PERCEPTION, WHOSE? *

 

One of my favorite Jewish jokes goes like this:

Two people have an argument and go to the rabbi to rule who’s right. After hearing the first person, the rabbi says, “You’re right.” The second person protests that he hasn’t had a chance to state his case, and after he does, the rabbi says to the second person,” You’re right.”

A third person hears the whole spiel and protests. “Rabbi, they can’t both be right.”

To that, the rabbi says to the third person, “You’re right, too!”

 

That says it.

 

It depends on perception. For storytelling purposes, it’s called point of view (POV) and it makes all the difference.

 

I’ve had feedback that said something a character was saying was factually incorrect, urging me to correct it. “You don’t want young readers to think this is so,” the feedback goes.

But it was correct. It was right from that character’s perception.

 

This is why I have an aversion to politically motivated fiction, confusing a version of secular piety with the truth that a particular character’s perception is what it is. Writing a POV well must be the character’s truth, not “what you want young readers (or any readers) to think.”

 

*Never mind the grammatically challenged title of this post. Scrambling language rules wakes one up, at least according to my POV. 🙂

POINT OF VIEW (aka POV)

 

The voice of a story comes to me in the form of a line. For me, it’s usually the first sentence/paragraph.

 

This line also contains the point of view. I don’t recall ever “choosing” it, it chose itself.

 

This post explains how pivotal the POV is to the rest of the story. It is more important than plot points or list of characters or even theme. The first two evolve and change as one drafts and later revises, the last emerges on its own if the story is worth its salt and pepper.

 

But the POV determines almost everything, and if (unlike me) you aren’t seeing it clearly and wonder whose it is, consider how much difference it would make if the narrative thread is seen from, say, Aunt Olga’s vantage point or Cousin Vladimir’s. It makes all the difference.

 

There is also the so-called omniscient POV, less humbly called G-d’s. I don’t write this all-seeing POV because 1. I don’t know how to do it justice, and 2. The remove feel of it doesn’t drive my writerly engine.

Long ago, a writing friend asked me to read part of a novel she was working on and asked if the POV was omniscient.

“Actually, it isn’t. It’s ‘head hopping’,” I said.

Head hopping is moving from different characters inner most awareness without so much as taking a breath, which causes a jumble and disjointed state in a reader. Omniscience requires some remove. A lot of novice writers confuse the two.

My friend resolved to pick one character’s vantage point and stick with it.

 

When writing in first person, it’s clear whose POV it is. When writing in third person, it’s important not to stray from what the character could know or see or even overhear. If more than one POV is needed, there are good novels that alternate different chapters clearly marked for changing the POV. A classic example of multiple POV is The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg.

 

I will continue to let my stories choose, because it works for the way I work.

POV^

A Conversation with a Four-year-old

This morning I had this conversation with a four-year-old who lives next door.

            4YO: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Cleaning my backyard.”

4YO: “Why you’re not cleaning my backyard?”

Me: “Because it’s yours. You could clean your backyard, and I will clean mine.”

4YO: “I think that’s funny.”

We both laughed. Me, because his conclusion was funny to me.

When writing for young’uns, it’s good to remember they see things from a different perch. 

Bless my neighbors for sharing their kids, when mine are no longer the age I write for.