One of the big decisions a writer has to make when writing a novel is viewpoint. Viewpoint determines whose “voice” carries the novel or how much of the action is revealed. There are several viewpoints, courtesy of Orges (2011) that can be used.

I’m going to attempt to illustrate examples using things I’ve written (in a book or off the top of my head) because none of you have read the same books, and I tend to read genre fiction because Umberto Eco hurts my already aching head. The viewpoints below are proposed by Orges; the examples are mine.

• First Person Protagonist — the hero of the story narrates the story. I usually write first person because I love getting into people’s heads:

                  I stood at the railing of the ship. The wind disturbed me, as there were no clouds in the sky                   or on the horizon to cause it. What the devil could it be?
                  I yelled to my Captain, who stood beside me scrutinizing the sky. “This looks to be a most                   unusual storm.
                 “I see that, ye idiot!” he yelled; I hardly heard him. “You’re the genius — what the hell do                       you think be causing it?”
                  I walked off, lest I lose patience. I peered at a corner of the sky where I spied a large,                           rather gaudy balloon.

• Secondary Character — the narrator tells the story of the hero. Secondary character narration tends to emphasize how heroic or 

                  “I see that, ye idiot,” the Captain bellowed back. “You’re the genius — what the hell do you                   think be causing it?”
                  Bob walked off, peering at a corner of the sky where he spied a large, rather gaudy                               balloon.
                                 

• Third Person Intimate — the viewpoint follows one person, as if sitting on his shoulder watching him, but cannot get into his head.

                  “Bob stood at the railing of the ship, looking toward the calm western horizon. “Captain,”                   he shouted to the man next to him, the wind swallowing his words. “This looks to be a                         most unnatural storm.”
                  “I see that, ye idiot,” the Captain bellowed back. “You’re the genius — what the hell do you                   think be causing it?”
                  Bob walked off, peering at a corner of the sky where he spied a large, rather gaudy                               balloon.

• Third Person Limited —  the viewpoint follows the action but cannot get into people’s heads.

                   Bob stood at the railing of the ship, looking toward the calm western horizon. He was                          not the only one; the other men above deck peered and muttered in the wind that had                             suddenly blown up. Belowdeck, men bounced off walls as the ship began to list.
                   “Captain,” he shouted to the man next to him, the wind swallowing his words. “This                             looks to be a most unnatural storm.”
                   “I see that, ye idiot,” the Captain bellowed back. “You’re the genius — what the hell do                          you think be causing it?”
                   Bob strode off, peering at a corner of the sky where he spied a large, rather gaudy                                balloon.                

• Third Person Omniscient — the viewpoint follows the action, can get into people’s heads — there’s no limit to what the viewpoint sees

                     Bob stood at the railing of the ship, looking toward the calm western horizon. The fact                        that the winds worked themselves to gale force without any clouds disturbed him. Was it                      magic? he wondered. He was not the only one; the other men above deck                                              peered and muttered in the wind that had suddenly blown up.  Belowdeck, men bounced                      off walls as the ship began to list.

                    “I see that, ye idiot,” the Captain bellowed back. “You’re the genius — what the hell do                          you think be causing it?”
                     Bob strode off, peering at a corner of the sky where he spied a large, rather gaudy                                balloon.

• Commentator (works with any of these): An uninvolved third person, but with a first person insert that gives opinions, observations, etc. 

• Somewhere in-between:
• Interviewer — an after the fact, detached interviewer who gets one or more characters to tell the story. This allows the writer to slip between present and past:

                         I peered at a corner of the sky where I spied a large, rather gaudy balloon…

• Secret Narrator — a person who appears to have nothing to do with the plot, but is revealed later to be one of
  the main characters (good or bad) That means you won’t know the significance of this till later.

                          Belowdeck, in the head,  Cookie the cook prayed as he clutched his St. Christopher’s                           medal. He hated storms, had hated them since he was a wee child and his cradle had                             washed into the sea during a flood. He had been rescued by a stranger, a man who                                 had brought him up.
                          As his guardian had told him, however, his days were numbered and the seas would                             have him back. And now it looked to come true …

• Unreliable Narrator — a narrator (first or third person) whose observations are not to be trusted because of ulterior motives, insanity, etc. 

