Point of View: Whose Head Am I In?
by Louise Bohmer © 2009 All Rights Reserved

Next to verb tense, point of view is one of the hardest areas of story composition to master. I certainly haven’t mastered it yet, but I have developed strategies to help keep my point of view on track. In this short article, I hope to provide knowledge and examples to help other writers manage point of view issues.

Point of view describes from which person’s perspective the story is perceived. It’s a narrative mode. It is the method you choose to convey your plot to your audience. Point of view is where you determine your narrator. The narrator(s) of your story is the character(s) you choose to convey the story. Through the narrative, and point of view chosen to carry the narrative, you show the experience through the eyes of the character chosen to convey the story (unless you’re using third person omniscient or universal omniscient, which we’ll cover later).

The narrative is not the author’s perspective. Once you give your perspective as the author, you’ve wandered into territory of authorial intrusion. Remember, you can’t give your reader information your narrator doesn’t know. You shouldn’t impinge your personal voice on your narrator.

An example of authorial intrusion:

Jim looked out at the sea. He watched the seagulls dip low over the water, seeking fish. Little did he know someone was about to bat him over the head with a frying pan. People can be cruel that way.

The last two sentences are authorial intrusion. The small section is told from Jim’s point of view. Jim is our narrator. If we can’t give the reader information the narrator doesn’t know, and we can’t impinge our personal voice, then we shouldn’t be telling the reader someone’s sneaking up behind Jim with a tire iron, when Jim can’t see it. If Jim can’t see it, he can’t perceive it. Nor should we tell the reader people can be cruel in this manner. These last statements hop out of Jim’s narration and become authorial intrusion. Not only have you pulled the reader out of the story with this, you’ve killed the suspense.

Let’s look at different points of view the writer can use. There’s first person, second person, and third person.

First Person Narration: First person uses the “I,” “me,” pronouns. A story told through first person narration is told directly through the eyes of the narrator. Some recent novels that use first person are: John R. Little’s The Memory Tree, Jeremy C. Shipp’s Cursed, and Rio Youers’ Mama Fish. One classic novel that uses first person is The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.

First person allow a lot of intimacy with your narrator. Your reader is getting right inside the character’s head, and it allows them to experience action from a closer perspective. But, with the first person narrator, you also run the risk of the unreliable narrator.

The Unreliable Narrator: An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose point of view is questionable for some reason, or a variety of reasons. Perhaps the narrator has dementia; perhaps the narrator is a young child not yet acquainted with the ways of the world; perhaps the narrator is a bitter person with a misanthropic attitude. All these aspects will skew the narrator’s point of view to some extent, but it’s how you handle the narrative and the unreliable narrator. It is the extent to which you push the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

Let’s take a first person narrative told from the point of view of the misanthrope, for instance. Now, the narrator’s perspective is already skewed. They hate people. Handled terribly, the misanthropic first person narrator may come off as completely apathetic, hateful, and narcissistic. How can a reader feel compassion for this narrator? How can they relate?

But what if you use this unreliable narrator to explore what makes people misanthropic? Or take the narrator from a misanthropic narcissist at the beginning to a cautious humanist at the end? Does this make the narrator any more reliable? How do you keep the point of view, the story, from falling into such unreliable territory the reader gives up and throws the book?

Don’t infuse your personal beliefs into the narrative. Don’t use the first person narrator as a vehicle for you, and what you want to say. Ask your character, your narrator, what they have to say. Develop your character. Don’t use the first person vehicle as a thinly disguised soap box. You can tell a lot about a writer from a badly constructed first person narrative.

Make sure the actions of your narrator ring true to the character you set them up as. Don’t contradict personality traits. Don’t introduce a misanthrope who is a social butterfly and loves everyone. Conversely, don’t make the character so hateful there’s nothing the reader can relate to. What about a misanthrope who feeds the homeless secretly in a soup kitchen on weekends? Now you’ve established, while your narrator might be bitter and hate people, she really still holds some hope for humanity in her heart, whether she wants to admit that to many or not.

Also, don’t give information to the reader the first person narrator can’t know. This wanders back into authorial intrusion. And it can come off as sloppy writing. Plus, you’re killing the suspense, and telling versus showing the story. Let’s look at another example before we move on to second person point of view:

I walked along the beach, watching the seagulls dip low over the ocean. The wind in my hair calmed my jangled nerves. Little did I know Pedro was sneaking up behind me, raising a frying pan above his head.

See how the above renders the first person unreliable, kills the suspense, and commits authorial intrusion all within that final sentence? You can’t give the reader information your narrator doesn’t know. The unreliable narrator can work, and can be used, but you need to ask yourself if the narrative mode you’ve chosen is right for the story, and you must construct it carefully.

Second Person Narration: Second person narration is less common is fiction than first or third, and is rarely used for novels. It is usually used in non-fiction books such as cook books and manuals.

But when used, it can produce an invocative, intriguing narrative. Still, it needs to be handled properly, and for fiction, it’s probably one of the hardest to work with, and allows less freedom than first or third (or room for error), for your reader becomes a part of your story.

