Every fiction writer beyond the beginner stage knows about point-of-view. It’s the perspective from which a story is told. It’s the eyes through which we are seeing, the ears through which we are hearing, the mind through which we’re processing, the heart through which we’re feeling.
POV is mostly the protagonist’s, but it can also be any other character’s (as in multi-POV), an observer’s (think Nick Carraway), or even the author’s. The prime directive of POV is also well known: keep it consistent, no head hopping within a scene.
There are choices in writing POV. There is close or intimate POV. There is objective POV. There is zooming in and out. Everyone knows where they stand on POV. Everyone’s got their preference. Is there anything new to say about POV? There is. Like everything else about literature, POV is evolving.
In recent years, POV has tended to become even more close and intimate than ever. So much so that it immerses us not in just what a protagonist or POV character sees, hears, thinks and feels, but in every thought, memory, musing, speculation, wonder and nuance of a character’s consciousness.
Immersive POV is not just a camera angle, or a mind meld, but a total subsuming of the reader’s being into a character’s. It requires the reader to not only see through a character’s eyes, but to become that character. It demands that the reader not just pay attention but completely submerge.
Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch (2013) is written in this fashion. Its protagonist is Theo Decker, who at the age of thirteen is cast adrift when his larger-than-life mother dies tragically in an incident at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Theo and his mother are not even supposed to be there. They are supposed to be on their way to a meeting (probably disciplinary) at Theo’s private school. But his mother gets car sick in a taxi and so they take a break in the museum:
For me—a city kid, always confined by apartment walls—the museum was interesting mainly because of its immense size, a palace where the rooms went on forever and grew more and more deserted the farther in you went. Some of the neglected bedchambers and roped-off drawing rooms in the depth of European Decorating felt bound-up in deep enchantment, as if no one had set in them for hundreds of years. Ever since I’d started riding the train by myself I’d love to go there alone and roam around until I got lost, wandering deeper and deeper in the maze of galleries until sometimes I found myself in forgotten halls of armor and porcelain that I’d never seen before (and, occasionally, was unable to find again).
As I hung behind my mother in the admissions line, I put my head back and stared fixedly into the cavernous ceiling dome two stories above: if I stared hard enough, sometimes I could make myself feel like I was floating around up there like a feather, a trick from early childhood that was fading as I got older.
What is this passage really about? In one way, it’s about nothing more than staring at the ceiling. Staring at the ceiling? For plot purposes, do we really need to know how Theo regards the Metropolitan Museum or its ceiling or how as a child he imagined himself as a feather floating around under it?
No. We don’t. On the other hand, the passage is meant to evoke Theo’s feeling of being lost in a world too big for him, of drifting aimlessly on random currents of air. The passage is intended to make him fragile and vulnerable, thereby setting up the tragedy that will follow in just a few minutes.
On an even deeper level, an immersive POV passage such as this works to submerge us utterly in the narrator’s thought process, so thoroughly that every small idea, tiny feeling, minute distraction, random observation, little memory, idle speculation, momentary worry, and more are presented for our contemplation. Nuances and nothings become elevated in importance. In passage like this, run-on sentences start to feel natural.
Do passages such as this illuminate the soul of another human, allowing us an experience another’s being more deeply than is possible by any other means? Or, do such passages pummel us into a numb surrender to a protagonist’s mental and emotional nuances and trivia?
Tartt’s novel did win the Pulitzer Prize, let’s remember, plus rafts of praise, and some pretty impressive sales. It’s a little hard to criticize a work of fiction so successful. Clearly her Immersive POV writing works for many. To a great degree it works for me, too, but I have a qualification and a caution to throw in.
Immersive POV is not the be all and end all. As with beautiful imagery, it’s easy for authors to get stuck on “capturing” a character’s inner state, thereby contributing to a world “closely observed”, and the feeling that fine writing is what fiction is mainly about. There is nothing wrong with fine writing, yet it’s also wise to remember that novels are a narrative art. They tell stories.
Thus, immersive POV is neither good nor bad, but simply another tool of the craft. When it works, as in Tartt’s passage above, that is not because it’s relentlessly intimate but because it uses immersion to build anticipation, apprehension, dread, disconnect, cognitive dissonance, foreshadowing, fresh worry, unsettling ideas, faint hope or any of the thousand other psychic disturbances that collectively we call micro-tension.
There’s another reason for caution: Overloading the reader with a POV character’s mental and emotional state takes not only page time, but room in the reader’s imagination. Readers need space. Force feed them everything there is to experience about a character and readers may, paradoxically, experience little. That is because what readers experience is generated not by your novel but by themselves. A novel is not a substitute experience but rather a trigger for an original experience, one unique to each reader.
Immersive POV is the new way of narration; however, it is best used in service of an old-fashioned value: story.
Are you a fan of Immersive POV? If not, why not and how do you otherwise involve readers in your protagonist’s experience of things?
