POV TROUBLE--AGAIN!
by Ann M. Beardsley

For some of us, the lucky ones, point of view is a simple matter that hardly needs explaining. For the rest of us, it's a gremlin that never lets go, that haunts our writing and our self-confidence. What is point of view, or POV? It's seeing things through the eyes of our characters—seeing and saying only the things that our character could hear or see if he were really there. Do we know what someone else is thinking? No, we only know what we ourselves are thinking. Do we know what someone else hears? No, although it's a pretty safe bet that if we hear something, the person next to us does, too—but there's always the chance that our companion is deaf. In a sense, keeping a strict point of view to one character is to pretend that all other characters are blind, deaf and unthinking. No one except our character is allowed to think, feel or hear anything.

POV is, to put it simply, reporting only what our character says, sees, hears, thinks or smells. If we truly identify with our character, this isn't so hard. Where we run into trouble is thinking like a reporter who has to "set the scene" and let us know what everybody is feeling.

Here's a scene from Paul's point of view:

Paul stared at the fallen tree, then at his six year old son standing amidst its horrifyingly thick branches. It had come so close to killing Joshua, falling over just like that, with no warning. Time really did stop, he thought. Marilyn, next to him, was faster to respond. By the time Paul had figured out where his legs were, Marilyn was halfway across the driveway towards Joshua.

Here's the same scene from everyone's point of view:

Paul stared at the fallen tree, then at his six year old son standing amidst its horrifyingly thick branches. Joshua eyes filled with tears at the fright he'd had, because it had fallen so suddenly and so fast, and wanted his mother. Marilyn cried out anxiously, scared that her son had come so close to death, and grabbed him up in her arms joyously.

What's wrong with it? If we're in Paul's point of view, how do we know for sure that Joshua's eyes filled with tears at the fright? Maybe he was responding to the thought that his Dad was mad at him (who knows how children think?). Maybe Joshua wants his Dad and not his Mom. Do we know that Marilyn was scared her son had come so close to death? No—remember, we only know Paul's thoughts. Maybe Marilyn is an evil stepmother and cut the tree so that it would fall on Joshua on just that spot. I'll grant you that Joshua probably was scared to death, and Marilyn as well. But the fact is, we don't know FOR SURE. We can only guess at what someone else is thinking.

It's also hard to know who to identify with when the point of view switches from one character to another within a scene. Should we empathize with Paul, Joshua or Marilyn? It's easy to identify with Paul in the first example, simply because he's the only one we know. In the mixed POV scene, we can't figure out who to identify with. It's perfectly legitimate to switch points of view between scenes; i.e., to show the scene from Paul's point of view, and then switch to Marilyn's in the next scene. Scene switches are generally depicted with an extra blank line or a group of asterisks. Too many, however, can alienate a reader.

If you're haunted by POV problems, put yourself in your main character's shoes and read the scene out loud to yourself. If you get anyone's internal reaction (thoughts, sights, sounds, feelings) but your character's, you've got a problem. If it's essential to have someone else's internal reaction, simply show the same scene from the other character's point of view later on, or have the other character tell your character how he or she felt.

Like riding a bicycle or learning to swim, once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder why you ever thought it was hard. Keep on practicing!

Copyright 1999 by Ann M. Beardsley (annmeeker@aol.com) Thanks for visiting!

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