Getting cranky about point of view
It should come as no surprise that I have Strong Feelings about How Things Should Work in stories. Sometimes I imagine there are dozens of writers out there rejoicing that I left school and became a librarian and not an editor. Still, I am an especially critical reader, in the sense that something violating one of my 'rules' pulls me out of the story, so much so that I can't enjoy a book because I'm taking it apart mechanically. Sometimes I'm even stopped by complete inability to get past my extreme judgment of the Things That Are Wrong.
I'm sure you know what I mean - the thing that a story does that you just can't tolerate. It's happened in the past several books I've read and I'm getting very irritable about it - I can't tell if I'm being reasonable, if I'm just in one of those extremely critical moods, or if this is something that doesn't really bother most other readers. Either way, my issue in this instance with narrative point of view.
Here is my rule: Be consistent with your point of view! If you have multiple characters narrating - in alternating first person, alternating close third person, or a mix of those (*shudder*), give your reader a rhythm, or a pattern. If you have three narrators and your points of view go from First Character to Second Character to Third Character, I am expecting you to go back to First Character. If you go to Second Character, give your reader a reason - either there's an emotional connection, or it's that other character's perspective on an important scene. Do not, please do not shuffle up your alternating points of view so your reader never has any idea who is coming next. It drives me fucking bananas.
If you're going to shuffle things wildly around, give your reader a narrator stamp or a time stamp (though I tend to hate those things. I mean, I'd rather have one single point of view or one reliably omniscient POV in the narrative in the first place, but if you have a lot of people telling the story, I'd rather have the cues then not.)
Recent examples: I started reading Fire Will Fall, by Carol Plum-Ucci which seemed from the first chapter to be a story that was going to revolve around 4 characters. The first chapter was from the point of view of the kid I assumed was the main character - after all, we were starting with him! He gets into a car where the other 3 characters are waiting. Next chapter, another character in the car. Third chapter, third character. You can guess what I was expecting in the fourth chapter, right? What I got was another character entirely, in another setting. I put the book down and didn't pick it back up. (Not just for the POV shifts, mind you - there were two homophobic moments that had already put me off. But the alternating first person POV just wasn't going to make up for anything.)
Just at lunch, I started reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. First person point of view for two large chapters with a character I was really enjoying, and then, bam, chapter three is surprise third person POV, where a character we met earlier is watching the narrator and thinking creeper thoughts about her. WHY.
I mean, alternate from first person to third person, sure, it's true you can't get some information out when you have a first person narrator, but, factor all of this into your decision when you're deciding on your mechanics. Think about what information you need to get out and how you're going to do it. If you need your random creeper vampire to sneak in while the first person narrator is sleeping, introduce the potential existence of a third person narrator to your reader as soon as possible. (In the case of A Discovery of Witches, 30 pages in was not as soon as possible as far as I was concerned, because I was thrown by the shift.) Or design your chapter structure so that there's a narrative break that transitions your reader easily from one point of view to another.
I have Strong Feelings about how point of view characters change the very heart of a story in the first place, so that certainly informs my extreme pickiness. Stories are never the same stories if you change who is telling them to you. Think about a story we all know, like Unholyverse, and how we see Frank and Gerard's big emotional reveal - and the consequent big falling out - in Staring Through the Demons from Mikey's perspective. It's not the same kind of reveal as it would be if it had been from Frank or Gerard's perspective. It's still heart-wrenching, but it's a different kind of heart-wrenching because of whose head we are in when we see it happen.
Basically, what I want from anyone writing any sort of POV that alternates in any way is a way to tell what to expect when I turn the page. Don't confuse your reader with mechanics. Your job is to keep them in the story, to keep them interested, compelled, rapt, and you can't do that if the road map of your story doesn't make sense. In fact, scratch that metaphor, point of view isn't even the road map, it's the road - and switching up your point of view in unexpected or inconsistent ways is like throwing in poorly marked rotaries (I hate rotaries, what a surprise!), or sharp left turns onto gravel.
In the end, these are just my judgmental and sometimes unreasonably cranky opinions, and they aren't even steadfast or unyielding. Sometimes I enjoy a story despite my point of view issues with it, and sometimes the writing, the character, or the combination is enough to stop me from noticing a style choice or a mechanical decision that I otherwise would have scorned. I'm sure someday I'll end up being faced with writing a story of my own where I have to use alternating first person POV interspersed with close third person chapters to get the story to work. I might even have to do it with no pattern or rhythm or reasonable explanation for why one narrator comes before or after another. But I guarantee when that happens, I'll be making crazy faces you'll be able to see from space.
