The Effect of POV on Narrative - Manipulating the Reader and What they Know for Greatest Effect

The Effect of POV on Narrative - Manipulating the Reader and What they Know for Greatest Effect

This is the second topic in my exploration of narrative. The introductory post and the other posts I've written on the topic can be found here: Narration vs Dialogue and Action - Where it Fits in the Tool Box

Now. POV (or 'point of view' for those not familiar with the lingo), impacts on narrative style significantly. What is described is inherently influenced by who describes something. Description and exposition that is done well pulls it's weight.  And that, in my opinion, is the most important thing when talking about narrative description and exposition: that your narrative does more than one thing.

So your reader should be able to learn something about your characters from how they filter the world. If you POV is 1st person (I, me, we), then you're going to be quite heavily filtering all your descriptions through the character. No two first person characters should walk into the room and focus on the same things, or describe them in the same way.


If, for example, you have a character from a desert country (character A), and a character from a country that is temperate, and has no issue with water conservation (character B), and you have them walk into a room with a dripping tap. Maybe they'll both notice. More likely, however, character B will focus on what is important to them in the room - the open windows if they're cold, or the way the room looks like it's going to cost less than 30 dollars a night to sleep in. Character A will focus on the dripping tap. It might not be their primary focus, but if they're from a place where you can't water their lawns, and water sometimes has to be trucked in? It's going to annoy them, dripping away in the back of their mind until they finally crack and turn it off.

So our character's backgrounds influence how they see things. So too do their goals and ambitions. If Character A has just brought the place and intends to let it out, he'll be focusing on the scuffed carpet, checking if the windows close, thinking about re-doing the plumbing because surely the tenant wants taps that actually turn off. Say character B has said he's coming along to look at renting the place, but he's actually trying to get off the streets while the police seek him out. He'll notice the open windows, assess them as both an exit and entry point. He'll notice the table, which might just be solid enough to hide behind. He'll flinch when the Character A's phone goes off, both because he's easily startled, but he also may notice that there's a siren in the background of the song. He'll be looking towards the door, listening to every car as it passes by outside. Waiting, just waiting, for one to slow down and stop.

The realtor (Character A) will also be waiting for one to slow down and stop, but he'll be listening out for new tenants, thinking about how he can rent this place to them. He might be eyeing up those who come in the house, more/or less (it could go either way) inclined to rent to someone from the same low class background as himself. He may be proud of this place, running his hands over the furniture, rapping his knuckles on the wooden kitchen bench because no place he'd ever lived had furniture made off wood - too expensive.

Notice these descriptions, and how they perform double duty. We can also see something else in this scene - the potential for conflict. Character A wants to rent the place out, make a respectable profit. Character B couldn't give a damn about profit, or the possible damage done to the place - he just wants to get away from the police.

They are not going to have the same goals if an off duty policeman walks in the door.

Close third POV (he, she, they, but staying mainly in the thoughts of the characters, a-la most of Harry Potter) operates under the same sort of boundaries, but with the ability to draw back from the effects of character POV on narrative. Close third can contain more than one POV (as can first, but it's less frequently done), and can give different perspectives within that same room.

Close third can also use a narrator. As can third POV (mostly the same as close third, but much less in the head of the character, and much more a narrator saying what's going on in the character's head than the reader hearing it directly.) A narrator is itself, another character. Whether it's an actual character (like Death in "The Book Thief"), or whether it is just the writer telling the story, it too will focus on certain characters, and thoughts, depending upon what the narrator feels is important. In our above scene, it might focus more on the possible tension between the two men, and describe the approaching off-duty policeman. In doing so, the narration is not just describing things, it's ramping up tension. Given what we know of these characters, the introduction of this third element invests us in the story. We, as readers, can guess what might happen when Character B discovers that the other prospective tenant is an off duty cop. It's probably not going to be pretty.

Omniscient works in largely the same way - it's an all-seeing narrator telling and showing us the characters thoughts as they see fit. The same rules apply - description and attention should only be given when the description matters, when it tells us something else about the characters, the story, or prospective conflicts. Every narrative description should do double, sometimes triple duty.

Narrative exposition is the same. It shouldn't be there unless it has to be there. The back-story of Character A, regarding his lower class background, matters only if it influences how he acts when the off duty cop walks into the room. The fact that Character B has a sister that he stole medication for only matters if you want the readers to feel sorry for him.

As writers, we exist not just to tell the story, but to involve the reader. We want to manipulate their sympathies, their direction of thought, what they notice. This allows us to set things up, to surprise, to engage. Narrative can be really good at doing this - don't waste words on just describing things, or giving exposition. Describe things that matter. Give exposition only when it is relevant to what is about to happen. We are situating the reader, drawing them in, and making them connect. Whatever POV you use to do this will influence that.

Happy Writing,

Sian

Details in Narrative - Anchoring the Reader, Painting Chekhov's Gun Bright Red, and Sentence Rhythm

Okay. Detail.

I've read some very good stories today. One was exceptionally short - a retelling of sleeping beauty, but with an entirely different and satisfying ending. It clocked in at under 1000 words, but contained an exceptional amount of detail.

Note: It told an entire story in under 1000 words. The details that it picked were vitally important. They lent themselves to the mood, what the character noticed, and showed us how the in-story world structured itself. It showed us what was important to the characters. It lent a rhythm and cadence to the story. It also showed us what was important plot wise.

And that's probably the three most important jobs of detail in narrative: To situate and anchor the reader, to give rhythm to your paragraphs, and to tell us when to pay attention.

