Point of View ~ POV

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn't matter.
Edward Albee

 POV or point of view, is the writer’s tool that is going to make or break your story.

The point of view in a story is the narrator’s voice that is telling the story. It is whose eyes the reader will be seeing through. Like Alice looking through the looking glass? Mad Hatter couldn’t tell you what Alice saw now could he?

In first person POV we will see through Jane’s eyes. What Jane sees, smells, hears, and especially what Jane thinks. (I think of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill house.) This is an excellent portrayal of first person POV. But with first person POV, you have limited yourself to only Janes thoughts. The other character’s being introduced to the story will only be a mirror of what JANE portrays them to be. Again read the above novel by Shirley Jackson and you’ll get the idea of how paranoid her main character sounds.

Now trouble arrives when you try saying that John heard a noise that sounded like glass shattering. You have now shifted POV’s and this can be a dangerous line to cross when making it clear to the reader that this is Jane’s story and not John’s.

When you’re a beginning writer it is fundamentally important to learn the craft of POV.

I’ll try to make this simple, as if POV is ever simple. It can get pretty complicated but I’ll give you the basics. First person, second person and third person POV.

In first person, we’re going to use the word I a lot because I am going to tell you the story from my POV. Like many blogs that are written in first person POV, we use the word I to show that this is my perspective and not yours.

POV is basically, inside whose head are you going to tell the story from? You need to understand this factor of POV if you are ever to be taken seriously as a writer. Not understanding this concept can make your writing look amateurish to say the least and also make it look like you haven’t studied the craft long enough to understand.

  

Second person is a little, no A LOT trickier. I’ll let you read about it here, since I still get confused with it myself.

Third person POV is the point of view that most authors use. It is much like the first person, except you’ll use he saw the road crack before them instead of I saw the road crack. It is essentially using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’.

Now the tricky third person pov is the ever-elusive third person omniscient. Though omniscient is on occasion used in the beginning of the story, the writer switches to third person to get a tight grip on the main characters view.

Unbeknownst to me, Marge didn’t like the day that was about to unfold.

OMNISCIENT POV: This is where the reader is in everyone’s head and not really clinging to one character and getting to know him/her. You virtually give up the characters by using this point of view because no one can carry this all the way through a story and make it a profitable best seller. If you know of one author that has, then do tell! You can start a novel in this way, but really we switch to maybe a third person POV

The pov is tricky in writing so if you plan on mastering the craft of writing this would be a helpful tool to practice, read others work, and implement it into your own writing. By reading what others have written before you, you’ll get the idea of POV and you’ll also recognize WHEN the shifts occur and how to masterfully shift pov yourself.

The exercise I like to practice with most? Say we have a prompt of 500 words. Write the exercise in first person. Try the same story only switch to third person. Write it again in third person omniscient. (I NEVER tackle 2^nd person and that is why I won’t touch the subject!)

Show your writing group your different pov’s of your stories. You ARE in a workshop right? After all my blogging about how important it is to surround yourself with other writers? SHAME ON YOU!

Your writing group will be able to help you see the difference, feel the difference and master the different ways to serve the POV to your reader. There isn’t enough room in a 500-word-blog to give you ALL of the details of POV, but trust me on this one. This is one tricky part of the craft to master. But once you have it licked, your writing will shine like the morning sunrise!

For further reading:

Grammar Girl

Suite 101

Book Bites:

The Power of Pointof View by Alicia Rasley

Rivet your Readers with deepPOV by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

POV~ Point of View ~ Take II

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn't matter.
Edward Albee

*** 

We’ll try this form of POV. It is the writer’s tool that is going to make or break your story.

The point of view in a story is the narrator’s voice that is telling the story. It is whose eyes the reader will be seeing through. Like Alice looking through the looking glass? Mad Hatter couldn’t tell you what Alice saw now could he?

In first person POV we will see through Jane’s eyes. What Jane sees, smells, hears, and especially what Jane thinks. (I think of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill house.) This is an excellent portrayal of first person POV. But with first person POV, you have limited yourself to only Jane's thoughts. The other character’s being introduced to the story will only be a mirror of what JANE portrays them to be. Again read the above novel by Shirley Jackson and you’ll get the idea of how paranoid her main character sounds.

Now trouble arrives when you try saying that John heard a noise that sounded like glass shattering. You have now shifted POV’s and this can be a dangerous line to cross when making it clear to the reader that this is Jane’s story and not John’s.

