story. You might try looking for more places to use interiority, and while you’re there, go deeper—so there are places where readers are thinking alongside the character.
However, you may need another technique altogether. First person might be the right fit—and if you got halfway through a novel draft only to realize as much, you haven’t failed. You’ve figured something out.
When your narrator has no perspective (pun intended).
Let’s say you’re pretty sure that first person is the right choice, but you’re struggling with a narrator stuck in the present moment. Retrospection may help. A narrator looking back on events is in a way speaking with two voices: the voice to whom the earlier events occurred and the voice who is able to reflect on them.
If retrospection isn’t the answer, you could try close third person with very little psychic distance. Lincoln Michel memorably calls this “Motorcycle Sidecar” mode; the narrator tracks the character, largely limited to what she or he knows, and maintains some separation.
If you’re stuck in The Gloom, you have my sympathy. Experimenting with point of view won’t immediately reveal the road, but it can give you the control need to move forward until you find the perfect POV fit for your project.
Check out Leah De Forest's Any Kind of Known Tomorrow here:
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