Firstly, on anchoring the reader:

The easiest way to explain and think about this is to compare two genres. Lets go... contemporary romance and fantasy. Say both books have Character A walking into a room and Character B waiting in the room to talk to them. You have a myriad number of things to describe, lots of narration to provide. So how much detail do you include?

Given that we're talking specifically about anchoring the reader? The fantasy is probably going to include more detail than the contemp romance. In the fantasy, I would focus on the things in the room that tell the POV character who this stranger is, maybe focus on the things that he's either wearing that can tell us about his status, how these two relate, ect.

But more than that, I can describe things to add to world-building. When my character leans up against a desk and notes with surprise that it's made of wood -because wood is generally spelled into uselessness by the woodland fae, and thus mighty expensive - that's interesting because it shows you a bit about the world, and about how the character relates to it. She hasn't treated this expensive thing in a blasé manner, so she probably can't afford it. Which means they're meeting in the room of someone wealthy, and that this conversation is probably related to those of wealth.

Note, I don't do much more in that example other than describe the table through the POV of the character, and her surprise at it being there. This piece of  narrative description isn't just describing something, it's giving insight into character, the social structures of the world, the fact that this world has a magic system, and also hints at the involvement of others in this conversation about to come up. It's not just describing something - you're making those words work for you.

In the contemp romance, the details would focus more on the characters, and how they relate to the room. Whether Character B seems comfortable in the space, whether his clothes suggest something about status, or where he's been in the last five minutes. The descriptions may focus on the things the Character A finds attractive about him, or how he uses the objects in the room.

We know what a room looks like in our world. (This is presuming this contemp romance is based in a western country.) It doesn't need describing or explaining because it doesn't add anything to the story other than a detailed description. Most readers do fine with a basic description to figure out where they are and what's going on. Detail is used to try and negate that confusion and to situation the reader in the characters and the world you're creating.

This leads nicely onto my next point : detail tells the reader what is important in the scene.

Say you've just started a book. There's a basic description of a street, and then the author spends a paragraph describing an old, beaten up car; the way it's out of place, the way it hasn't moved for days, the fact that is has a myriad of scratches in the paint down the left side.

As a reader, I'm placing my bets on that car being important in some way, shape or form. I am now focused on the car. If done well, the author may have even built up some anticipation about the car.

Be aware that you are doing this when you write detailed descriptions. You are literally circling Chekov's gun on the mantle piece with red texter and tossing glitter over it. A detailed description is almost a promise to the reader.

And lastly rhythm. 

Sentences, paragraphs, and chapters have a rhythm. I'll talk in one of my later posts about macro level pacing, but let's concentrate on the sentence level rhythm for the moment.

Narrative draws the inner eye of the reader. As you add detail, you're making the reader focus on what you're describing, making them slow down before you move them onto the next point. If you're descriptions are sparse of detail, the reader is going to move from one thing to the next in quick succession: bang, bang, bang. Detail, or lack of it, is something you can manipulate in a sentence to slow down or speed up the rhythm of a paragraph.

I hope that gives you some insight you haven't had before. Enjoy all,

Sian

The Effect of POV on Detail in Description and Narration

It's funny, really. When I first sat down to write a manuscript, I didn't realise the process I was entering in to. I mean, I was 13? What 13 year old realises all the effort, the multiple drafts, the world building....

It was a wonderful, innocent time.

Regardless, I'm writing a new peice again, and it's the same as it was the first time. I feel like I'm dancing on the edge of a cliff, making up new bits of the land as I go.

But it's getting easier. The characters, plot and world are gradually coming to me. It's good. And because I know that there's a long process in front of me, I'm thinking about the next step. Which is the addition of detail.

But where do details come from? I think this has a lot to do with POV, myself. Each character is going to notice something different. When you're writing in first person, you can only describe what the characters see and what the characters think about them. So when you're narrating from the POV of a character who is used to the world you're in, you can't explain things that they already know about.

This presents many problems, which I think I'll talk about later (a post of first person will be forthcoming, me thinks :) ) But I think that it's interesting that you have something similar going on in third person limited. You can explain slightly more outside of the characters head, but I think the third person limited works best when you think about the world of the story from inside the characters head and embellish it with what they notice.

So what's the different when it comes to detail? Well, IMHO, it is that in third person limited the narrator can inject. They can tell you things about the world and story that the character couldn't. This can become overused and badly done, but it can also be done well. When it is, it lends itself to both easy description (you can explain things that need to be explained that the narrator wouldn't explain) and you can make your writing come alive (as in you can describe things in a way unique to the MC.) The best of both worlds. :)

Third person omniscient, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. You can dive into characters heads, describe what they're seeing, describe things in their POV... but the way things are explained, exposed and described is in a different voice entirely. The voice of the narrator, the teller that sees all drives the story and the descriptions.

I experimented with this in a short, and it was amazing. I still had to think about how the characters would describe things, but... it was me describing it. I didn't have to immerse myself for every single word (would they use but, or would they say however?) in the characters minds, it wasn't as exhausting.

Because that's what POV writing can be. Exhausting. Utterly so. I once started a story (Varrick, actually, for those who have been following along) and it was told from the perspective of a forty year old man who had seen way too much and had way too much death on his hands. I remember coming out of a chapter and falling asleep for the next two hours, irrespective of the coffee consumed before hand. It was draining in a way I never thought a book could be.

I think it warrants thought before you start. How intense it this POV? Is it going to be able to tell the story I want it to tell? Am I ready for the investment that 1st person requires?

Anyway, I'm off to get ready for work. It's going to be another late night - I have at least 5k to write, and now that I've been called in for work, it's going to be interesting trying to fit it in.


Enjoy creating~

Sian