posted
The point of view character is the one who'll share his feelings with the reader, and as such has some importance. But do you reckon that he also has to be the main character, or can he play a part which, while significant in the story, is not all there is to it? To put more simply: let's say that I have my point of view character who becomes embroiled in a fight between two other characters. He is the catalyst that causes this fight to radically change, but he is not the one most concerned by it. Is he the right character for the point of view, or should the one who tells the story be one of the two others?
Posts: 121 | Registered: May 2002
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quote:do you reckon that he also has to be the main character, or can he play a part which, while significant in the story, is not all there is to it?
To answer your first question, just remember Sherlock Holmes. All the stories were written from the POV of Watson and not Holmes. This was done so that the reader wasn't in Holmes' mind.
To answer your second question, I wouldn't use one of the combatants as a POV character without using the other as a POV caracter also. As for your story, ask yourself this, How does it affect my story? Does it advance the plot to change the POV? What are the reasons for using this character as a POV character? {Which I use for all my POV characters.}
posted
I am afraid he is the POV character because he is the only one who seems right (the other two are somewhat larger than life, and I can't get into their minds and drag the reader in with me)
Posts: 121 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Have you ever read The Great Gatsby? The narrator, Nick, tells the story of a relationship between two larger than life characters. It might be helpful to see how Fitzgerald handles the situation.
Posts: 64 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I think it's quite ok to have a sideline character tell a story. I'm a little thrown off by your reasoning...that the other 2 characters are larger than life and you don't want to get inside their heads....I think using your POV character may be used to good effect, but you should absolutely understand the motivations and internal dialogue of your main characters. You should be able to write from their POV, even if you do not.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:I wouldn't use one of the combatants as a POV character without using the other as a POV caracter also.
That would bar battles from anything but multiple third person or omniscient POV, which isn't the case at all. First person and limited third, where the telling is by definition from only one combatant, work fine. Any POV can be done well or badly.
quote:but you should absolutely understand the motivations and internal dialogue of your main characters. You should be able to write from their POV, even if you do not.
Not necessarily. If the POV is someone who himself doesn't know why other characters act, a type of unreliable narrator, I can envision a story where we don't know why certain characters do what they do; we only know they do it. It probably depends on the story.
On the other hand, though a writer may feel inadequate to actually get inside a particular character's head, that doesn't mean he doesn't understand what the character is about. It may be similar to some writers not feeling comfortable writing out of their gender. It doesn't mean they don't write both genders. It's just that they'll do POV only from the one they're comfortable with.
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited March 25, 2004).]
posted
I do understand the motivations of my characters; it's just that, as Kolona said, I feel I can't write convincingly about them (and the story is also partially about how the POV character's prejudices prevent him from seeing the obvious)
[This message has been edited by Silver6 (edited March 25, 2004).]
posted
Silver6, if you intend for your story to end with the POV character having to finally face the "obvious" which his prejudices have prevented him from seeing, please do the reader the favor of letting the reader see them, even if the character doesn't.
Otherwise, you may be running the risk of writing what George Scithers (former editor of ASIMOV'S SF and current editor of WEIRD TALES) calls a "tomato surprise" because it cheats the reader. (A "tomato surprise" is a punchline ending that hits the reader in the face like a thrown tomato.)
If you can show the reader what the POV character is unwilling or unable to see, then even though the POV character won't be sympathetic, the reader will have a better chance of feeling satisfied when the POV character experiences the "revelation" and the story will have a better chance of succeeding.
If you don't let the reader in on what the POV character is missing, then your readers might go "huh?!?!?!" at the "revelation" and might feel that you have played a trick on them--and they may want to throw your story across the room.
You can let the readers know by including clues and hints that the POV character sees but doesn't care about/ignores/doesn't understand, but that the reader (being wiser and not prejudiced) will understand.
I hope this makes sense. Basically, what I'm trying to say is to avoid pulling a fast one on your readers (though you can do things like that to your characters all you want)--they won't like it or your story if you do.
posted
Gatsby came to my mind, too, when I read this post. It seems an obvious example of a POV character who's not the main focus.
However, I had a professor argue (and I think I agree with him) that anytime you make a character the]POV character, it becomes the character's story.
Hence, Gatsby ends up really being about Nick, and how he is affected in the novel. It adds an extra dimension to the book, and I think Fitzgerald did it on purpose.
I also think that if you were to use the same trick, Silver6, you would accomplish the same thing. The end result would be that the fight isn't really about the characters involved anymore, it's about how the fight affects the POV character.
posted
Ever read Shawshank Redemption? Told from the POV of Margan Freeman's character in the movie (I forget the character's name) but Tim Robbins' character is definitely the main character. Morgan Freeman is actually a pretty minor character.
A whole lot of books are written like that actually.
One of the reasons the story is so memorable is because of the surprise you feel when you realize Andy has been digging a tunnel for years. If the story were being told from his point of view, that would have been impossible to hide.
posted
I agree with DQ and his professor. Any POV character is the character about whom the story revolves during that POV segment.
Back form this, and you can figure out which character to use as the POV. Is the battle important in the story because of how it affects one or both of your "larger than life" characters? Probably not...remember, anything larger than life cannot actually be alive, by definition. Non-living characters do not grow and change. If the fight is important because of how it affects or will affect your less-large character (whether or not said character knows it), then show the fight from that character's perspective.
If, on the other hand, your combatants aren't actually larger than life, and one of them is actually the one affected most by the outcome of the fight, then use that person as the POV.
I believe that Card addressed this factor in POV choice in one of his books on writing...but I don't know which one.
posted
Thanks everyone; I've worked out what bothered me; the POV character wasn't much affected by the fight, and so seemed a weird choice for writing the story. I'll go about rewriting.
Posts: 121 | Registered: May 2002
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