The Art of POV
Nov92009
I started to write this as a reply to Laura’s comment and then realized it would be better as a post. Laura compared POV to different artists’ styles, but I think a visual comparison isn’t with artists, it’s with distance.
First Person is a close-up of something.
Third Limited is still focused on one thing or group of things but it pulls back.
Omniscient is a landscape.
So first person can be heavy and layered, third limited can be light, depending on the author, the difference is more a matter of distance and focus.
In first person, you’re inside one person’s head, getting only her view of the story, and it’s always her story, it’s a personal one because it’s seen only through her eyes. So even if she’s reporting on something that’s not personal, she makes it personal because she’s relating her experience.
Third limited has distance because there’s a narrator buried in that POV; that is, “Jane hit him” will never be as personal as “I hit him” even though everything is told through Jane’s POV. You can do a very tight third person POV–most of my stuff is tight third–and you still can’t get the immediacy and intimacy of first person. This, by the way, is why I can do sex scenes in third limited but not in first. I need at least some distance. Plus in third limited you often get different scenes in different POVs so you’re getting a more global view of the story, which means the story is becoming more important than the character or at least of equal importance.
And then there’s third omniscient where there’s a narrator who sees all and knows all and reports all. That’s an observer-narrator-as-God so it’s really remote, not human. It’s great for epics and satire, anything where distance is a plus and the story is more important than the character’s emotional lives. Omniscient is much harder to make emotional and involving and personal, but if your story doesn’t need that, it’s great.
You gain something with each POV and you lose something. In my case, with first, I’m going to lose the ability to do different POVs which is going to limit my ability to layer different realities onto the structure of the story. The reader is going to get one reality: Liz’s. But the thing that’s really going to limit the depth and the layering is the speed of the story; they’re going to move really fast and be fairly short, so there won’t be that much time, especially since Liz isn’t terribly reflective in the moment. But I’ll have four books to layer the community and the relationships and the love story, and they’re set roughly three months apart so Liz will have time to process things and change.
I originally wanted to try this because I loved the way Joss Whedon structured Buffy: Each episode was a story in itself, but you didn’t get the entire novel until you watched that entire season, which always ended with a satisfying climax, not a stupid cliffhanger. Every season of Buffy was a novel. I loved that. I wanted to try that without writing for TV. So a limited series of four mystery novels that taken together make one women’s fiction novel done in first person to give immediacy. If you want the art analogy back, a series of carefully done pencil drawings instead of a freaking oil painting.
Still not sure the art analogy works, but it sparked a whole post, so thank you, Laura.
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30 Comments to 'The Art of POV'
On November 9, 2009 at 1:19 pm jessie said...
Four Liz novels?!!! Be still my heart.
On November 9, 2009 at 1:23 pm Jenny said...
That’s the plan, not a promise.
On November 9, 2009 at 1:39 pm Louis said...
Soooo…
“I read Jenny’s books.” is in first.
“She reads Jenny’s books” is in third.
“She has a book case of Jenny’s books and she reads and re-reads them often” is third omniscient.
I think that i’m beginning to get POV.
On November 9, 2009 at 4:16 pm Jenny said...
Close, Louis.
First: I read Jenny’s books and I think they’re okay.
Third Limited: She reads Jenny’s book and she thinks they’re okay, but she suspects he doesn’t.
Omniscient: She reads Jenny’s books and she thinks they’re okay, but he reads them just to get points with her.
First: One person’s head, “I” pronoun.”
Third limited: One person’s head, “he” or “she” pronoun.
Omniscient: Everybody’s head along with full knowledge of the past and future (Had she but known . . .): “he” or “she” pronoun.
On November 9, 2009 at 4:51 pm Abby said...
Dear Omniscient Third,
Is there any way I can get my husband to read one of Jenny’s books, even if he only does it to get points with me?
Jealous of your power,
Abby
On November 10, 2009 at 2:22 am MaryPCB said...
Dear Abby (I have never written that before, being English!)
I did it by reading the best quotes aloud as I went; spaghetti spined weasel had him asking if I was mad at him, the dom perignon of donuts had him picking the book up when I put it down. he bought Agnes for my birthday and read it before he wrapped it up!
