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One of the writing books in my collection discusses the trouble that movie writers have in adjusting to prose. The book says that some of the most successful screenwriters fail as novelists, mostly because they can't write from an engaging POV. They are used to writing from the camera's POV, a sort of unreal omniscient presence. Prose written in this style lacks emotional impact.
If you don't understand what I am saying, check out this link. These are the famous American Express commercials starring Jerry Seinfeld and Superman. Watch the two movies "Uniform" and "Hindsight." Then come back and see if this makes sense to you.
What did you think of the portrayal of Superman? Did he seem like the Superman you've known all your life?
This is a great example because we all know Superman and we all know Jerry. We've seen Superman all our lives, and the Superman we know and love would not pause from chasing a criminal to read a play bill. They have messed up the character!
But look at it again, factoring Jerry into the equation. We are accostomed to seeing Superman from a camera's POV, in the traditional movie sense: omniscient but somewhat limited. These little moves were not made that way. Thet were made in a prosey style. They show us Superman from Jerry's POV.
If you think of this as prose fiction, these movies don't show what actually happened. This is what seemed to happen from Jerry's POV. We can be pretty confident of this because we've seen enough Seinfeld to understand how Jerry's mind works. He's a fault-finding, self-absorbed neurotic. I believe this is exactly what Superman would look like through his eyes.
I try to do the same thing in my writing. The events I describe are always colored by the POV character's personality. It's a critical story telling technique. I believe it's especially difficult for new f/sf writers because so many of us are fans of movie and TV presentations of our genre(s).
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Being a new writier, I would say the hardest thing for me is to prevent spewing a ton of information out on the page to the reader. This goes along with what you said about POV because often I forget which characters know what or have trouble with them knowing too much, or thinking/expressing things out of character. I've been reading Characters and Viewpoint by OSC, which is helpful, and I would be open to anyone who can suggest/point me towards some kind of short writing POV exercises or the like. Thanks!
Posts: 116 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Very interesting, I've never thought about it. I should have. I often have trouble with telling things that the Main pov shouldn't know. Thanx.
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Lorien, that's a big problem for all writers of fantasy or sci-fi. It troubles writers of historical fiction and techno-thrillers to a lesser extent. There is no perfect solution, though a rule of thumb is to keep the ratio of action over info-dump as high as possible.
I believe it also helps to handle info-dump through the POV of a character with a strong personality. For example, in the second of those Superman/Jerry movies (Hindsight) the rules of their road trip are an important part of the story. The rules themselves are mundane, but Jerry reveals them through his POV. "No flying!" he rants at one point. Jerry's outrage and whiney voice make it so entertaining that we don't even notice that this is a chunk of info-dump.
You see the same thing in any well-written fantasy or sci-fi. For example, consider the beginning of Ender's Game, where the reader needs to understand the reproductive laws. OSC could have given us a boring omniscient info-dump, but instead he engrosses us by presenting the laws through the POV of Ender Wiggin. Because of the reproductive laws Ender is a "third," an scorned minority. Seeing the laws through his POV gives us important information and engages us at the same time.
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