By Eliana Fulton
My favorite creative writing professor told me that perspective is like the camera lens in a movie. We can watch the story from someone’s eyes or as an outside party. The camera can move close to the characters or pull further away. We probably don’t take note of where the camera is, but it controls how close we are to the story, and, most importantly, whose story we’re watching.
In case you didn’t already know, there are 3 types of point of view (POVs) that a writer can choose.
First Person: The narrator of the book is one character that uses personal pronouns (I, me, my) to tell us the story through their eyes, with their thoughts and emotions. This is usually the main character, but it can be anyone that has access to the story.
Second Person: In this format the reader is the main character of the story. Second person is uncommon and primarily featured in “choose your own adventure” and how-to books. The narrator uses the pronoun “you” to refer to the reader.
Third Person: The narrator is an external body that uses pronouns like he, she, or they to describe the characters actions. This can come in 3 forms.
Third person limited reveals the thoughts and feelings of one primary character.
Third person omniscient can reveal the thoughts or feelings of any character.
Third person objective does not reveal any character's thoughts or feelings.
There are pros and cons to all of these perspectives, and it can be one of the most central decisions that authors need to make.
My favorite thing about creative writing is that there are no rules, so seeing books that break the norm is exciting. Stylistically, choosing a unique POV can bring a fresh take to any story.
People
People are the most obvious choice to tell a story, but which people do we provide the agency to narrate? This section has the most common of the uncommon POV choices.
Writing from a first or limited third person perspective that is not the main character or protagonist is an underused tactic. Changing the perspective from which the reader processes the actions can make their interpretation of the story more nuanced.
The most famous example of this off kilter perspective is Nick Calloway from The Great Gatsby. By choosing a unique point of view, Fitzgerald elevated his social commentary by adding a different observational interpretation. He also opened up the possibility of one of my favorite literary tools: the unreliable narrator.
The POV an author does not choose can create suspense by withholding information from the reader. If a main character had a big secret, then it might be wise to choose a POV that does not know about that secret, so that the reader can learn with the narrative guide.
Another common alternative POV choice is writing from a child’s perspective. Child’s eyes paint everything with a layer of innocence. Authors like Harper Lee use a young person’s perspective to contrast a dark plot and simplify moral dilemmas.
However, this is a difficult voice to create for an inner monologue. Many authors use third person to waive the responsibility of writing a child’s thoughts. The summary and explanatory sections still need to be complex without interrupting the narrative voice.
Not People
Another much less common route that more and more contemporary authors are taking is selecting a narrator that is living, but not a human. This allows the author to frame the story through a third party character that cannot easily contribute to the plot.
Multiple authors have used animals as their narrator such as Garth Stein did with The Art of Racing in the Rain. Animal or pet perspectives are a lot like children, they view the story with an element of disconnection and innocence. Conversely, dogs are highly attuned to particular worldly observations. For example, they have strong attentiveness to our health.
Whether it’s a mosquito, a goldfish, or even a houseplant, we can imagine that all living creatures make distinctive observations about their environment. By exploring how that third party views the world, we can highlight important information via perspective.
Outside of living objects, some very creative writers create perspectives out of sentient concepts—it’s not as complicated as it sounds. The concept I am most familiar with is death. I’m not talking about Hades or a guy in a hood that carries around a scythe. I’m talking about the unironic idea of what happens to a person when their heart and brain waves stop.
Markus Zusak wrote The Book Thief from the perspective of death itself. The novel takes place during World War 2, when death surrounds the characters. That powerful engagement with the concept is what made this unique perspective choice so compelling.
This choice is hard to conceptualize as a writer, but perhaps that’s a good thing. If this was the right choice for the story someone was writing, I would hope the idea might come to them naturally. Perhaps a story surrounded by life could be told by life, or Mother Nature could explain something happening to her. There are only a few circumstances in which this works best, but Zusak proved that it is possible.
A non-human voice does not come naturally to authors, but like I said, there are no rules! Use your imagination to create a narrative voice that paints a picture only that perspective could have. Include details specific to the creature of your choice, so that your reader can understand why you choice that voice to tell the story.
Objects
Writing from the perspective of an inanimate object is the least common POV that writers have used, but perhaps the most undervalued. Objects can’t object to any creative liberties that we take in writing from their perspectives.
Writers are at full liberty to adjust how the objects perceive space, time, atmosphere and other observational concepts. This can make something as mundane as a spoon seem extraordinary when we witness the world through its perspective.
This unique structure is also a great hook for readers who are curious what kind of choices the author has made in telling this story and why. Of course, the author needs to have good answers to these questions. Without a good reason behind the creative choice, the material itself can fall flat. It may seem gimmicky, cliche, or inconsistent.
The object has an emotional distance from heavy topics which grants readers a different way to understand those themes. Alternatively, an object could represent a large part of an extended metaphor or allegory.
When considering this option, remember that objects have no agency in the story, so narratively they’re very restrained. The object you choose should be present and purposeful. Just like the “non-humans,” objects have perspectives specific to their being that can change the way we understand the story.