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I'm sure you know what I mean - the thing that a story does that you just can't tolerate. It's happened in the past several books I've read and I'm getting very irritable about it - I can't tell if I'm being reasonable, if I'm just in one of those extremely critical moods, or if this is something that doesn't really bother most other readers. Either way, my issue in this instance with narrative point of view.
Here is my rule: Be consistent with your point of view! If you have multiple characters narrating - in alternating first person, alternating close third person, or a mix of those (*shudder*), give your reader a rhythm, or a pattern. If you have three narrators and your points of view go from First Character to Second Character to Third Character, I am expecting you to go back to First Character. If you go to Second Character, give your reader a reason - either there's an emotional connection, or it's that other character's perspective on an important scene. Do not, please do not shuffle up your alternating points of view so your reader never has any idea who is coming next. It drives me fucking bananas.
If you're going to shuffle things wildly around, give your reader a narrator stamp or a time stamp (though I tend to hate those things. I mean, I'd rather have one single point of view or one reliably omniscient POV in the narrative in the first place, but if you have a lot of people telling the story, I'd rather have the cues then not.)
Recent examples: I started reading Fire Will Fall, by Carol Plum-Ucci which seemed from the first chapter to be a story that was going to revolve around 4 characters. The first chapter was from the point of view of the kid I assumed was the main character - after all, we were starting with him! He gets into a car where the other 3 characters are waiting. Next chapter, another character in the car. Third chapter, third character. You can guess what I was expecting in the fourth chapter, right? What I got was another character entirely, in another setting. I put the book down and didn't pick it back up. (Not just for the POV shifts, mind you - there were two homophobic moments that had already put me off. But the alternating first person POV just wasn't going to make up for anything.)
Just at lunch, I started reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. First person point of view for two large chapters with a character I was really enjoying, and then, bam, chapter three is surprise third person POV, where a character we met earlier is watching the narrator and thinking creeper thoughts about her. WHY.
I mean, alternate from first person to third person, sure, it's true you can't get some information out when you have a first person narrator, but, factor all of this into your decision when you're deciding on your mechanics. Think about what information you need to get out and how you're going to do it. If you need your random creeper vampire to sneak in while the first person narrator is sleeping, introduce the potential existence of a third person narrator to your reader as soon as possible. (In the case of A Discovery of Witches, 30 pages in was not as soon as possible as far as I was concerned, because I was thrown by the shift.) Or design your chapter structure so that there's a narrative break that transitions your reader easily from one point of view to another.
I have Strong Feelings about how point of view characters change the very heart of a story in the first place, so that certainly informs my extreme pickiness. Stories are never the same stories if you change who is telling them to you. Think about a story we all know, like Unholyverse, and how we see Frank and Gerard's big emotional reveal - and the consequent big falling out - in Staring Through the Demons from Mikey's perspective. It's not the same kind of reveal as it would be if it had been from Frank or Gerard's perspective. It's still heart-wrenching, but it's a different kind of heart-wrenching because of whose head we are in when we see it happen.
Basically, what I want from anyone writing any sort of POV that alternates in any way is a way to tell what to expect when I turn the page. Don't confuse your reader with mechanics. Your job is to keep them in the story, to keep them interested, compelled, rapt, and you can't do that if the road map of your story doesn't make sense. In fact, scratch that metaphor, point of view isn't even the road map, it's the road - and switching up your point of view in unexpected or inconsistent ways is like throwing in poorly marked rotaries (I hate rotaries, what a surprise!), or sharp left turns onto gravel.
In the end, these are just my judgmental and sometimes unreasonably cranky opinions, and they aren't even steadfast or unyielding. Sometimes I enjoy a story despite my point of view issues with it, and sometimes the writing, the character, or the combination is enough to stop me from noticing a style choice or a mechanical decision that I otherwise would have scorned. I'm sure someday I'll end up being faced with writing a story of my own where I have to use alternating first person POV interspersed with close third person chapters to get the story to work. I might even have to do it with no pattern or rhythm or reasonable explanation for why one narrator comes before or after another. But I guarantee when that happens, I'll be making crazy faces you'll be able to see from space.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)