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Fiction Workshop #4
Point of View: Rules of Thumb
Nan Jacobs © June 2001
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Author's note: There's POV and there's POV. What I'll discuss here is "close third person" point of view, which is typically employed in today's mass-market fiction and is the most commonly used POV in the romance genre.
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These days it's a rare work of fiction that limits itself to a single character's viewpoint. Today's readers usually experience the story through the POV's of the hero, the heroine, secondary characters (if they're important to the story line), and the villain (if there is one).
It's the author's job to choose with care the POV character for each scene, and to exercise equal care when switching POV from one character to another.
RULE OF THUMB: The dramatic effect of a scene is heightened if experienced through the viewpoint of the character with the most at stake. Consider your characters' goals, motivations, and conflicts to determine who has more to win or lose. If a scene plays out flat, try changing the viewpoint character.
RULE OF THUMB: One POV per scene. Story tension is greater when the reader doesn't know the non-POV character's internal reaction to the events right away. Sometimes the at-stakes balance shifts in a scene, therefore a POV switch might enhance the scene. Some "POV purists" would rather see one POV per chapter. BUT:
A case in point as to why Rules of Thumb should be considered "Guidelines" and not "Ultimate Truths":
A well-known, best-selling (two on the NYT list, including #1 paperback fiction, as I write this) romance author switches POV not only within a scene, but also, often, each time the dialogue changes hands... well, mouths. It's called "head hopping" and might cause the reader to feel like he's at a ping-pong match. This author, however, tells stories and evokes emotions like few others can, and makes the POV changes clear and seamless. Go on and head hop if that's your style, but:
RULE OF THUMB: Make the POV change clear. This is not a guideline; this is a "You VILL!" You do not want to make your reader work to figure out whose head he's in. Do you prefer peeled shrimp or U-peel-it shrimp? Which shrimp do you mindlessly pop into your mouth, and which shrimp distracts you from the big screen TV?
For example:
>>>>>Jenna grabbed the jangling phone from the cradle.
"Hi, this is Susan from XYZ credit card company and…"
Jenna rolled her eyes. Would these telemarketers never give up? "No thank you, Susan," she said in a voice she hoped would wither the phone lines. "Do you people understand what 'no' means? Why don't you get a real job? If you don't stop calling, I'm going to scream!"
This woman was being a real snot. Who did she think she was? Didn't she understand that telemarketers are people, too? "Take that!" Susan hung up on her potential--ha!--customer just as her supervisor loomed behind her.>Jenna … (etc) "If you don't stop calling, I'm going to scream!"
Susan bit back a scream of her own. This woman was being a real snot…. (etc.)>Allison gazed across the boardwalk. The man in the Panama hat had been feeding the gulls air, as far as she could tell. What was his purpose? She swept a lock of her long, wavy, luxuriant, coal-black hair out of her fair-complexioned face, and narrowed her luminous green eyes. She stroked the pistol secured to her slim thigh. She was ready for him.>I swept a lock of my long, wavy, luxuriant, coal-black hair out of my fair-complexioned face, and narrowed my luminous green eyes….and… yadda yadda…to my slim thigh.>Allison gingerly drew a hank of her hair before her face. Normally coal-black and wavy, the long strands were silver and stiff as icicles in the sub-zero, whiteout conditions. Bad enough her fingers were frost bitten. Now her hair, too!>Damn this tangled mess! She was too old for waist-length hair. If only it weren't so wavy and thick. And the color… ugh. Her friends called it "coal-black". Ha! Men never looked twice at hair the color of rocks mined from the hills of Pennsylvania.
(Clearly Allison has a self-esteem problem!)
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