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May's Theme: Point of View

This month we will be briefly discussing Point of View (hereafter known as POV). These are essential to all fiction prose because every author no matter what genre will use it. As always, we will skim the topic, and I hope you will research more afterward.

Week 1: 1st and 2nd Person POV
Week 2: 3rd Person Omniscient POV
Week 3: Limited Omniscient POV
Week 4: Featured Authors

Tip of the Week: 3rd Person Limited

The Third Person Limited POV has become the most popular POV in modern literature. Therefore, this is the POV you will most likely come across, and is the one most writing instructors will stress.

The Third Person Limited POV, tells the story from the protagonist's perspective. Like the Third Person Omniscient, the Third Person Limited is a more objective POV than the others. It allows the narrator to get inside the character's head and give his thoughts and feelings. Unlike the Third Person Omniscient, it does not give the reader any information that the target character does not have. Only what the character sees and hears and feels is recorded for the reader to see.

What it lacks in "freedom" for the author, the Limited POV makes up in intimacy. This POV allows the reader to really get to know the target character and allows him to feel what the character is feeling.

An example from The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

"But didn't you find anything? Or see anything?" Lina asked, disappointed.

"Nothing! Nothing! There is nothing out there!" His voice became a shout and his eyes looked wild again. "Or if there is, we can ever get to it. Never! Not without a light." He took a long, shaky breath. For a while he stared at the floor. Then he stood up. "I think I'm all right now. I'll be going."

With uncertain steps, he went down the path and out the door.

"Well," said Clary. "I'm sorry that happened while you were here. I was afraid you might get scared, that's why I told you to go."

But Lina was full of questions, not fear. She had heard tales of people who tried to get out into the Unknown Regions. She had thought about it herself--in fact, she'd wondered the same things as Sadge. She had imagined making her way out into the dark and coming to a wall in which she would find the door to a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel would be the other city, the city of light that she had dreamed about. All it would take was the courage to walk away from Ember and into the darkness, and then to keep going.

***

Notice how we get all the dialogue and gestures of the other characters, but only get Lina's thoughts. It is as if the narrator is looking over her shoulder at the scene (wikapedia).

When using this POV, some authors are tempted to switch from one character perspective to another. But every writing teacher I ever had has told me not to do that. Unless it is done correctly, all you will do is create a choppy, disjointed story that confuses the reader. I have found in my own writing that when I switch willy-nilly between character perspectives, it is because I don't know whose story I'm writing. So if you find yourself switching back and forth, take a step back and see whose story it is. You may be surprised.

My personal rule is to NEVER switch character perspective within a scene--and I usually separate my scenes into chapters. I also try not to switch between the perspectives of more than two or three characters. Each character is specifically chosen to tell a different part of the story--in fact, the characters I choose are the protagonists of their part of the story (I find my stories are usually compound--ie two or three stories that somehow have something to do with one another). The book I chose to quote today follows this "rule."


Sources:

Wikapedia article: [link]

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. © 2003 Jeanne DuPrau. Random House Children's Books. pg. 65.

-~Michelay

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