The 3rd Person Viewpoint

I confess I never stop thinking about the interplay of the
macro and micro of story. My goal is always to provide the reader with clarity
and meaning.

Story development and structure arise out of and along with
character development.

And the story world connects inextricably to the inner life
of each story’s viewpoint character or characters.

Simply defined, the viewpoint character refers to the perspective and mind of the character through which the reader experiences the story. You might think of this character as your story’s eyes and ears and thoughts. When you use multiple characters’ viewpoints in a story, you use their perspectives one at a time, usually changing viewpoints when you begin a new scene or a new chapter. (Don’t confuse “viewpoint” with “person,” which refers to how the character will tell the story. The three options are first person (I), second person (you), and third person (s/he).

In this post I’m using three examples of a chapter opening
from final edits of one of my newest novels. The Book of Riddles is a coming
of age mystery story told in 3rd person through two primary
viewpoint characters, Detective Daniel Quist, 37, and Kady Ryder, 15.

Below are three variations on a paragraph opening a chapter
early in the novel. I was working to give a strong sense of place at the same
time allowing the reader access to a level of intimacy with Kady’s inner life.

My original paragraph has lively details from the world
around Kady. In fact it has a few too many details—hey, this was first draft.
Still, I like the sense of place.

Kady peeled out of her yard and
pedaled the nine blocks at warp speed. Clocking eight minutes from her home on
41st (racing past the Ribera’s Victorian and old Mrs. Driscoll’s
ivy-draped Spanish colonial, chased by Nippy, the weenie dog, evading the mess
of two eggs the Diepenboch twins broke over-easy on the sidewalk to fry)
cutting down tree-lined, lazy-wide M Street to the market on 48th. Driven
by the adrenaline that fueled her ever since her discovery of the Daryl Lee
Purse story. Just looking at his inmate picture left her queasy and she knew
without a doubt that she and her family would be cracked open again by this
violent stranger in the newspaper. The baking overcast sky and 98-degree-heat
rising off asphalt fired her up even more, but at least the clockwork spin of
her legs kept pace with her racing heartbeat.

This next paragraph is “lean and mean” and we experience
Kady in action and we understand she’s driven by adrenaline that comes from
something fearful and/or upsetting. (In the novel, in a previous chapter, we
see her reading a newspaper story that turns her world upside down.)

Kady
peeled out of her yard, peddling at warp speed, driven by the adrenaline that
fueled her ever since discovering the Daryl Lee Purse story. The baking
overcast sky and 98-degree heat rising off asphalt fired her up even more, but
at least the clockwork spin of her legs kept pace with her racing heartbeat.

I like the
energy of the lean paragraph—and I would use it if I didn’t want to give the
reader a much stronger sense of Kady’s world and also how the world connects to
Kady’s interior worldview, her fears, her longing, and her understanding that
she feels a loss of innocence.

This last paragraph is the one I chose for the opening of
this chapter because it gives significant details of her world, and it conveys
energy and movement, even as it connects the outer world with her inner life.

Kady
peeled out of her yard, peddling at warp speed toward Raley’s market, driven by
the adrenaline that fueled her ever since discovering the Daryl Lee Purse
story. The baking overcast sky and 98-degree heat rising off asphalt fired her
up even more, but at least the clockwork spin of her legs kept pace with her
racing heartbeat. Even as she flew past old Mrs. Driscoll’s ivy-draped
Victorian and dodged the Ribera’s weenie dog Nipper, a part of her sought
comfort in the normalcy of her neighborhood, something she and Felicity and
their families and most everyone living in these stately houses used to take
for granted.

She
couldn’t take it for granted anymore—and she was shaking her head when she made
the turn onto M Street. Was she peddling so fast in some stupid attempt to
leave bad thoughts behind? Because that just made all the bad and all the
wondering chase after her, coming much closer to biting her heels than Nipper
could ever manage.

As
her tires barely avoided the sun-fried mess of two eggs the Diepenboch twins
had broken sunny-side-up on the sidewalk, she realized she ached—and it took
her another minute to understand what that side stitch was about. She ached to
be innocent again, waking each day to a world that promised joy and adventure
without the constant shadow of life’s darkest corners, its most frightening
unknowns. As if life were an old movie and the tape could be rewound. Stop it
here, she’d shout—stop it before Felicity’s mom died and long before Felicity
went missing.

Upcoming posts will explore more of the inevitable interplay between story’s macro and micro elements—using examples from my novels and the work of other novelists. I’m someone who learns by examples. Let me know if you are, too—or if you prefer other ways of adding to your skill set. I want to help you on your journey to become your best writer, which is my own goal, too—always to learn how to be a better writer.

Happy writing, Sarah

( Photo by Vlada Karpovich from Pexels)

The post The 3rd Person Viewpoint appeared first on .