Previous Post – Point of View
Crossing the Point of View Bridge
(This is very important stuff. Please make sure you understand it completely, and post a comment if you don't.)
Your story will probably dictate whether it's told in first or third person or, rarely, second person. Most novels are third person (past tense). First person is a little unusual but there's a lot of it. Other than the 3rd person prologue, I wrote ">HEAT SYNC in 1st person. The prologue and first chapter are on my website (www.wesdemott.com) if you need a quick example of both.
None of that is very complicated stuff, really, but what does complicate things for many new writers is point-of-view (POV). Your understanding of POV is critical, and probably the hardest thing for a new writer to learn. But once understood it will become obvious.
Although a few books are written in a omniscient point-of-view (as though from a god-like perspective where the writer/narrator sees all and knows all), that tends to separate the reader from the character. That's why so many books are written in the view of one character at a time. The POV can shift from scene-to-scene throughout a novel, but each scene is in one person's POV.
The hallmark of an unpolished writer is an accidental point of view shift between characters. Here's an example written in Wes's third-person POV (and not the omniscient POV):
Wes struggled as he wrote about accidental point of view shifts, thinking of the best ways to describe it and trying to remember how he finally got a grip on it while the reader waited impatiently, hoping like hell that Wes would just get on with it before Dancing with the Stars came on.
Do you see it? If not, read it again.
See it now?
Since that passage is written from my POV it can only report to you what I'm thinking. It's impossible for me (or the writer pretending to be me, poor soul) to also know what you're thinking or seeing or feeling or hoping. The writer can only tell you what I'm thinking.
Sure, the writer can guess about what you're thinking, but they can't know. You see this all the time, and in the example above it could be accomplished (assuming we were actually in the room together) by changing "…the reader waited impatiently" to "…the reader seemed impatient, with a look of hope that Wes…"
Got it? Perhaps not. As I said, it's tricky.
Look at it this way: You're talking to your girlfriend, thinking about how nice she looks and the crazy-wild adventure you'd like to have with her later. Maybe she's thinking the same thing, but you just never know (hey, she's a woman AND in a different POV).
Maybe she's about to dump you or drag you behind the couch or tell you she's having Clive Cussler's baby, but you don't know and can only guess based on what she's saying and how she's acting—those things you can see, hear, and intimate from her body language and behavior.
It's the same with writing. You have to be in a person's POV to really know what's in their head.
So how do you accurately convey information about what another character is thinking? You add a few lines of white space, perhaps with some * * *, and then intentionally shift POV, almost immediately identifying whose POV we're in. For instance:
…and so Wes hoped he'd conveyed it accurately, but wasn't sure. He wanted to keep trying but knew he risked the mass suicides of those readers who'd already learned it.
* * *
The beautiful reader studied what Wes wrote, and then she studied it again, thinking it mustn't be that hard but yet still unsure that she understood it until…Wham! It was suddenly as obvious as missing alimony. She knew she'd never screw it up again.
Warning: If you are really sure you understand this, good for you. If you have doubt, as I said above, post something and let's work it out. All editors and agents (and me) will put down a book as soon as we see that the writer hasn't crossed that first essential bridge.