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About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Don,
You must have read my mind! This week I’ve been caught up in considering close third person versus first person, but I love the light you’ve shown on that issue. Either can be an Immersive POV. And it’s actually the degree/amount of immersion that I’ve been debating about for my WIP.
I love passages like the one you quoted, but I have to say that I had to keep putting down Tartt’s novel because I was emotionally exhausted. I know you say that the writer can’t make it too hard for the protagonist, but there have been several successful novels that I just haven’t had the emotional stamina to finish.
This, to me, is another danger of Immersive POV. For example, I barely made it through A Little Life. Certainly the passages of immersion gave it power, but the novel was right at the tipping point for me; any more and I’d have had to abandon it. As it was, I had to take many breaks from it, ending up reading a handful of other novels before I finally finished it. Perhaps this is the emotional version of the intellectual overloading you mention.
One good reason to moderate the degree of immersion, then, is if your story is so horrific that the reader needs a bit more distance.
In any case, I think it’s important to balance deep dives into a character’s heart/mind/soul with scenes of action and interaction. I found your idea of postcards a useful reminder not to linger too long in them.
Your point that Immersive POV has to serve the story is a good touchstone. It can set up what a character expects to happen, wants to happen in a scene, and then as the scene unfolds, the reader should be able to fill in much of the character’s response.
Thank you for this post!
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What a thorough comment! You’ve got it exactly right when you talk about balance.
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however, it is best used in service of an old-fashioned value: story
Don, that’s what the masters of Omniscient POV knew, back in the day. Character served story and both got the right treatment. You know who was really got at it? Don’t snort: Theodore Dreiser. An American Tragedy can be a bit clunky on style, but I think it’s more honest and braver (and therefore more immersive) than, say, the gossamer of Gatsby. That’s because the story keep moving, even as we witness the slow motion train wreck unfolding inside Clyde Griffiths. Maybe that’s another caution: don’t fall in love with style; fall in love with your characters, and demonstrate that love by putting them through plot hell!
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Yes! I was once told that story trumped all else. If a reader is so engrossed, they aren’t going to care about which tools the author used, only that they did “something” very wisely!
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An American Tragedy is the most poorly written great novel you will ever read. Its greatness defies its clunky prose. It’s actually a bit of a marvel that way — you wonder: Why am I so into this when the writing is so damn lugubrious?
Story. Rooted in human truth. Great example, Jim.
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There are different ways, I think, to open readers to a character’s experience, to grip and move them. The very best strategy, ask me, is having POV and plot work together.
Take us inside sometimes. At other times, make that unnecessary.
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I typically write in third person but my current novel series is in first person submersive because the protagonist requires it. In order to tell the story it is necessary to live the story in real time and know what he is thinking feeling and planning. I couldn’t manage that in any other pov
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Don–thank you for taking up the thorny issue of “fine writing” as it relates to point of view.
It’s a thorny topic because “fine” in discussions of fiction has come to have an almost universally pejorative meaning. Fine writing is associated with other words like “effete,” “self-involved,” “navel-gazing,” “etc. Before I learned my lesson, I remember getting rejection letters beginning with something like “There’s some fine writing here.” I knew already what would follow.
For me, the negative meaning associated with fine writing–and immersive point of view–boils down to something straightforward: when the writing on the page draws attention to itself, the game is lost. Writing is a vehicle for meaning, not an object of meaning.
Before retiring, I often told students that the best writing was invisible, that it had no existence of its own. My message then had mostly to do with proofreading–I wanted them to understand that every misspelling and punctuation error draws attention to the words on the page, and causes the message to be lost. In terms of your post, I think the idea of invisibility is also valid. These days, I might tell students it’s like one of the new driverless cars. The passengers (readers) are freed to focus on other things (story), without being forced to pay attention to the vehicle itself (language).
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Barry, I love it when the pages disappear. That’s always my goal with my own work.
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It’s tough to be imaginatively swept away when we’re constantly called back to what’s immediately on the page, I agree.
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Barry, I’ll have to disagree that invisible writing is always “best.” To me, it’s just one of the ways writing can excel. But I also enjoy authors who make me sit up and notice the writing. Examples include Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, John Fowles, Jon Clinch, Robertson Davies, and many others whom I’m currently forgetting.
Currently I’m reading “By Gaslight” by Stephen Price, which is highly stylized (no quotation marks, some archaic spelling, etc.). To me, his distinctive writing style is a big part of the story’s appeal. But I’ll admit I bet it’s not for everybody.
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Keith–What you say is true: some writers compel admiration for their style. Although I often roll my eyes at his subjects, I will forgive Philip Roth almost anything because of his masterful style and comic gifts. My skepticism about fine writing grew out of exasperation at not being able to finish books I was supposed to admire. At some point, I now felt confident enough in myself as a reader to reject what I found to be self-indulgent and “precieux.”
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“When the writing on the page draws attention to itself, the game is lost. Writing is a vehicle for meaning, not an object of meaning.”
Amen, amen and amen!