When you’re a beginning writer it is fundamentally important to learn the craft of POV.

  

Third person POV is the point of view that most authors use. It is much like the first person, except you’ll use he saw the road crack before them instead of I saw the road crack. It is essentially using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’.

Now the tricky third person pov is the ever-elusive third person omniscient. Though omniscient is on occasion used in the beginning of the story, the writer switches to third person to get a tight grip on the main characters view.

The pov is tricky in writing so if you plan on mastering the craft of writing this would be a helpful tool to practice, read others work, and implement into your own writing. By reading what others have written before you, you’ll get the idea of POV and you’ll also recognize WHEN the shifts occur and how to masterfully shift pov yourself.

The exercise I like to practice with most? Say we have a prompt of 500 words (excellent exercises from Pumping Your Muse.) Write the exercise in first person. Try the same story only switch to third person. Write it again in third person omniscient. 

(I NEVER tackle 2^nd person and that is why I won’t touch the subject!)

Show your writing group your different pov’s of your stories. You ARE in a workshop right? After all my blogging about how important it is to surround yourself with other writers? SHAME ON YOU!

Your writing group will be able to help you see the difference, feel the difference and master the different ways to serve the POV to your reader. There isn’t enough room in a 500-word-blog to give you ALL of the details of POV, but trust me on this one. This is one tricky part of the craft to master. But once you have it licked, your writing will shine like the morning sunrise!

POV~ Point of View

"What a writer brings to any story is an attitude…" John Gregory Dunne
***

So you want to be a writer? Well you need to know how to write first. I see so many say that they are writers but have they reached into their reader, turned their innards into putty and made them feel as if they were in the very scene. Well depending on which point of view you’re writing from, you’ll need to learn this technique if you were ever to call yourself a writer.

My target audience is writers, as such, you should be able to read and be touched by what I’m saying, carry away with you some new insight of your arsenal of writing, and know, I am a writer myself, so not everything on here is targeted at anyone, my pent up anger lashing out at you, this is MY WRITING. A friend said to me yesterday, it was “scarily creative and descriptive.”

You know what? That is what I go for. I want you to react. Not to think I am targeting you or anyone else but to react to my style AS A WRITER. I tried a second person POV for the first time last week. I have never done that and as I wrote it, after I wrote it, I thought WOW! That was good! Empowering too because I felt it was some good writing!

I got no comments on it, but I hear the rumors seeping through the muddy waters of the so-called writers. They think they can write and are often times put off by my arrogance, knowledge, skill, and style. I figured why they are so envious of me; they wish they could write like that and after years of trying and studying, they still can’t write.

I apologize. I’ve written all of my life and I KNOW what words are going to prick your nerves. I studied psychology and I know what is going to get you hell-bent on liking me or not liking me. Maybe I do seem unstable, I’m a writer! Are writers ever stable? If you say yes, then YOU my friend are not a writer in the least.

Some say I wear my heart on my sleeve, some say I have an angry tone, some will even go as far as to say I am unstable. You know what I say? I am honest to a fault, my blog is not for me to wear a mask and hide behind; good honest truth and love is what you’ll get from me, and some good writing! And you know what else? I don’t remember any of you walking a mile in my shoes, so who are YOU to judge ME?

I also say take a look in the mirror right now, go on I’ll wait. ....  ....  .... Okay, Did you like what you saw? Are you honest, loving, caring, giving, willing to die for another person? Do you look in the mirror and see shame, torment, guilt? From MY point of view, I see me for all I am and all I will accomplish. I see you? Well I don’t. You’re behind  mask, and that my friends is MY point of view!

1st person: I am moving on.
2nd person: *You have decided to move on from all the childish behavior.
3rd person: They tried to take her down, but she was bigger than them, Joni has moved on. 

*edited

POV ~ Point of View

Jas. 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

***

Recently I have noticed the biggest problem for new writer’s is not getting the story out, it is keeping the story consistent.

Consistency in POV and consistency with tenses. Sure I see alot of grammatical issues being tossed out there as a new writer, but POV is one tough element of the craft that needs to be honed and mastered.

Mastering the POV will help in keeping the work consistent.

We at f2k, have an exercise this week in POV and when asked to shift pov, alot of people write the same exact paragraph and switched the POV from “He said” to “I said”. To me, shifting the point of view changes the perspective and the ‘who’ is seeing what and from whose point of view. 

