Point of View, Abbreviated POV, Is the Technical Term for Describing Who Is Telling the Story, and What the Narrator’S Relation to the Story Is

English 4ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020

LESSON FOR WEEK TWELVE: “DIFFERENT ROOMS, DIFFERENT VOICES”: AN INTRODUCTION TO POINT OF VIEW

Point of View, abbreviated POV, is the technical term for describing who is telling the story, and what the narrator’s relation to the story is. It also refers to the distance between narrator and story, as well as the trustworthiness of the narrator.

The earliest narratives we know of from the oral traditions were told in a folk-tale or legendary voice, which we would now call third person omniscient. As storytelling developed into a written and literary form, the anonymity or the folk-personality of the narrator began to disappear. Stories told in the FIRST PERSON or the THIRD PERSON LIMITED are, by and large, the product of cultures which have a fairly developed sense of the interior reality of the individual, and who very likely place a high value on this kind of subjective reality.

Contemporary fictions, both in short story and the novel, tend to favor the first person and the third person limited, and consequently don’t often explore far beyond those options. The following exercises are intended to help you consider the effects of particular points of view, and at the same time open up your narrative range.

Here are some ways of identifying the narrative stance and reliability:

Involved narrator—the narrator is a part of the action as it unfolds Detached narrator—the narrator is an objective observer or witness to the action Reliable narrator—a narrator whose account and perceptions we can trust Unreliable narrator—a narrator whose own ignorance, mental or emotional state, age, prejudice, etc. may distort of limit his or her perceptions.

Point of view is first person (I) in autobiographies and memoir. In short fiction and novels, the point of view can be any of the following:

First Person Narrator: The narrator is a character in the story and tells the story using the pronoun “I.” This “I” can be a protagonist in the story or a minor character, or even someone playing the role of a storyteller, passing a story he or she has heard along to the reader.

Example: “Once Upon a Time,” by Nadine Gordimer

Second Person Narrator: Though rare and difficult to sustain, the second person narrator uses an identified or unidentified “you” throughout the story. In some cases, this technique is combined with the first person to create the illusion of a conversation or dialogue between narrator and reader. Epistolary (or letter) novels work this way, like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. In some cases, a third person narrator may suddenly address the reader as “you.” But in a sustained second person narrative, the “you” is the protagonist or narrator of the story. It can be quite compelling, pulling the reader into the action. It can be claustrophobic, too. This technique is used more often in poetry and short fiction than in novels.

English 4ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020

Example: “Talking to Strangers,” by Molly Giles

Third Person Narrator: The narrator is a voice outside the story, and tells the story using the pronouns “he,” “she,” “they,” etc.

The third person narrator can be omniscient, meaning all knowing, able to move in and out of the thoughts of all the characters and to comment on events before and after the scene.

Example: “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Or the narrator can be third person limited, whose range is limited to a single character, or to one character at a time.

Example: “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” by Katherine Anne Porter

Narrative Distance: You can play with the third person narrator, panning of zooming to experiment with narrative distance.

 Totally objective and distant, observing in a general way the characters in their context (fly on the wall)  Closer, as if you were beside the character  Inside the character’s consciousness and skin, describing the sensations, perceptions, inner workings and responses of the character.

Notice the difference in the narrative distance in these sentences:

1. It was the winter of 1993. A solitary figure walked through the snowy streets of Manhattan.

Here the narrator seems to be floating high above the roofline, gazing down on the snowy streets.

2. Edward Tolliver leaned into the wind. The cold sliced through his coat as he walked through the snow to Tracy Covey’s house on Jane Street.

Here the narrator is striding alongside Edward and tells us where he is going.

3. A sick heat spread through Edward’s chest, though the snow whipped in sharp slices across his face and coat. His fingers touched the letters in his pocket. He didn’t want to show them to his cousin. Everything he’d hoped to hide was there.

Finally the narrator’s voice inhabits Edward’s body, experiencing the “sick heat” in his chest and fingering the “letters in his pocket.” The narrator knows Edward’s thoughts and fears as intimately, perhaps even more intimately, than the first person.

English 4ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020

IN-CLASS POINT OF VIEW EXERCISE: PLAYING WITH DISTANCE

Select a photograph which has one or more human figures in it. On your own, you may use any of photograph of your choice, or any of the pandemic photos in the file on Canvas for this week’s module. We’ll use one of these for the in-class exercise today. Take some time to study the photograph and think about what the dramatic scene might be.

