Paul Robertson on POV

Paul Robertson is a computer programming consultant, part-time high-school math and science teacher, and the author of The Heir. He is also a former Christian bookstore owner (for 15 years), who lives with his family in Blacksburg, Virginia.

POV

Even though our three children are teens now, we still read books aloud some evenings. We recently started “The Lord of the Rings”. It’ll take a couple months, but its lots of fun.

Any author who reads Tolkien will quickly notice how thoroughly he ignores all the Point of View rules that are taught to modern writers. He switches POV character in mid-scene, or even mid sentence; he makes omniscient plot or back-story statements (some run for pages); he even occasionally breaks into first person (“If I told you all I’ve heard about Elrond …”)

He describes a sunset just as it is, not through any character’s eyes. I wonder if any reader cares?

Point of View adds a critical dimension to fiction. Too often, though, it is just a set of rules for what the character can and can’t narrate.

A strict Third Person narration is constrained to be only what that character can experience. For example, if he can’t experience his own physical description. He has to “notice” himself in a mirror to say that he has brown hair.

But, does this always serve the story, or the reader? Most readers wouldn’t notice a breach of the rules. In fact, it is the strict keeping of them that can make a scene awkward.

Point of View should add to a story. It seems to me that each character should his or her own vocabulary and grammar. Description should match the POV character; a business executive, a grandmother, a medieval villager would all describe a scene differently.

Make sure to have at least one articulate character who can describe a sunset artistically!

In Road to Nowhere, I have six Point of View characters, and I tried to make each distinct enough that a reader could identify the character just by the style – but not be distracted.

I hope that makes the characters more real. Each is a member of the Board of Supervisors of a small county in the mountains of North Carolina. A new road has been planned, and the community is split. Each of the main characters has their own opinions and reactions. This reinforces the theme of “subjective truth”, that people see what they want to, and believe what they want to.

There are other Points of View that I’d like to try. For example, a “cinematic” POV, where the reader sees a scene as if through a movie camera. She can see all the characters, and even things they can’t see, but none of their thoughts. That’s how movies are presented.

Point of View has special issues in mystery and suspense (or mystery elements of any plot), where there are secrets. If the reader is inside a character’s head, he would expect to know what that character knows. The difficulty comes when a character has figured something out, but the reader has to be kept in the dark.

The extreme example is Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” (**plot spoiler ahead!**), where the narrator is the murderer. There’s a line in the story, at the last meeting of the narrator and the (about-to-be) victim, which just goes “The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread”. Only at the end, after the detective exposes the truth, and the narrator is writing his last chapter in jail, does he admit what happened in those ten minutes: the murder itself.

Even first person requires special handling. Is it present or remembrance? Does the narrating character know what is going to happen?

Ultimately there are no rules except what the author chooses, what the reader can enjoy, and what the editor will let by. POV rules change from year to year – try to find anything written before 1950, or even 1970, that follows the rules currently accepted.

Martin stared out over the city as the sun crashed in fire through the black, sharp skyline.

It was a pretty sunset, Stella thought, with nice fluffy clouds that were the cutest pink.

Every day has an end. Sigismund bowed his head to enter the low cottage, and the red light from the sky mixed with the firelight inside.

The sun watched the spinning planet and smiled, knowing that the city disappearing around its edge would soon return to his light, and that today’s POV rules would change once again.