Here’s an example of something I’ve been working on: Two pov’s and different perspectives arise.

POV 1 ~ First person
As I hover over my lifeless body lying below me, I wonder where I am. The aroma of a fresh garden surrounds me making me feel like a weightless cloud. I want to yell down to myself, but I can’t seem to communicate from here. I walk slowly toward the endless portal that awaits me. I float like a feather on an endless air drifting into the unknown. No claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, just eerie warmth surrounds me. A gravitational pull sucks me like a huge non-existent vacuum of space and time. I turn away from the light and try in a motionless effort to reclaim the body I left. Suddenly, I awaken to the trickle of an ice cold shower that releases me from the warm safe haven. I scan the bathroom and wonder how on earth did I get in here?

POV2 ~ Third person
Look at her, a lifeless form in need of assistance. She has left her body only to discover the realm of the unknown. The bright light that has hold of her won’t let her go. She can wriggle and worm all she wants but it is pulling with an endless flux of gravity. She knows this is the end of the line, the place she’s heard about but never wanted to be at the cusp of her youth. She's grappling with fear yet releasing herself without a fight, letting herself drift into the aromatic garden that waits. As moments pass, time is of the essence.
She needs to be revived; it’s not her time. Wait; look; she’s in bathroom shower. How on earth did she get there?

The same paragraph but from different perspectives, and two different pov’s.  This shift sometimes confuses new writer’s because they can’t see from anyone else's eyes. They are looking at the paragraph and thinking they need to write the exact same words but change *I* into *She*. When I shift pov, I see from different eyes.

I think we need to look at perspective as much as POV. Work on the POV, sifting through all the knowledge you can and retry the exercise and I can bet you’re perspective will change too. You’ll be seeing through different eyes in no time.

Now get moving, Write Right!

Writer's on the run...

Ps. 45: 1 My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

***

Look at them go. We’re off to a running start at f2k and the writers are eager as ever, some are running the halls, posting work in the cafe, commenting in other rooms; they’re just running rampant through the halls.

Lesson two was a tough one, had a lot of people confused and bewildered with the use of the senses, but from what I read, they seemed to nail the lesson and within word count, give or take a few from other countries who don’t quite understand our American terminology for things.

Yes we have wannabe writers from across the globe! Singapore, Australia, UK, Argentina, Finland, you name it and the writers are there. I think that is what I love most about the f2k course, I get to meet, or read, people from around the world! I feel like I travel there without leaving my home by hearing them tell their tales and talk about the cuisine, or culture.

A lot of times as the weeks progress, these writer’s lose interest because they realize something, writing is hard. They thought that just because they wrote a story in grade school they were destined to be a writer. Some are trying out to see if maybe this is what has been calling them all along. Doctors, lawyers, you’d be surprised who is taking the leap from their job and trying their hand at writing.

Along the way in our six-seven week program however, they realize that writing is work. Our next lesson being point of view, what we writers call POV, will be even more challenging as the lesson before. Some will grasp it, some will shrug and learn it, some will run like wind, in the other direction, back to their day jobs.

No one alluded to the fact that writing was this easy peasy chunky cheesy kind of work, I’ve always stated that it is hard work, not something you can just ‘do’. It takes time and learning new skills will at least send you in the right direction.

When someone says, “What is a paragraph?” I tend to wonder how they ever thought that becoming a writer meant writing words or a story without knowing the simple basic element of a paragraph. It is simple to me because I’m an American, educated in grammar where some countries have more important things to teach about, and English grammar is not one of them.

I want to see all the writers succeed and helping them get there I feel is my civic duty. Okay, so it’s not my civic duty, it is my duty as a writer, to help other writers along the way become all that they can be, even if it means to teach them what a paragraph is and the purpose in a paragraph.

Write right writer’s. Have fun and enjoy the view. Writing is hard work, but work that is well worth the journey taken. 

Point of View

This week is point of view or POV for short. You want my point of view about the state of this country? I’ll gladly give it to you. Oh, that’s not the POV you want to hear about is it; you want the POV in writing.

Recently I have noticed the biggest problem for new writer’s is not getting the story out, it is keeping the story consistent.

Consistency in POV and consistency with tenses. Sure I see alot of grammatical issues being tossed out there as a new writer, but POV is one tough element of the craft that needs to be honed and mastered.

Mastering the POV will help in keeping the work consistent.

