Articles

(This article has been published in SpecRomOnline

and various Romance Writer's of America chapter newsletters)

DEEP POINT OF VIEW: HOW AND WHEN TO USE IT EFFECTIVELY

Some of you may not be familiar with deep point of view so I’ll begin with a definition.

Deep point of view is close third person, a combination of first and third person Omniscient. It is driven by the character’s experiences and emotions.

When using deep penetration point of view you see the scene through the eyes of that character. You never leave that character’s thoughts. Deep penetration is similar to first person giving the motivation behind an action. The character’s attitude at that moment are shown, not a memory of the character’s feelings as they look back on what happened.

From the Elements of Fiction Writing Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card he describes deep point of view: “Deep penetration is intense “hot” narration; no other narrative strategy keeps the reader so closely involved with the character and the story. But the viewpoint character’s attitude is so pervasive that it can become annoying or exhausting if carried too far, and the narrative isn’t terribly reliable, since the viewpoint character may be misunderstanding or misjudging everyone he meets and everything that happens.” Card says that no one level of point of view penetration is going to be right for the whole story. There needs to be a balance and knowing when you need “hot” narration and when to “cool” the scene with light point of view penetration.

Deep point of view is more than filling your story with lots of internalization. Too much internalization can become a form of telling, slow the pace of the story and unravel tension.

Gina from the RWA Craft loop explained deep point of view to me in this way.

Check to see if your dialogue, tone of voice, body language, facial expression, inner body response, and/or physical reaction shows what is being told.

1. Remove filtering devices such as s/he thought, decided, saw, watched, etc., They put a distance between the reader and the POV character. Once POV is established, you don’t have to keep reminding the reader that they’re experiencing the story through the POV character’s eyes.

2. Describe things how the POV character would describe them.

3. In deep POV, a character wouldn’t use her own name when referring to herself. Nor would she, except in very few cases call her parents by their whole names. A deep POV character’s narration should contain thoughts that are natural to that character, and what is seen and described should only be things that character would notice.

Anne Frazier Walradt taught this in a workshop for RWA in 2002. Her suggestions began with Show, Don’t Tell: Stay out of your character’s head. Since I’m a visual learner Anne’s tips made all the other posts clearer. She wrote:

1. Insert the picture in your head into the head of your reader by reporting action and dialogue.

2. Engage the reader by showing her the scene and awakening in her the emotions that your characters feel.

3. Abstract words do not evoke in us the emotion they describe. They merely tell. “Nancy was scared. Terrified actually…” To evoke the emotion you must create the sensory details that make it read, vivid, authentic.

4. Document the effect of the emotion on the character. (Her hands shook) The scene must be seen by the readers.

5. The character isn’t thinking about her feelings (“Oh, I’m so much in love.”) She’s thinking about what’s causing her feelings. (I love his hand on my…whatever.”)

6. Your job is to convey the emotion by the meticulous choice of specific details that will evoke emotion in your reader.

Author Terri Prizzi says writing deep point of view effectively means you must know

your character very well since all things are filtered through the character’s eyes and emotions. Gender, education level, life experiences all will impact how your character views the world. The fact that the character comments on anything should be a clue about this character.

When you try to use dialogue for narrative purposes using tags like snapped or soothingly you end up with a scene full of melodrama. The powerful emotions mean nothing to the reader when it is written in this manner. By combining the point of view degrees of penetration the scene becomes more believable.

Learning how to write deep point of view takes some practice, but when used in the right way it will keep your readers turning the pages.