On November 10, 2009 at 12:16 pm Kelly said...
I’m getting my husband to “read” them by playing the audio version of a book on long car rides, something we typically do. Last trip was Agnes to ease him in and next time will be Welcome to Temptation, I think.
On November 9, 2009 at 1:43 pm Diane (TT) said...
4 books! Yahoo. And if they’re quick, we get them faster, right?
But Liz doesn’t get to have sex? Not even with the cute cop? Or will she just be discreet and not tell us about it? I can see where talking about it in 1st person in print would be a bit tricky. I’m sure that you’ll do a wonderful job – I’m not going to say that dialog and interior commentary are better than sex, but probably writing them are!
On November 9, 2009 at 2:20 pm Brenda Bradshaw said...
Whoa — I’ve been out of the writing world for awhile and just clicked on your webpage for the first time in quite awhile and it’s an amazing change! I love it!
(Read the post originally via Facebook)
On November 9, 2009 at 2:58 pm Melissa Blue said...
That deep third POV is a killer, because it really does skirt the line of first person. So, my question is…Agnes and the Hitman on the first page is that deep pov or did you step over to first to give the reader her thoughts?
On November 9, 2009 at 4:18 pm Jenny said...
Her thoughts are part of third person limited. It’s just like first person except there’s more distance between the reader and “she” than there is between the reader and “I,” so third tends to be less personal and therefore less claustrophobic, and first tends to be more personal and less distant.
On November 9, 2009 at 5:07 pm Melissa Blue said...
So it’s kind of a majority wins concept. Majority of the novel is in third person though there are times the view lens tightens or goes farther out to get a bigger picture.
Example: One fine August evening, Agnes Crandall stirred raspberries…
I would consider this 3rd omin. for the simple fact it’s not really coming from Agnes, but outside of her. You’re getting a view of her, but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from Agnes. It would if the sentence started with “Agnes Crandall stirred…” Does that make sense?
Then there’s…
It wasn’t easy.
Deep Third.
And then what I think is the regular third with no trappings.
Agnes cradled the phone between her chin and her shoulder…
But, I can be honest and say what throws me is:
“He’s a terrific chef.” Which is why I’m still with him.
The distance is subtle between this thought and the “It wasn’t easy.” Maybe it just has something to do with the implied first person with the deep third vs. the direct first person in the last example.
So….deep third in context (because the entire book is third person limited)? It does make one feel less claustrophobic knowing you’ll get bits of ‘close’ instead of in the character’s head 24/7.
On November 9, 2009 at 5:23 pm Jenny said...
No, I think the whole novel has to be first or third, not just mostly first or third.
The first line you gave flirts with omniscience, but it’s what Agnes is doing. She’s not observing herself doing that, it’s Agnes cooking raspberries and she knows about it. Bob makes the same argument and says that you need omniscient for an opening line, but I think it’s just a more distant third person. Nobody’s watching Agnes, observing Agnes, describing Agnes’s flushed cheeks. It’s just Agnes cooking, a fact. It’s a more distant third limited than the next lines, but it’s still third limited.
Yep, her thoughts without tags are deep third.
But I’d argue there is no implied first person in deep third and no direct first person POV in any of the examples. It’s all just deep third. You’re inside the character’s head in both POVs, but one comes at you as “I” and the other as “she” so they feel different; all the thoughts are going to come at you as “I,” but that doesn’t shift POV. It’s still third limited.
Pronoun alone doesn’t determine POV; you have to look at the entire piece. “I” is always a first person pronoun but it isn’t always first person POV. If that makes sense.
For me, third limited is harder to write but safer, first person is easier to write but more difficult to execute. That is, the first person writing is going like gangbusters, but it’s harder to get the emotion and the layering in there. Easier and harder.
On November 9, 2009 at 8:00 pm Melissa Blue said...
Pronoun alone doesn’t determine POV; you have to look at the entire piece. “I” is always a first person pronoun but it isn’t always first person POV. If that makes sense.