We at f2k, have an exercise this week in POV and when asked to shift pov, alot of people will write the same exact paragraph and switch the POV from “He said” to “I said”. To me, shifting the point of view changes the perspective and the ‘who’ is seeing what and from whose point of view.

Here’s an example of something I’m working on: Two pov’s and different perspectives arise.

POV 1 ~ First person
As I hover over my lifeless body lying below me, I wonder where I am. The aroma of a fresh garden surrounds me making me feel like a weightless cloud. I want to yell down to myself, but I can’t seem to communicate from here. I walk slowly toward the endless portal that awaits me. I float like a feather on an endless air drifting into the unknown. No claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, just eerie warmth surrounds me. A gravitational pull sucks me like a huge non-existent vacuum of space and time. I turn away from the light and try in a motionless effort to reclaim the body I left. Suddenly, I awaken to the trickle of an ice cold shower that releases me from the warm safe haven. I scan the bathroom and wonder how on earth did I get in here?

POV2 ~ Third person
Look at her, a lifeless form in need of assistance. She has left her body only to discover the realm of the unknown. The bright light that has hold of her won’t let her go. She can wriggle and worm all she wants but it is pulling with an endless flux of gravity. She knows this is the end of the line, the place she’s heard about but never wanted to be at the cusp of her youth. She's grappling with fear yet releasing herself without a fight, letting herself drift into the aromatic garden that waits. As moments pass, time is of the essence.
She needs to be revived; it’s not her time. Wait; look; she’s in bathroom shower. How on earth did she get there?

The same paragraph but from different perspectives, and two different pov’s. This shift sometimes confuses new writer’s because they can’t see from anyone elses eyes. They are looking at the paragraph and thinking they need to write the exact same words but change *I* into *She*. When I shift pov, I see from someone else eyes.

I think we need to look at perspective as much as POV. Work on the POV, sifting through all the knowledge you can and try this exercise from a writers POV and I can bet you’re perspective will change too. You’ll be seeing through different eyes in no time.

Now get moving, Write Right!

POV and tense shift

This is a much needed repost of mine. :-)

Recently I have noticed the biggest problem for new writer’s is not getting the story out, it is keeping the story consistent.

Consistency in POV and consistency with tenses. Sure I see alot of grammatical issues being tossed out there as a new writer, but POV is one tough element of the craft that needs to be honed and mastered.

Mastering the POV will help in keeping the work consistent.

We, f2k, had an exercise this week in POV and when asked to shift pov, alot of people wrote the same exact paragraph and switched the POV from “He said” to “I said”. To me, shifting the point of view changes the perspective and the ‘who’ is seeing what and from whose point of view.

Here’s an example of something I’m working on: Two pov’s and different perspectives arise.

POV 1 ~ First person
As I hover over my lifeless body lying below me, I wonder where I am. The aroma of a fresh garden surrounds me making me feel like a weightless cloud. I want to yell down to myself, but I can’t seem to communicate from here. I walk slowly toward the endless portal that awaits me. I float like a feather on an endless air drifting into the unknown. No claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, just eerie warmth surrounds me. A gravitational pull sucks me like a huge non-existent vacuum of space and time. I turn away from the light and try in a motionless effort to reclaim the body I left. Suddenly, I awaken to the trickle of an ice cold shower that releases me from the warm safe haven. I scan the bathroom and wonder how on earth did I get in here?

POV2 ~ Third person
Look at her, a lifeless form in need of assistance. She has left her body only to discover the realm of the unknown. The bright light that has hold of her won’t let her go. She can wriggle and worm all she wants but it is pulling with an endless flux of gravity. She knows this is the end of the line, the place she’s heard about but never wanted to be at the cusp of her youth. She's grappling with fear yet releasing herself without a fight, letting herself drift into the aromatic garden that waits. As moments pass, time is of the essence.
She needs to be revived; it’s not her time. Wait; look; she’s in bathroom shower. How on earth did she get there?

The same paragraph but from different perspectives, and two different pov’s. This shift sometimes confuses new writer’s because they can’t see from anyone elses eyes. They are looking at the paragraph and thinking they need to write the exact same words but change *I* into *She*. When I shift pov, I see from someone else eyes.

I think we need to look at perspective as much as POV. Work on the POV, sifting through all the knowledge you can and retry the exercise and I can bet you’re perspective will change too. You’ll be seeing through different eyes in no time.

