Deep POV: Three mistakes and how to fix them, Part I

If established in the opening pages of your book, readers will adopt a convincingly developed point of view (POV) without reservation. If your world is lavender, we readers will become lavender rather than see it everywhere. If your character is bigoted, we will taste the bitterness of his words on our own tongues. If your character is nervous, we will sense it in the very way he speaks.

In a previous post I offered up examples of literary artists who have made brilliant use of deep point of view, and taken the results all the way to the bank. The perspective of an interesting, well-motivated character gives a work of fiction depth, humor, layers of meaning, and points you in the direction of plot. Deep POV delivers what readers seek: exemption from the limitations of their own perspectives so they can see the world anew.

As you attempt to wrestle down this technique, here are a few of the writing missteps that can reduce its effectiveness.

1. The mistake: Creating annoying filters. Let’s say you’ve traveled halfway across the country to see your only son’s wedding, but when you get there, his bride’s mother plants you behind a tripod in the back of the church. Now you must experience what would have been an emotional event from behind the lens of a video camera. Similarly, POV missteps that keep the reader at a remove from the world of story can seem like a physical object the reader wants to move out of the way.

The fix: Consider words like realized, thought, saw, noticed, and glanced yellow flags that you may have created an annoying filter. These words draw attention to your POV “camera.” If you establish point of view deeply enough from the outset, your character should never have to tell us she is “realizing” anything.

Compare:

I saw a silk nightgown discarded on the floor of our bedroom. It wasn’t mine. I realized then that Steve was having an affair.

To:

A silk nightgown lay discarded on the floor of our bedroom. It wasn’t mine.

Because you would have established the wife as the point of view character in preceding paragraphs, we readers can follow her leap of thought. We’re right there with her. The things she sees we also see; her realization is our realization. In fact, the loss of the extra words creates a starkness that adds to the impact of her discovery. The implication resonates across the space cleared by removing unnecessary words.

By sinking even deeper into the character’s consciousness, you will get rid of the “camera” altogether. Point of view will now be more like a pair of contact lenses, coloring everything while still allowing the reader to experience it.

Two more common mistakes and their fixes in my next post.

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Kathryn Craft is a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, an independent manuscript evaluation and line editing service. Formerly a dance critic and arts journalist for 19 years, she now writes literary women's fiction.