Point of View

Point of view refers to who is telling the story. Is it a child? And old man? A murdered teenager? An unbiased third party? An independent narrator? A dog? Scout was an adult telling the story of a year in her childnood in To Kill a Mockingbird, which was a terrific book that went on to become a terrific movie.

You can use first person, second person, third person, or one of the retrospective points of view. First person means the writer tells the story as an “I.” It brings the reader in close, but the character can include facts that he knows personally. “I walk down the street.” He can’t say, “I heard about the murder while I was walking to the store.” That 1st person retrospective, that is written after the event in question.

I like first person retrospective because it has that immediacy yet allows you to include more information to flesh out the story.

Some stories need some distance between the reader and the story. “I remember it clearly. The murder was over on the next block.” This may be necessary if the event is violent or bloody or psychologically difficult.

Some writers use more than one point of view. Barbara Kingsolver, in the Poisonwood Bible, used six. I put that down after a little while because it was too confusing to my simple mind, though I believe the book was quite widely read, or at least widely referred to.

What point of view should you use? It depends entirely on the story you are telling. Sometimes, I write myself into the story in the first draft. That way I make sure the novel is coming from my heart. Then I switch it over later to third person so I can be disinterested when I revise it.

NEXT TIME: VOICE.