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On August 17, 2024, Kasie and Rex revisited POV with some callbacks to earlier episodes and some new examples. Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

The Story’s Point of View

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• What is POV?
• Why does it matter?
• How do you choose?

Segments 1 & 2

So I saw It Ends With Us at the movies this week and it’s an adaptation of a Colleen Hoover book and I confess to having fantasized a little bit about what would it be like when my own book becomes a film. She’s credited as an Executive Producer and the director has said in multiple interviews it was reading the book that made him want to direct the film.

Without spoilers, I’ll just say it’s a complicated story that centers around domestic violence. That said, the main character, Lily, is our primary POV for the film. I haven’t read the book, so I’m not sure if it has another POV or not, but in the film, it’s her. We don’t see anything she doesn’t see. And, what we do see is biased by her perspective and the ‘truth’ as it were, is really just Lily’s truth.

So that got me thinking about how important the perspective of the story really is and specifically the limitations of certain point-of-view positions. AND – it’s been a looonnggg time since we’ve done an episode on POV. So here we go.

In Episode 56 (way back in 2019) we said, “There are basically three kinds of narrative perspective: first, second, and third person. Some of the more interesting versions include collective first (“we”) and epistle second person (letters) and omniscient third (all-knowing).”

It was most common, for a very long time, to see some version of third person. Lately, though, first person seems to be the dominant modality. In Episode 249 from December of last year, we focused on the 1st person POV.

We can do the strengths and weaknesses of each:

• Third person (link: omniscient, cinematic, limited, shifting limited)
• First person (lack insight, are biased, show us only the MC’s perspective, can be unreliable)  
• Second person (requires a lot of the reader, probably the author’s POV anyway, makes assumptions about the reader’s feelings, gimmicky or a stunt)    

Segment 3

So how do you choose? Here’s one blog of advice. Highlights: Who’s carrying the camera? 

When we think about choosing who will tell the story we need to ask “Who’s story is it?”

Here’s another blog of 7 steps to choosing: choose the level of knowledge you want your narrator to have, choose what point in time you’re writing about, and how many narrators you will have. 

Let’s talk about multiple first-person narrators. How difficult is this to maintain? What if they all sound the same? Can you or should you shift back and forth? Here’s a link to explore.

Here’s another blog with 6 tips. Highlight: the closer the narrator, the less of the author should show. 

Seven narrator types? Try this blog. First person narrator can be the protagonist or the observer (think Nick Carraway). Third person can be limited or omniscient. The narrator can be the commentator — with insight and advice — the interviewer — researching and asking questions. 

Here’s a blog about “Fiction’s most flexible point of view” wherein the author claims it’s also quite difficult to get it right. Is it?

Segment 4

How invested in the story is the narrator?

When should you use multiple narrators to tell the story?

When should you let the audience know your narrator can’t be trusted?Here’s the Redsy blog giving a pretty comprehensive treatment of POV. Is there anything we haven’t already discussed?