                          I heard Bob talk to the Captain as if he’d been the first person to notice the wind                                  picking up. He was far from the first — I felt the wind pick up first; I saw the mild                                sky.  Nothing to see here, move along; except for Bob, who was bucking for Captain’s                          job.

You may wonder why I haven’t covered second person:

Bob, go talk to the Captain about that wind you felt. Make sure you tell him about the lack of clouds. And the water balloon. Then be sure to find a way to work around him given he’s an apathetic old sot.

See what that’s like to read? In small doses, maybe.

By the way, this is the hardest blog I’ve ever written!

Citation: Orges, S.M. (2011). The 7 narrator types: And you thought there were only two! Available: http://bekindrewrite.com/2011/09/09/the-7-narrator-types-and-you-thought-there-were-only-two/  [September 3, 2017]

I wear t-shirts and jeans for casual wear, classic-cut blazers and slacks and long skirts for work, and Bearcat Green sweats for football games. I wear a wedding band with Celtic knotwork and a Claddagh ring as an engagement ring. When I wear other jewelry, I wear vintage pieces that my mom left for me when she died. Currently, my nails are painted a color-changing green. In a back closet, I have period peasant wear to wear to the Renaissance festival.

What does that tell you about who I am? About who I’m not?

We are all Sherlock Holmes, deducing other people by their outsides. We look at hair — my short choppy hair makes people think I’m a lesbian — which can be very flattering. We look at accessories — a MAGA hat or black lipstick inform us on what category to put a stranger. We look at clothing — today, I’m wearing a Lil Bub t-shirt and jeans to work, and as I’m the professor, it will confuse a few of my new students who don’t realize Friday is my Jeans Day.

According to cognitive psychology, putting people in categories based on their clothing is a heuristic, or information-processing shortcut, called the representativeness heuristic. Does appearance tell us everything about a person? No! Marilyn Manson, grotesque goth that he is, is reportedly a very nice man. The woman in soccer-mom jeggings could be a clown on weekends. Therefore, the representativeness heuristic doesn’t tell us the whole truth, However, as people do dress to express their personality, we can use descriptions of clothing as a shorthand for personality.

I woke up this morning realizing that a book I wrote, Voyageurs, depends heavily on clothing as characterization. One character, Cat Pleskovich, wears leggings and tank tops to fit her dancer’s figure and daredevil tendencies. Another, Ian Akimoto, has very little clothing to his name because he lives in an impoverished, barren future. However, as a time traveler, Ian uses Method acting techniques, including dressing for character and time period, to fit in wherever he lands.

*****

Part of the intro of Voyageurs, made of clothing and impressions:

May 19, 1814 (Kat)

I stepped out of shadow and paid my entrance at the gate. I had dressed like a gentleman, and the suit set off my tall stature. I strode confidently through the gate of Vauxhall Gardens, as men do. From a grandstand, some musicians played something I didn’t recognize, something that sounded jaunty and Germanic.

A woman in widow’s weeds passed through the gate right behind me like a wraith. She would receive scorn not only because she walked in unaccompanied, but because she marred her period of mourning for frivolities. I admired her gall and wished I could accompany her to reduce some of the harsh judgments against her, but she slipped away before I could offer.

Besides, I had come here to solve a mystery. Someone had left a note in my (Twenty-First Century) mailbox that read, I know you are a Traveller. Meet me at Vauxhall Gardens at 8:00 PM on May 19, 1814. I will be on the first bench beyond the lights to your right.

One purpose of a pleasure garden, I had read, was to provide dark nooks for dalliance. An unintended consequence, however, was the presence of thieves. I walked with purpose, head up, smelling an elusive whiff of a cheroot on the breeze and hearing two gentlemen as they passed me, talking of an assignation.

I thought I knew of all the Travellers. A few of us had met up recently at the 1904 World’s Fair, Wanda and Harold and I, to see the wonders unveiled there. We had connected by email to set a rendezvous, as we lived in far-flung cities, and Wanda had to make her face look pale under her bonnet because St. Louis had been even more racist then. We all ate ice cream cones, of course.