Yes, which is what I thought,but I used the word context instead without a caveat. My bad. (In the context of the entire novel.) So, yes, I agree you have to look at the whole instead of bits.
I’m going to have to ponder the rest of what you said about first person. I’ve got a theory that I can’t quite put into words yet about what makes it work despite the trade-off of limiting your world with only one view.
On November 10, 2009 at 12:09 am Meredith B. said...
Yes, but I adore a really close third as a reader, and strive mightily to achieve it as a writer. (I don’t want to engage in bad self-talk, but “fail, fail” is the phrase that comes to mind here.) The trick I want to achieve is to write third-person so that the reader is hovering right over the protagonist’s shoulder, seeing everything from her point of view. When it’s done right, it feels nearly as close as first person, yet also omniscient enough that you’re surprised in the end to learn how much you didn’t know.
On November 9, 2009 at 5:09 pm PG said...
My husband and I were invited to a Halloween party that promised zombies, so he wanted to dress up as Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy (even though he actually hates Jane Austen — he’s just in love with the idea of sticking zombies into Austen’s world). In order to get the costumes right, I was re-reading the book and re-watching the BBC version, and I realized for the first time what an odd POV Austen uses — it’s sort of omniscient in that we are supposed to understand the heroine’s thoughts and to a large extent those of lesser, flatter characters (I never felt that Mr. Bennet’s thoughts were a mystery to me) and there’s the satirical outside observer, but it’s definitely not omniscient the way that, say, Les Miserables is omniscient, because some major POVs (Darcy’s, Wickham’s) never really come into the narrative. So I guess it’s just 3rd person POV?
On November 9, 2009 at 5:13 pm Jenny said...
Most 19th c fiction is omniscient, and I think P&P is, too. I think it feels warmer because Austen’s voice isn’t as authoritarian as Dickens or the rest of the guys, it’s a gentle omniscient and she sticks to the now of the story pretty well until the end when she extrapolates into the future. The first line is one of the best and most famous omniscient first lines in literature.
On November 10, 2009 at 11:06 am Bonnie C said...
So I just went out on the internets to refresh my memory on the first line of P&P (you’re right, it is brilliant) and stumbled across this on wikipedia:
“Pride and Prejudice, like most of Jane Austen’s works, employs the narrative technique of free indirect speech. This has been defined as ‘the free representation of a character’s speech, by which one means, not words actually spoken by a character, but the words that typify the character’s thoughts, or the way the character would think or speak, if she thought or spoke.’”
Kind of a windy way to say “head hopping”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_prejudice
I find that, like present tense, I don’t generally like to read first person – it has to be really well done to keep my attention. I prefer the remove of third.
On November 10, 2009 at 11:56 am Jenny said...
It’s only head-hopping if it’s in third limited. If it’s third omniscient, it’s always the narrator and head-hopping is part of the package.
The big problem with head-hopping is that it creates distance (and in third limited, confusion) but if you’re going with omniscient third, that’s what you’re getting anyway. Remote viewing by an omniscient narrator who is not part of the story but observes from above.
On November 9, 2009 at 5:29 pm Sierra said...
I had a creative writing professor who made us play with POV almost more than anything else. The toughest assignment was 2nd person. I ended up doing quite well with that (it was a short story) but it’s too hard to carry for anything longer. It’s tricky to layer the emotional descriptions so that the reader really feels that it’s them they’re reading about.
Ever since then, I’ve pretty much stuck to third limited. First person is fun for some things for me, but I seem to enjoy writing in third limited more. I like that I can touch more on the different characters’ perspectives, without the switch (if I switch) being too jarring for the reader. First person doesn’t lend itself to multiple perspectives, really, and I tend to like the overall story a tiny bit more than the characters.
While reading, I actually identify more easily with some characters when they’re written in third imited instead of first person. This didn’t happen with Liz, but I think it does happen occasionally because some authors (not Jenny) write first person so that the story feels too egocentric for me to be comfortable with. Does that make sense?
