Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing

by Ursula K. Le Guin

DN: You’ve mentioned that in writing workshops the most common mistake you’ve seen is what you call “inconsistent point of view.” UKL: That’s when you shift from one person’s mind to another’s, the way Tolstoy and Woolf do so splendidly, but you do it awkwardly or you do it without knowing you are doing it. The thing about point of view is awareness. Changing it requires intense awareness and a certain amount of practice and skill in the shifting. Successful shifting gives binocular or more than binocular vision. Instead of a single view of an event, you do what Rashomon does, offer multiple perspectives, but without having to retell the story multiple times as Rashomon does. You can do it as you tell the story, and the multiple points of view lead to greater puzzlement or greater clarity about what is going on, depending upon what you want. I think the authorial point of view, because it allows such shifting, is the most flexible and useful of all the points of view. It’s the freest.