Decisions, Decisions
Whether you’re implementing one of the creative routes I outlined, a traditional POV, or an alternating POV, you need to carefully determine how the story is told and who is telling it. The POV or POVs you choose as a writer affect every single page of the manuscript. Plot holes and characterization inconsistencies can be adjusted, but realizing that you wrote a full story from the wrong person’s perspective means rewriting the entire project.
To determine who or what is telling the story, ask yourself these questions:
Whose story is this?
Who has the most at stake?
Who will undergo the most dramatic character arc?
Whose perspective best aligns with your theme?
Who gets the best scenes? Or the best aspects of scenes?
(For multiple POVs) What does including this POV add to the narrative?
For some stories POV is obvious, but for others it can be good to have a tie breaker.
I honestly, and unironically, think of The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer. Meyer wrote three and a half books entirely in first person from Bella’s perspective only to switch to Jacob’s in the middle of the fourth book. This always struck me as strange and inconsistent, but as a storyteller, she had to make the switch. When Meyer’s main character no longer had interesting scenes, a character arc, or steady access to plot development she selected a POV that still had all of those qualities.
The reader’s eyes and ears need to be in the room where the story’s happening.
Although some authors use multiple alternating POV, either through third person omniscient or first person, the majority of stories require one singular POV, and sometimes it’s not who you expect when you conceptualise the story. Think of how many spin offs people have written from different POVs that completely change the make-up of the story.
Returning to Twilight, many people don’t know that Meyer wrote and published a few spin offs including a gender-swapped version of the story, and an alternate telling from Edward’s perspective. Midnight Sun, the alternate POV novel, was less successful than the original saga, and it told a very different story even as it detailed the same events.
How your readers perceive the story is just as vital, if not more vital, than what is happening in the story.
To determine how the primary perspective is going to tell the story, ask yourself these questions:
How much do I want my readers to know about this character?
How closely will this story follow its main character?
Does this POV grant enough information to the reader?
Does this style feel right?
Many authors favor a certain POV based on comfort level and personal taste. Some peopl don’t like how repetitive I statements can feel in first person, and others feel too disconnected from their characters without it.
Genres can lean towards certain POV choices as well. For example, Young Adult books tend to favor first person as an easy closeness between the young readers and characters. The first person voice is comfortable to read and doesn’t withhold much information.
In general, third person limited is the current contemporary literature trend. Third person limited allows the author to use their personal voice while still crafting a narrative one for the primary POV character. Additionally, the limitations of this POV grant the story some capability for suspense because the narrator can filter all of the character’s information.
On the other hand, not many books have been written in a completely objective third person because it creates too much distance between the character’s intentions and the reader. For all we know, your main character could be SuperMan, but because we can’t hear him thinking about saving the world, we only see him as Clark Kent. Clark Kent was kind of a boring dude.
Third person omniscient is rising in popularity with contemporary fiction in alternating POV stories. Authors with scenes happening simultaneously across space and time can jump to third person perspectives of different characters between chapters or, if the characters are in the same space between paragraphs.
It’s possible to jump POVs in first person, but that maneuver is even more precarious. Multiple POVs is tricky for any author, and it makes other decisions like narrative voice, and reader/character intimacy difficult to clarify.
The POV you choose (first, third limited, omniscient, objective) determines your readers level of intimacy with the characters.
Practice What I Preach
For an unconventional perspective, third person might be a good way to make up for the insecurity that comes with making an out of the box choice. For example, an object could sit in a room while a scene is happening and consider its relation to the action.
The flower pot felt its moisture evaporate from the hot sun in the window as the couple that owned it continued to fight viscously. The antiquated glassware began to wonder if it would ever be filled with flowers again.
By writing that short excerpt in third person limited I tainted the perspective of the story with an extra insight specific to the object.
In a first person voice, the scene turns into a more emotional feeling rather than a matter of fact happening.
The sun scooped up my remaining droplet of moisture, and I could feel angry sound waves echoing against my glassware as my couple shouted at each other. I shook against the table, hoping they would one day fill me with flowers again.
Narrative Perch
The final element to consider is the overall narrative perch of the perspective. Narrative perch simply means considering where and when you are telling the story from. Is it a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? Maybe far away or maybe real nearby?
Whenever and wherever the narrative voice is telling us the story needs to be determined at the beginning. There’s nothing more bothersome in a round of revision than clarifying every single tense mistake. The common choice, especially with fiction, is past tense and local.
In the context of unusual POVs, I recommend using past tense for children’s POVs. This way you can imagine the voice of an adult recollecting a story from when they were young instead of imitating a child’s voice.
Through Someone’s Eyes
There is an open opportunity to take a creative chance at the ground level of a writing project. The only way to know if it works is by trying it out to see what happens. Whether writing from the POV of a lamp, a cat, or a nosy neighbor works for the whole of your project or not, it’s a great exercise in perspective.
Practicing creativity can be tricky, but this is a way to make it really fun. How did the poster of your favorite singer view your last breakup? What does a therapist think when they realize two of their patients are talking about each other? What do the polar bears think about climate change? The possibilities are endless, and picking an interesting POV can make your story more interesting without ever changing the plot.
While you draft, trying out different POVs can be a great way of getting to know your characters, settings, and story better. In execution, it’s a fun way of making your book stand out.