Side question for other writers out there – Do you ever have trouble with a character taking on too much of your own personality? I’m doing okay with it right now, but there are moments where I’m fighting with my protagonist because she’s trying to become a Mary Sue type of character. I’ve even put a post it on my computer screen that reads, “This book is not your way to work out your current relationship concerns.” I have a clear idea of who she is, but sometimes she blurs a little. Thoughts or suggestions?
On November 9, 2009 at 6:08 pm PG said...
I don’t think I’ve ever seen successful second person in anything longer than a short story, although I’ve read lots of short stories and essays where it worked (I think the first time I realized its power was in “On Being the Target of Discrimination” by Ralph Ellison).
I get what you’re saying about first-person sometimes feeling too egocentric — a lot of contemporary young-adult fiction written in first-person feels that way to me, as does stuff like Saira Rao’s “Chambermaid.” I think you have to have a likable character for first-person to work easily, and because teenagers are inherently self-centered, and a person complaining about a job others would love to have is too self-pitying, the overall effect just fails.
On November 10, 2009 at 12:14 am Meredith B. said...
Yes– and I speak as someone who has made YA her field. You’re right, this is a failing of some YA books. But thank goodness for agents and editors, who spare us a great deal of it!
On November 10, 2009 at 2:28 am MaryPCB said...
Charles Stross is doing second-person novels, the first being Halting State (and the second being in progress); he did an interesting discussion of first/second/third at his old blog – http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-old/2006/04/29#writing-124. He makes a case for Bright Lights, Big City being fake second person as monologue.
On November 11, 2009 at 2:33 am Micki said...
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas works for me from the POV perspective (it’s second-person, and I found myself charmingly inhabiting a slender body at one point (-:), but it fails for me about 2/3s way through because Tom Robbins is a hippie pervert. Seriously, “genitalia” “food product” is NOT what the enlightened New Age guy should be calling his lover. Although, when he was mad at her and called her pussy fricassee . . . I almost forgave him for the ‘tude.
Still not quite sure about him; could be an evil genius.
On November 9, 2009 at 9:15 pm Marta said...
First person can really annoy me, but I’d never put much thought into figuring out why until now. I think Sierra nailed part of it; it can be a lot harder for me to warm up to the protagonist, and a lot easier for me to dislike her/him. An author I really liked went first person a couple of years ago, and I hated it in large part because I hated the main character.
Another turn-off is when first person reads more like an event log than a story, the protag’s every movement chronicled. That can feel more like weeding than reading.
On November 9, 2009 at 11:25 pm London Mabel said...
I’ve often thought about the best POV for being funny. Stupid (or at least unwise) people can make for hilarious first person narration (Bertie Wooster, Georgia Nicholson, Bridget Jones.)
I also kind of feel that omniscient makes for better humour than third person, because again you get the narrator’s voice. Like the Austen and Dickens already mentioned, and I think Georgette Heyer too.
On November 10, 2009 at 11:31 am Laura said...
Always glad to be helpful.
On November 10, 2009 at 3:46 pm Sure thing said...
I often find first person to be stilted – it doesn’t matter about whether I like the character or not.
I also think very few authors “flow” with first person. And as for YA, was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it when Tamora Pierce went for first person with Beka Cooper.
On November 11, 2009 at 7:18 am francois said...
“In my case, with first, I’m going to lose the ability to do different POVs which is going to limit my ability to layer different realities onto the structure of the story”
I love love love Mary Stewart’s first person novels. The thing she is great at is hiding information, so that your idea of reality is subtly different from the protagonist. Airs Above the Ground has a perfect example, when she sees someone that looks like her husband in a foreign street. Can’t say any more…spoilers!
On November 11, 2009 at 12:57 pm AAR Rachel said...
I really, really hate head hopping in third person. 19th century novels tend not to work for me, I think because of the distance of the omniscient voice which in the past has made me leery of modern stories told in the omniscient. But recently I re-read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and both are in the omniscient which really grooves in those contexts. The authors managed to stuff in a ton of info about pre-WWI Brooklyn and WWII civilian Germany into books with child protagonists while still maintaining some of a semblance of the “innocence” of childhood (though neither Francie nor Liesel is particularly innocent). If part of your writing goal is cultural observation or dissection, omniscient can be quite a useful tool.