Point of View Off the Rails
In this post, I answer a question about POV, rules, and more to come.
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Hello Writers,
Today, I want to address a question that a reader posted in the chat. Thanks to Nicholas for his thoughtful, deep question!
Nicholas wrote:
Too often, POV is discussed as if it's a set of rails that you commit to for an entire story, and a good writer never goes "off track" the least little bit. But in reality, great stories very much do adjust the "POV settings" as they go along, almost from scene to scene, and certainly in between scenes. This is similar to "Show Don't Tell": great stories slip into "telling mode" to summarize boring parts and get the reader straight to the next stretch of good stuff, which is "shown" of course. In fact, I wish you would talk about the interplay between POV and showing/telling (immersive vs summarial passages). It seems like depth of POV directly correlates with depth of immersion ("show"), and very few stories any longer than flash fiction are able to peg the needle at "max depth of POV/100% show" for their entire length. At some point there comes a transition or a description that eases off at least a little bit; you can't "show" every step of the protagonist's uneventful trip to the airport or we'd never get there. But once you debunk this impossible oversimplification, and show the correlation here, can you recommend when and how an author should "zoom in" and "zoom out"? Or any other tips that occur to you that will help us navigate these nuances?
There’s a lot in there to unpack. Let’s dive in with this first part: “Too often, POV is discussed as if it's a set of rails that you commit to for an entire story, and a good writer never goes "off track" the least little bit. But in reality, great stories very much do adjust the "POV settings" as they go along, almost from scene to scene, and certainly in between scenes.”
In some sense, those people advising writers don’t go “off track” are correct, but in another sense they’re not. Let’s explore.
A story’s point of view is something you commit to and do not deviate from for the duration; however, I would not describe it as a set of rails, because point of view is complicated. It does more of a dance than a march forward through a story.
This idea of commitment is an interesting point. See, as the author, you get to define the point of view of your story, including all the moves it gets to make as it crosses that dance floor. So, yes, you set it and go, but part of the fun is setting it. You get to be the choreographer and the dancer.
The people out there who treat it like a set of train tracks are probably not clear on what exactly point of view is and how to artfully shape its moving parts. At its simplest, and what many people mean when they talk POV, is the perspective of the protagonist. Unfortunately, limiting point of view to the POV character limits the narrative power of the author, which is where the author’s storytelling ability really shines.
I think this is what Nicholas is referring to. The advice to never deviate from one’s chosen POV is typically telling you to never break with the perspective of your protagonist as you’ve defined it at the outset. This is not bad advice, but if that is all one has to say about point of view, one is missing a great deal.
You see, every story has point of view in the sense of the protagonist’s perspective and the narrative. If you set out to write a single, third person, close point of view, then you should never enter other other characters’ heads or present their feelings, beliefs, and worldviews through your narrative. Of course, you, the author, can choose to have a dual, first person point of view, or a multiple distant third point of view, or whatever parameters you set. Even riding those straight and narrow tracks comes with a number of choices available to the author. Once made, don’t deviate. Now…
That leaves the question of narrative point of view wide open. What kind of narrator will you have? Invisible? Essayist? Omniscient? Will the narrator be closely aligned with the character’s perspective? Will the narrator tell the story from the present moment of the story? Or a point in the future? How will you characterize the voice of the story? Do you feel a dance coming on? I do, because this is where the fun, power, and beauty of storytelling lives. Our POV characters are just the people who populate our stories. Our narrators breathe our stories to life!
In neglecting narrative point of view, the advice to stick to your rails goes wrong. It’s not actually the advice itself, it’s the lack of total understanding behind it. You see, as author, you decide what kind of narrator you’ll have, your psychic, chronological, and physical distance. Once you have your parameters set, you stick to them. And as a skilled writer, you know how much freedom of movement you have within those borders.
To stick with the dance analogy, you would not place a dancer on a stage and tell her to only move one way, stage left to right, in the middle ground. You would want her up stage, down stage, crisscrossing it, pirouetting, leaping, arabesque-ing, and otherwise making full use of every inch available to her.
If the author sets his point of view at the beginning of his project, he better make full use of it or he’ll find he’s typing with one hand tied behind his back! While the advice to stick to your rails is well-meaning, it is not accounting for the variation, nuance, and full capacity of point of view, because it neglects narrative. Many stories successfully move into other characters’ interior without it feeling like a breach of contract with the reader. They weave through time and dip into territory outside the protagonist’s realm of knowledge. The question is always, how? How well? And why?
Whenever you encounter a story that is off the rails, shall we say, stop to examine it. How would you define its point of view? Is it successful? As reader, do you ever feel lost or like the author is making mistakes, intead of deftly handling your experience of this story? Then ask yourself why. Why might the author have made these narrative choices? Why not other choices? How would the story read if she had limited herself per that “stay on the rails” advice? Can you think of other point of view parameters that would be as good as or better for the story than the ones apparent on the page?
This post is going to be continued with a part 2 next week, but let me give you something to work with today:
The short answer to part 1 of Nicholas’s question is that, in my opinion, people espousing that you must never deviate from your point of view, probably don’t fully understand point of view. They are likely seeing the POV character as the totality of a story’s point of view, limiting their storytelling ability as a result. It is wise to question the advise you are given, especially when the giver says “they say so” instead of identifying a weakness with a particular text and articulating why and how it could be improved. This POV advice is, indeed, like the “show, don’t tell” adage in that it is tossed around far more than it is understood.
Start noticing the difference between the protagonist’s perspective and narrative point of view. Notice it in what you read and in what you write. If you tend to write lots of action and dialogue, staying true to your POV character’s perspective, loosen up. Let your storyteller breathe and practice vignettes without any significant action and no dialogue. Flex your descriptive muscles for a change. Practice the invisible authorial voice. Play with a narrator with personality. See how many ways you can tell your story without involving the POV character. And have fun with it! Remember, your characters are just fish in the sea. Your narrative is the sea.
Do you have craft questions? I’d love to hear them. Use the comments feature and ask away!
I love that you are covering this subject because it can be so frustrating. I look forward to reading Part 2.