By Adele Annesi

Word for Words is by author Adele Annesi. For Adele's website, visit Adele Annesi.
Showing posts with label POV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label POV. Show all posts

Saturday, August 10, 2013

The Stiles on Which the Story Turns: Using Multiple Viewpoints in Fiction

Multiple viewpoints can enrich fiction
If you’re considering using multiple points of view for your novel or short fiction, take a page or two from bestselling mystery and suspense author Anne Perry.

Don’t let the “bestselling” label fool you. Perry’s stories provide some fine examples of literary writing, because despite being mystery and suspense, her fiction emulates that of the character-driven mystery greats, such as Dorothy Sayers. Dorchester Terrace, for example, provides a good example of which characters’ perspectives Perry will feature in the novel. If you’re having trouble deciding which viewpoints to feature, consider this: Select the characters on whom the story turns.

You only need to consider Chapter 1 of Perry’s 2012 Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery to see that although there’s a trace of omniscient third person throughout the work, Inspector Thomas Pitt, his wife, Charlotte, and the recently promoted Victor Narraway will figure prominently in the novel, because they are the characters on whom it turns.

Imagine a painting of a drawing room in Victorian England. More than one person is present in the work, but the light falls a bit more on some, and the rest are in shadows. This isn’t to say that the shadowy figures, the secondary characters in fiction, don’t have value. They’re simply not the main characters, and their stories, while supporting the main plot, don’t outshine it. Rather, they feature prominently within the subplots Perry is adept at weaving throughout the whole.

So, if you’re considering a story with multiple viewpoints, consider which characters are central to the story, and without whose personal insights the piece would be impoverished.

For more on writing, visit Word for Words.

Happy writing!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

How Is It Made: Taking Writing Apart

For more tools, visit my online workshop
Remember those cartoons where the guy (it's usually a guy) takes the car engine apart to see out how it works? Well, that approach can work for writing, too. Of course, just like that guy, you may end up with parts you don't need. But unlike that guy, you could end up better off without those parts. The key is to study the author's work and ask probing questions to get at how the writing is made.

Last summer I attended the Solstice Summer Writers Conference at Pine Manor College outside Boston. One of the workshop leaders was A. Manette Ansay, author of Oprah's Book Club selection Vinegar Hill and the recent Good Things I Wish You. One of Ansay's pieces of advice, which should become a tool in every writer's toolkit, is to study the writing of an author you like or one you don't and look at the story as a whole, then a chapter, scene, paragraph and sentence. See what the author does with:

  • Dialogue
  • Flashback
  • Metaphor
  • Motif
  • Narrative
  • Point of view
  • Punctuation, including sentence, paragraph and chapter breaks
  • Scene
  • Simile
  • Theme
  • Word order
  • Wordplay
Tip: Consider why the author made one particular choice instead of another. Do a little research to find an interview with the author explaining his or her decisions on the particular work. It will give you an idea of how to apply the same principles to your work.

Resources: For more on A. Manette Ansay's perspective, see "A. Manette Ansay on Writing."