Point of View - IMG_7561

One of the most frequent area where a novelist slips and falls facedown on the ground is none other than that of managing Point Of Views or in short, POVs. There are a few rules that you ought to follow so as to tread this slippery ground without facing much indemnification.

One of the golden rules in writing a novel is to maintain a single POV character per scene- or per chapter. Everything that happens in a particular scene(or chapter) must be seen through the senses of a single POV character.

Let me make it clearer: You are the author of the story- in the story you are the God; you know what happens everywhere, you know why it happens and how it happens. You also know all the feelings and emotions of all the characters of a particular scene. But the reader who reads the scene has limited perceptions, unlike you. There is one person whom he depends to know what’s going on- that’s the POV character. Everything he reads and feels is via the POV character, so make sure you write only what the reader is supposed to know.

The Cardinal Rule:

POV character can’t percieve things other than what his/her senses let him/her. The character can’t know what’s going on in the next room or what another person thinks while they are having a conversation, unless your character has supernatural powers like seeing through walls or mind reading abilities.

Make sure that you write only things which POV character percieves. The best thing to do that would be to imagine yourselves as the character and write thinking ‘If I were Mr.X, what can I see, hear and feel?’; that must set your track straight. But it’s a tough skill- sticking on to a POV is easier said than done.

I’ll make thing’s clearer with a small example:

“Finnigan was with rage, his teeth clenched and fists balled. ‘Go- get lost!,’ he uttered. There wasn’t mush of shouting work done. The next moment, an involuntary force made his hands thrust forwards, driving Luigi towards the door. The latter merely scurried away from his push.

Luigi sniggered as he opened the door to let himself out. The news seemed to have a hard impact on the lawyer’s mind; yet he couldn’t hide his surprise at Finn’s reaction. A guy like Finn would have at least pulled out his gun without thinking much- he had expected more action, not a drab delirium. He heard an broken cry behind the door, before it clicked shut.

With his shivering fingers, he took his fixer narcotic pipe and started to sniff. Tears flowed out of Finnigan’s eyes uncontrollably. He wiped the tears wearily with his sleeves and took the file with the other hand. All that remained in his life- every single dream and reality- just shattered pieces of fine china now. His legs gave way and he collapsed on his chair. His near-to-numb hands pulled open a drawer and started groping among the files for the last resort, his revolver gun.”

I’m sure there so much of drama going on in there. But wasn’t it a bumpy ride? There sure was a flow of events and the scene seemed to be well put. But what’s wrong? I’m sure most of you would have found it out. If you didn’t find out the problem, it alright, just Listen up.

Let’s analyse the first paragraph. Ask: Who’s the POV character here? What does your mind tell you? Sure, it’s Finn. It’s Finn’s emotions that are dealt with detail. It’s Finn who is pushing the latter to the door. Defenitely, this is from the angle of Finnigan.

Let’s now go to paragraph two: Ask again: Who’s the POV character here? Does you mind say Finn again? Of course not! The phrases like The news seemed to have a hard impact on the lawyer’s mind and he had expected more action, not a drab delirium points us that this pragraph was written from the view of Luigi.

Now we move on to paragraph three: Alright. Now as the reader has it in mind- Luigi is the POV character. Now the POV character is outside the room. Luigi has no means to know what Finn is doing in his room. More than just describing what Finnigan does in the room, paragraph three takes you deep into Finnigan’s mind and feelings- which defenitely means Finn is the POV character.

Got the reason for this bumpy ride? You are switching the POV characters in every paragraph. Reading the novel through a POV is like traveling in a car. And sitching the POV within a scene is like switching cars while driving- and that’s what we call stunts! An author is not supposed to do stunts with the reader’s mind, leave that part for the heros of film industry.

In our mind, any person will be registered according to our observation.

Well if you found the above scene good to read(and didn’t experience any bumpy ride)- a natural question arises in your mind: Why all this POV fuss? The thing really helped to understand every aspect of the scene- in short, There was a deeper insght into both Finn’s and Luigi’s minds and their scenarios. If I had mentioned this from one POV, it would’nt be as explanatory as it was. Would it be?

Defenitely, the answer would be a big NO!

Then why should we stick on to a single POV?

The reason is quite simple: In our mind, any person will be registered according to our observation- that is what we see. Just like St.Thomas, we tend to believe only what we see- at least more easily than what we’re told.
Let me make it clearer with the above example.

“Finnigan was with rage, his teeth clenched and fists balled. ‘Go- get lost!,’ he uttered. There wasn’t mush of shouting work done. The next moment, an involuntary force made his hands thrust forwards, driving Luigi towards the door. The latter merely scurried away from his push.

Finnigan could clearly make out Luigi’s snigger as he opened the door to let himself out. Luigi was expecting the news a hard impact on his mind- Finnigan could guess that easily- but he restrained from any haphazard activity. He was very sure that his normal self wouldn’t have wasted a moment to pull out the Browning and shoot that Luigi’s filthy head. He was sure Luigi expected more action from his side, not just a drab delirium. But he was totally broken and his heart ached at a magnitude more than he could imagine. Only a weak cry escaped from his mouth before the door clicked shut leaving Luigi to enjoy the world outside- something that he lost a few minutes back.

With his shivering fingers, Finnigan took his fixer narcotic pipe and started to sniff. Tears flowed out of Finnigan’s eyes uncontrollably. He wiped the tears wearily with his sleeves and took the file with the other hand. All that remained in his life- every single dream and reality- just shattered pieces of fine china now. His legs gave way and he collapsed on his chair. His near-to-numb hands pulled open a drawer and started groping among the files for the last resort, his revolver gun.”

What did you feel?

Well you ought to have felt a less bumpy track- if you haven’t, then forgive me for my weak creativity. It’s just because it’s a small example with three small paragraphs, there won’t be much of a difference. Only long term reading really shows the proper results. But always keep in mind that your editors and publishers (who would be one of the first professionals who read your book) will surely notice the bump. And once set to it, any careful reader would notice the POV switches that pop up at a high rate.

Anything else you noticed?
Well if you noticed carefully sticking onto Finnigan alone we get more closer to the feelings of the broken lawyer. If there was POV switches the whole thing would sound like the author reciting the feelings. More time the readers find to hang out with a particular character, more accustomed they will be. And more emotionally attached they become. As the final result- they will get more absorbed into the novel, which is now a fictional stream. Once the POV switching is done there is a break in the flow of this stream.

I hope this article really helped you understand the Cardinal Rule on How to Establish the Right Point of View. Whatever you do, never forget these points:

1. POV character can’t percieve things other than what his/her senses let him/her
2. In our mind, any person will be registered according to our observation
3. Maintain a single POV character per scene- or per chapter

Please share your views and comments about the above article- you simply don’t know HOW much I’d love to her your opinion!

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