As I walked toward the dark, I felt the note in my pocket as a talisman.  My foray into meeting an unknown Traveller could endanger me. I carried a sword cane, standard for gentlemen of this era, as defense. I walked toward the first bench to the right, in the darkness, and I spied the widow there. She had pulled knitting from her bag and set to it. Through her veil, I thought she watched me.

I ventured into the deeper darkness, and her words, said in a husky voice, startled me. “You are not a man. You walk like a woman.”

I looked at the dark figure, and I noticed – “You sit like a man.”

“Katerina Pleskovich,” the other said in a voice slightly changed. “It’s good to see you in person.”

“Okay,” I said sternly, “You have the advantage on me, and that makes you look like a stalker.”

“Ian Akimoto,” he said, standing and pushing back his bonnet. In the moonlight, he was truly post-racial with glossy dark hair, wide-set Asian eyes, a long, thin nose, full lips. And an odd swirl of freckles on his high cheekbones.  Not handsome, exactly, but perhaps appealing. Incongruously, I chuckled.

*****
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What do you know about Kat from her appearance? What do you know about Ian? Where were they wrong about each other, just from appearance? That’s the power of playing with clothing, appearance, and characterization.

At age 3, I could not talk. I could only utter “Ducka ducka ducka.” I think I cemented my reputation as the “weird kid” at that time, and it has never really gone away. I’ve gotten used to it.

You may have heard that no less than Allan Ginsberg (or Faulkner, or Eudora Welty, or Stephen King) said about writing, “Kill your Darlings”. In actuality, a man named Arthur Quiller-Couch in 1915, and what he actually said was, “Murder Your Darlings”. (Slate, 2017). By “darlings”, he meant those cherished ideas that the writer put in the first draft of the book that don’t improve plots, themes, or readability.

Yesterday, I thoroughly killed my darlings in Gaia’s Hands, my first book and the one that just went through its latest round of rejections. Knowing what I know now about plot, theme, and readability, I proceeded to take my knife and do the following to the first third of the book:

1) Reduce the number of “first person characters” from four back to the original two. The story really belongs to Josh and Jeanne anyway.
2) Tweak out parts of the story that related to Eric and Annie’s first person viewpoint. Many words were lost.
3) Put more emphasis on the escalating threat to Jeanne and her reasoning not to tell anyone. If there’s a “main” character of the remaining two, it’s Jeanne.

There’s a lot of work to do, because I’m likely to lose 1/3 of this book cutting out some of the “fun” but uninformative scenes, and will have to fill in with things that better advance the story.

It’s going to be impossible to show you the changes, because it’s difficult to point out what’s missing and why this hunk of deleted prose deserved to die. Instead, I will give you the first threat Jeanne receives, which seems really par for the course for an academic:

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No, honestly, I’m not.
I know I’ve said this before in this blog, but a poem I wrote the other day might have made people wonder who it was about. A couple of you might have thought it was about you, in which case, we have a far more interesting relationship than I can recall!

If you’re ever wondering if something you’ve read from your writer friend is about you, first, ask two questions:

1) Is it about me?
2) Do I identify with the character/situation?

If you really want to know the answer to the first question, ask the author. Luckily, most characters have been shaped from several different people the writer has known. Most situations have been shaped by many situations the writer knows. I know of only one case where a character was directly created from a real person and given a bit of a whooping, and boy, did he deserve it. Most authors do not want to kill you off in their next novel.

If you want to know the answer to the second question — that’s more interesting, isn’t it? Writers want you to identify with what they’re writing, both good and bad. They want you to feel the love, the happiness, or the frustration of a situation. They want you to see both the hero you could become and the villain you might become, the angel and the devil and the screwed-up person in-between.

Writers want to transform you.

If you ask yourself “Do I identify with the character/situation?” and you answer, “Yes”, rejoice. You have been given a gift that only those who truly look at themselves can claim, the gift that opens you to self-acceptance.