1. Write a paragraph or so in your journal about the person in the photograph. If there is more than one person, pick just one to focus on. Use the third person POV. Begin with the totally objective and distanced narrator, describing the person in the photo in a way that encompasses the whole scene, but in an objective and descriptive way, rather than a subjective and emotional way. 2. Now move in closer, describing the person and the scene as if you were beside the character, but resist going inside the person’s thoughts or feelings. 3. Now move inside the character’s consciousness and skin, describing physical sensations, perceptions, inner workings, and responses of the character. Don’t use “I.” Stay in the third person, but with access to anything the character is thinking or feeling. What is this character’s insight? complaint? secret? fear? about the drama unfolding in the photo? 4. Finish the piece by moving back outside the character for a sentence or two, then pulling back into the distant, detached narrator’s voice.

ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT WEEK (DUE MAY 1, 2020)

1. Read the workshop pieces for next week and prepare notes for workshop discussion. These can be found in the Module for Workshop Pieces on Canvas.

If you aren’t able to “attend” the Zoom class meeting and workshop, you can turn in your written comments on the workshop pieces using the “Discussion” feature.

2. Type up your “Playing with Distance” exercise from class today.

If you have trouble submitting your work on Canvas, you can e-mail it to me at [email protected].

3. If you are taking the course for a letter grade of A or B, you will need to turn in a written review of a literary event attended in person or online, or a reading, craft lecture, or presentation selected from those listed on Canvas (or another of your choice). Due 5/8/2020. Instructions can be found in the first module on Canvas.

4. If you have the time and are ready to explore other aspects of point of view, try any of the following.

English 4ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020

OTHER POINT OF VIEW EXERCISES YOU CAN TRY

Exercise #2: Experimenting with POV Rewrites

Choose one of your own stories or poems. Try rewriting it, using a different narrative stance. For example, if it is written in the third omniscient, try it in the first person, or vice-versa. Try changing from the third person limited to the second person “you,” or to the first person. (Third person limited is tactically identical to first person, but the imaginative energy is different.) You can try changing the gender (he or she, or vice-versa). You can even try using the first person plural “we.”

Include both the original and your altered version. Also include a brief paragraph that comments on how the point of view change you tried alters the story or poem.

Choose one of the examples included in the file “Point of View Examples” from the module for Week Twelve on Canvas. These are listed below, along with the POV the author has used. Try rewriting the excerpt from a different point of view.

Include a brief paragraph with your version that comments on how the point of view change you tried alters the scene.

“Once Upon a Time,” by Nadine Gordimer (1st person) “Talking to Strangers,” by Molly Giles (1st and 2nd person) “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3rd person omniscient) “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” by Katherine Anne Porter (3rd person limited) “Kip, Hana, and the Patient” from The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje (shifting 3rd person) “Sleepwalkers,” by Ursula K. LeGuin (shifting 1st person—pick one of the characters and rewrite the section using 3rd person)

Exercise #3: Shifting Third Person POV Tell a little story of your own, or use a scene from a story you may have already written, fictional or autobiographical, with three characters. These characters can be human or animal or both. When you begin, tell the story from the THIRD PERSON LIMITED point of view, following the thoughts and experiences of one single character. After a half a page to a page, change narrators and continue telling the story, or retell the same story, now from this new character’s perspective. Switch POV one more time, so that you are now telling the story or retelling it from the third character’s perspective.

Exercise #4: Shifting First Person POV

Try the same exercise described above, but this time, instead of using third person omniscient and limited, tell each part of your story by shifting from one first person narrator to another.

Example: The short story “Sleepwalkers,” by Ursula LeGuin, is an example of a story written this way.

English 4ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020

Exercise #5: Thin Ice So you want to do something dangerous? Create a scene (one page or so) that deliberately shifts POV from one character to another without any clear warning. One method is to make sure when you shift that there is a moment when the narrator is outside both characters, for example in the neutral ground of dialogue. Another method is to provide a moment when the two characters’ perceptions overlap, or when something (a look, a smile, a gesture, an object) is passed from one character to another. It’s a bit like a relay in which the POV is passed from one character to another like a baton, but there must be a moment, however brief, when they touch.

Examples: Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Ramsay from To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf Kip, Hana, and the patient from The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje

Note: If you decide to use this technique in your fiction, be sure you have a good reason for wanting some blending of characters: for example, if one character is delirious, or is dreaming, or is so in love with the other that the boundaries have gotten erased, or if the dramatic tension of your story lies in the differences between one character’s perceptions and another’s.