Oooh, deep

Last week I wrote about the first three levels of POV discussed by Alicia Rasley in her fantastic book The Power of Point of View. Today, I’ll finish the last three levels, the deeper levels of point of view. These are the ones I really go for when writing. They bring the words alive for the reader, pulling them into the pov character’s mind, thoughts and emotions. Deeper levels of point of view allow the reader to truly live and become the point of view character in a story.

So, we begin today with “thought”.  This is the level where, according to Alicia, most scenes reside. This is the pov character thinking, acting and reacting to everything that’s going on in the scene. This is ordinary close pov. Remember, everything is seen through the character’s point of view, which means that they will bring their own unique perspective to everything that’s going on. Where they come from, their education, their socio-economic background, everything that makes them them.

Emotion, the next level, is just what it sounds like. Feelings. How does the character feel about everything that’s going on around them. We want not cerebral feeling — “what he said really hurt my feelings”, but actually emotion, “my hand twitched I wanted to hit him so bad for saying that about me”.

And finally, deep immersion is as deep a pov as you can get. You don’t need the words “he thought” because everything written is something he thought or he saw or he sensed in some way. This is essentially very deep first person point of view, whether it’s written in the first person or third, the pronouns are of little consequence here, the depth of the perception is the same. We, the reader, are the pov character. Everything they see, hear, think or feel is laid out for us and written from the perspective that it is us, the reader, who is experiencing it.

Now, here’s my trick that I promised you last week — to write really deep pov I use what is known as “method writing”. It’s just like Stanislavsky’s method acting, only it’s through writing. You shed your own self and become the character. Imagine yourself in their place, physically and emotionally. All that they are is what you are, all that they believe is what you believe, the way they look at the world is the way you look at the world. You really (mentally) become that person, and from there you begin to write (in the first person, it’s easier). Experience the scene (in your mind) and write down everything you see, hear, touch, and feel (and taste, and smell as appropriate). You will wind up with a very, very close scene. Quite possibly a very intense scene, especially if what is happening is emotional, and that’s why you want some scenes to be written this way – but not all.

It would be too much for a reader to have such a close experience for an entire story. But for an important scene here and there, this is a great way to make that scene really stand out. And don’t forget to change your pronouns if the rest of the book is written in the third person!

Good luck!