Point of View

March 6 question – Whose perspective do you like to write from best, the hero (protagonist) or the villain (antagonist)? And why?

It is time for the monthly writing prompt from Insecure Writer’s Support Group and what you see above is the question of the month.

Reflecting on this I can’t recall that I’ve written anything from the antagonist’s point of view. There are many modern examples of this such as “Wicked” where we get the Wizard of Oz story from the Wicked Witch’s view. In fact there seems to be a current trend to take a well known story and rewrite it from the antagonist’s view point. I hadn’t paid particular notice of this, but so it seems.

I did write “Dark Queen” from the protagonist’s view (if you can call it ‘view’) because she is blind and I wanted to 1) see if I could write descriptions of what she perceived happening around her and that meant senses that did not include sight, and 2) I wanted it to center around her. There were occasional chapters written in third person when she was not present, but the bulk of the book was from her perspective.

In “Bait” I wrote from the protagonist’s point as the antagonist was shadowy and elusive.

I have another book idea that has been percolating (too many years) in which the story is from the antagonist’s viewpoint, but, as with many things, he may be redeemed by the end and becomes a protagonist at that point right?

This is really an interesting challenge and I think I’ll try this on for size. Which is why the Insecure Writer’s Support Group is bookmarked on my computer. Follow the link in the previous sentence to find out how other writers answered this prompt.