Now get moving, Write Right!

One's POV

We’ve already blogged about the theme. That is what your story will be about when you write it. We’ve attempted the plot of your story now lets see what POV is all about.

The point of view in a story is the narrator’s voice that is telling the story. It is whose eyes the reader will be seeing through. Like Alice looking through the looking glass? Mad Hatter couldn’t tell you what Alice saw now could he?

In first person POV we will see through Jane’s eyes. What Jane sees, smells, hears, and especially what Jane thinks. (I think of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill house.) This is an excellent portrayal of first person POV. But with first person POV, you have limited yourself to only Janes thoughts. The other characters being introduced to the story will only be a mirror of what JANE portrays them to be. Again read the above novel by Shirley Jackson and you’ll get the idea of how paranoid her main character sounds.

Now trouble arrives when you try saying that John heard a noise that sounded like glass shattering. You have now shifted POV’s and this can be a dangerous line to cross when making it clear to the reader that this is Jane’s story and not John’s.

When you’re a beginning writer it is fundamentally important to learn the craft of POV.

Third person POV is the point of view that most authors use. It is much like the first person, except you’ll use, he saw the road crack before them instead of, I saw the road crack. It is essentially using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’.

Now the tricky third person pov is the ever elusive third person omniscient. Though omniscient is on occasion used in the beginning of the story, the writer switches to third person to get a tight grip on the main characters view.

The pov is tricky in writing so if you plan on mastering the craft of writing this would be a helpful tool to practice, read others work, and implement into your own writing. By reading what others have wrote before you, you’ll get the idea of POV and you’ll also recognize WHEN the shifts occur and how to masterfully shift pov yourself.

The exercise I like to practice with most? Say we have a prompt of 500 words (excellent exercises from Pumping Your Muse.) Write the exercise in first person. Try the same story only switch to third person. Write it again in third person omniscient. (I NEVER tackle 2nd person and that is why I won’t touch the subject!)

Show your writing group your different pov’s of your stories. You ARE in a workshop right? After all my blogging about how important it is to surround yourself with other writers? SHAME ON YOU!

Your writing group will be able to help you see the difference, feel the difference and master the different ways to serve the POV to your reader. There isn’t enough room in a 500-word-blog to give you ALL of the details of POV, but trust me on this one. This is one tricky part of the craft to master. But once you have it licked, your writing will soar to new heights like the morning sunrise!

Finding Your Voice

Did you ever wake up in the morning unable to speak? You drink some water, clear your throat, and voila your voice has come back to you after a long night’s rest. This is the problem that writer’s face daily. They need to find their voice and often times it has slithered away from them.

Your voice in a story is going to be the way that the character "speaks" to you as you read. The voice in first, second or third person will more than likely be the characters voice that you hear, but in non-fiction, the voice is usually that of the author.

You’re not going to speak in your own (author’s) voice when writing a story, you’re going to cross boundaries and give your character his or her very own uniquely developed voice. Say Martha is five, you will need to find the child within you and create around you a child’s world. It is through this world that you will be accustomed to her voice.

The voice is also going to give us a theme and a tone for our story. Through dialect you will also be giving your character a personality. One that you can refine as you go along or sculpt out of clay and make her/him a solid presence in your work. Do you remember Scout and Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird? What lovely characters they turned out to be. Without their unique voice would that book have been as successful as it was?

I like the first person stance for a character because I can make the reader feel as if I’m talking directly to them. Example: "Did I ever tell you about the time…" In this sentence the reader knows I am about to divulge some grand secret that I’ve kept hidden all of my life, but in essence it is my CHARACTERS voice who is going to do all of the divulging.

Grammar and spelling will tell a lot about your character too. Maybe she has a southern drawl and as such her voice is going to have maybe a slight twang to her words. In this case your perfect grammar and spelling goes out the window as you develop the girls voice.

You’ll only use the spelling and grammatical errors when the person is speaking right? Right! Or otherwise your book, novel, Short Story will come across as sloppy. And watch the overuse of many of your words. Sometimes "y’know," can become used so much we lose sight of the character as our temperatures rise and the anger builds from reading someone’s over-use of a word.

Now remember to find a voice and stick to it. Don’t jump around giving someone a Southern accent and then find your character later in the story has gone to eloquent etiquette school and didn’t tell YOU! You’re the author, you are the artist, the creator. You’re the one who will make your voice sing!