POV

I write from a strict first person point of view.

I think it is harder to do, because the only things the narrator and thereby, the reader can know are those which the narrator experiences first hand. Any events that happen off stage, out of sight of my principal character, must be told to him by someone else, or he has to read about them someplace. Needless to say, this can be limiting.

Perhaps the most difficult dimension is capturing other people’s thoughts and feelings. My narrator Frank Healy has to be able to infer emotions and thoughts from facial expressions, subtle speech clues and behaviors. In real life, that is hard to do, especially if you want to get it right. It is even harder to capture the process in words.

My character exists in the eternal now. If something occurs far away, he has no way of knowing, unless someone tells him. If something happened a long time ago, he has to remember. If he’s going to remember something, he needs a reason, a trigger. In my experience, thoughts do not pop, unbidden into people’s heads.

I suppose this point of view can also be a blessing. It gives me the opportunity to delve deeply into the emotional life of an admittedly troubled man. Anyone who feels compelled to act out final justice must be driven by demons that don’t inhabit the rest of us. Are those demons repressed? Does he know where his compulsions come from? Does he fight the demons, or blindly follow their bidding? Is he crazy?

I envy writers who resort to third person omniscient, because they can throw anything in, other people’s deepest secrets, their motivations, whatever. From that viewpoint it is easy to jump from place, following the actions of multiple actors with the ease of a film editor with a warehouse full of B reels.

Third person lends itself well to thrillers, where the reader can know more than the protagonist. In a mystery or other crime fiction, the reader’s pleasure can be fed by the slow evolution of discovery, of unsettled emotions and motivations. I hope that makes my stories less predictable. First person can take the reader along the journey with the protagonist.

There are other viewpoints. One I’ve seen more recently is “multiple POV.” The writer jumps from first person, either the protagonist or the perpetrator, to third person to capture everything else that is going on.

I feel this is disingenuous. It feels lazy to me. Maybe it’s part of the “new fiction,” where all the rules fly out the window. Not to mention that I have difficulty following the story.

Another problem I have that is not strictly a POV problem is time. When an author jumps from the present to some memory or some past time without any signals in the text, it feels like I was asleep and fell off the back of the truck.

“Where am I? What happened?”

I often find myself going back to reread the passage where the story jumped the tracks. I’m a reasonably smart person. If I get confused, won’t other readers?

I don’t think it’s good ju-ju to confuse readers. They may be tempted to put the book down and not pick it up again. If they put the book down, chances are they won’t buy the next one. I’ve got ten books to write and sell. I can’t afford to lose anyone at this point.

I’ll stick to first person.