Point of View

Creative writing is an art. Not only do you need to express yourself clearly, but you must do it in a way that keeps your readers engaged. What is happening in the scene? From whose voice, head, or mind are you seeing it happen? Establishing and maintaining the point of view is a problem that many new writers find difficult. Even experienced writers will re-write a story several times over, to see which point of view works best, within the story they are writing. Part of the reason it is so difficult, is because it is the most important element of your story.

For instance. Three people are standing on the sidewalk, watching the ambulance attendants leave a rundown house with an old woman strapped onto their stretcher. One of them is the policeman who was called in after her next door neighbor had tried to reach her on the phone for several days, without getting an answer. For him, this is simply routine, nothing to get excited about.

The second person is the neighbor who called the police. She had known the old lady for several years. The two of them sometimes played cards together, shared books, went to the movies together—and otherwise kept each other from being too lonely.
The third person is her son, who had not tried to communicate with his mother for over a year, and now, on the one day he does stop by, she is being taken to the hospital.

One incident, but we have four entirely different points of view. Indeed, we have four different stories. There is the story of the woman, who is dealing with a heart attack, fear, embarrassment, and loneliness. The neighbor, who is essentially concerned for her friend. The policeman, who is bored, and disgusted with the paperwork he will have to file before the end of the day. And the son, who is dealing with guilt and anger.
Each of these people sees this incident in an entirely different light. The son might begin by talking about how glad he is the old bag is gone, and maybe it would be a blessing if she died. He knows his mother needs to be taken care of, and he really doesn’t want the responsibility. She may not have been there for him when he was growing up.

The policeman is mostly worried about making his quota of traffic tickets for the week, and in this city they want a lot. He also knows he’s going to be late again, getting home for dinner. The paperwork on this will be more trouble than it’s worth.
The neighbor may be the only person there who cares. If her friend dies—well for an old woman there simply aren’t many options out there. It isn’t easy to find a good friend.

As you can see, at least four different stories could evolve from this one scene, depending on who your protagonist is, and whose point of view you follow. Sometimes, the perfect point of view pops out at you, as soon as you sit down to compose your story. But, there may also be those times when you need to compose your story three or more times, in order to find the perfect voice to carry your story across to your readers.
Next week, I will write a description of the various forms of point of view, or POV and how they can be used.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 5:42 am and is filed under Creative Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.