Second person uses the ‘you’ pronoun. It does give a sense of immediacy and intimacy, as the narrator is directly involving the reader. But it’s also easy to hop into authorial intrusion with this perspective, if you’re not careful.

Some writers who’ve worked with second person narration in the short form are Bryn Sparks and Margaret Atwood. A novel that uses a mixture of second person and first person narrative is Clive Barker’s Mr. B. Gone.

Third person: Omniscient, Limited, Subjective, Objective, & Multiple Narrators

Third person narration tells the story from the third person perspective, using the pronouns ‘he/him,’ ‘she/her,’ ‘it,’ and ‘they/ them.’

Third Person Omnscient: Third person omniscient uses a god-like narrator who is removed from the story (not a character in it) but knows all the events and even the thoughts of the characters, perhaps even emotions (subjective, which will cover in a bit). One advantage to this form of narration is its objective reliability, or ‘truthfulness.’

Third person omniscient isn’t used a lot in genre novels, but it is still used quite a bit in literary and epic works (epic fantasy, for instance). It was the most commonly used narrative mode of the 19th century. Charles Dickens is a well known 19th century novelist who consistently used third person omniscient.

The peril of third person omni is information overload. Don’t give your readers a bunch of excessive verbiage and description simply because you can with an all-knowing narrator. You still have to carefully craft, pick and choose your scenes, so an engaging story is told.

Also, you face the peril of detached characters who are difficult for the reader to feel compassion for. Still, many skilled authors have used third person omni to craft engaging characters and a sweeping story.

A lot of authors make the mistake of confusing third person omniscient with third person limited. They are different third person narrative modes. One—third person omni—can make absolute statements about all the characters’ thoughts and feelings. The other—third person limited—can’t make absolute statements about all the characters’ thoughts and feelings. A third person limited narrative can only make absolute statements about the thoughts and feelings of the narrator carrying the point of view.

I’ve seen authors make the mistake of starting out a book in omni then switch back and forth between omni and limited. This is akin to headhopping, and it confuses the hell out of your editors and readers (at least it does me).

The general rule I remember for this is: absolute statements about all characters can only be made in third person omniscient. Absolute statements about all characters cannot be made in third person limited.

Some novels that use third person omniscient are: Imajica by Clive Barker, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.

Third Person Limited: In third person limited, one character is chosen to carry the narrative point of view. You see the narrative, the story, through this character’s perspective, but you cannot know the thoughts and feelings of other characters. You can only imply them through action / interactions with the narrator.

Usually the narrator is the main character. As with first person, the narrator cannot tell the reader things the narrator does not know. Absolute statements can only be made about the narrator’s thoughts, feelings, places he/ she knows. But you cannot allow your narrator to makes absolute statements about other characters’ thoughts, feelings, motivations. If you do, you head hop.

An example of head hopping:

Jim walked along the beach with Margaret. He held her hand as the sun set. He was elated she’d joined him today, after much coaxing.

Margaret knew Jim had cheated on her. She was furious. She planned to hit him over the head with a frying pan, when he wasn’t looking.

If the writer wanted to write this from Jim’s perspective, as the excerpt begins, then the absolute statements about Margaret’s thoughts / feelings must be cut.

Third Person: Subjective, Objective, & Multiple Narrators

Third person can also be written in an objective form or a subjective form. Objective does not describe the thoughts, feelings, or opinions of the narrator. Rather, it uses an unbiased narrative to relay the story, similar to reporting. Third person objective can be compared to the camera lens because it only records observable action, and nothing of the narrator’s internal thoughts or emotions.

Third person subjective shows the thoughts, emotions, opinions of characters. It explores the internal as well as external world of the characters and narrator. It is considered more intimate than objective third person, and sometimes referred to as the ‘over the shoulder approach.’

Both objective and subjective can be used with third person omniscient or third person limited.

Multiple narrators can be used in first person or third person. Sometimes, a story requires more than one narrator to convey all information needed. The multiple narrative mode also allows the author to show different character perspectives on a single event. It can also be used to show separate events happening at the same time.

For More Information: I’ve only scratched the surface of point of view with this short article. For more information on point of view, I’ve included links below. I hope this short blog post makes point of view clearer and easier to manage for those writers reading it.

Narrative mode:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_mode

Grammatical Person:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_person

Universal Omniscient:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PointOfView

Alternating point of view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrator

Free Indirect Speech:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech

Epistolary voice:
http://en.allexperts.com/e/e/ep/epistolary_novel.htm

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Louise Bohmer is a freelance editor and writer based in Sussex, New Brunswick. Her writing leans mainly toward the dark fantastical and horror, but she has also dabbled in poetry and erotic fiction. The Black Act, her debut novel, is now available through The Library of Horror Press.

You can read her short fiction in the upcoming Courting Morpheus, Ladies of Horror, and Into the Dreamlands. Her poetry can be read in Death In Common 1 & 2.