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Don – Boy-oh-boy, do I get this… Now. A very wise reader once told me that my POV was perhaps a bit too tight, and that by pulling back a bit, the spotlight would better bathe the story.
Partly in response to the advice, I challenged myself to try something different with my current WIP. For the first time since starting, I eliminated italicized thought. It forced me into a new understanding of ‘show versus tell,’ and I believe it was part of a general drawing back of my more extreme use of immersive POV. And although I have nothing against the use of italicized thought, I believe dropping it helped me to put the spotlight back on story.
Thanks, as always, for shining the light, Don.
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While in theory there’s nothing wrong in with italicized thought, I find in manuscripts that stuff can often be skimmed.
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I keep my italicized thought very short and sporadic.
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Don, I enjoy all kinds of books and enjoy being immersed in another person’s skin. But to a point. I think MT Anderson made a brilliant move in his book Octavian Nothing (Part I) when he switched to 3rd person distant when it is too much to bear.
Your newest book has just shipped, in time for my birthday :) I’m looking forward to filling the gaps, esp. since the biggest criticism I’ve rec’d is that I hold back on emotions. My MC is naturally reserved so she’s not one to spill her guts. I’m going to reconsider POV again. Thank you for such a timely article.
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“Holding back” on emotions…a tricky topic, and a long one. I delve into it extensively in my new book. Briefly, though, I’d say this: Whether one writes out characters’ emotions or evokes them through their actions is less relevant than whether readers are feeling strongly in the first place.
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Don, I started my latest WIP in third person limited, got 70,000 words in, and felt it wanting. I stopped writing. There was a whole plane I wasn’t getting at, a relationship that was integral to the plot but hardly appeared in the narrative itself because the character with whom the protagonist has this close relationship with was not onscreen except in the sprinklings of backstory and flashbacks.
It suddenly came to me (in the shower, of course, where most ideas originate) that not only did I need to tell this story in first person, and an immersive first person at that, but that my protagonist needed to be talking TO that missing character, telling her the story that she wasn’t there to witness. And once I made that decision, I felt that I could write again.
Last night a new first line popped into my head (while I was going to sleep, the other place great ideas like to visit). I quickly wrote it down and went to sleep. This morning I’ve developed it into a whole new beginning. So I’ll be rewriting the whole 70,000 words in the next few months, but I’m happy to do so in this new immersive POV. Excited even.
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What a fabulous look into the (your) creative process! And what a fabulous discovery for your WIP. I’m feeling that manuscript come alive.
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I love that idea; first person POV talking to a missing character.
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Sometimes I get into reading WU posts on my phone without noticing the author’s name. That’s what happened today, and I started thinking, “whoa, this is dripping with brilliance…” then I got to the bottom and saw it was you, Don. Then I thought, “well, duh, who else would it be?”
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Dripping with brilliance? Well, that made my day! And now I have a new goal: to be positively soggy with genius. Got to top myself, right?
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“That is because what readers experience is generated not by your novel but by themselves. A novel is not a substitute experience but rather a trigger for an original experience, one unique to each reader.”
That was brilliant–you perfectly captured what I’ve been trying to articulate for years.
We don’t see novels as they are; we see them as we are.
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“We don’t see novels as they are; we see them as we are.”
Wow. So succinct. So true.
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I have to agree with Barbara’s comments in that The Goldfinch was emotionally exhausting and so tedious and I was one of the readers who had to put it down. When characters get too immersed in themselves over and over, I glaze over and over. Don’s post today is a good one about serving the story–and a reminder that even Pulitzer Prize winning authors still need to be reeled in … or at least hire really good editors.
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I will confess that I, too, had to take breaks from The Goldfinch, though ultimately it has great rewards.
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Paula, your comment and others have just about convinced me (but don’t worry; I won’t hold you responsible) that I can continue to put off reading The Goldfinch in favor of the long list of other novels that are calling to me. But I have another reason for avoiding that book. The original Goldfinch (the Fabritius painting) has long been on my top ten list of favorite things, and I am reluctant to let anything (anything!) interfere with its purity and sadness.
Now that I think of it (amazing how thoughts begin to flow as soon as the fingers get moving), wouldn’t it be interesting to compose a tale–no, no, not from the finch’s POV; I’m not going there–but a tale that evokes the feeling the finch inspires in me? Hmmm…
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Hi, Don:
One of the areas where immersive POV is both necessary and extremely challenging is when the POV character is repellent.
Simenon’s Dirty Snow is a strangely compelling book despite the fact its hero is a petty criminal (in every sense of the word “petty”).
Les Edgerton’s The Rapist, which is often compared to Dirty Snow, similarly gains its eerie impact from the immersion into a perspective we otherwise would never want to deal with — but the author makes it compelling.
Thomas Harris is excellent at this in both Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs.
John Fowles’ Freddy Leggett in The Collector is so convincingly evil I threw the book down when I finished it. It was in fact his oblivion to his evil, as conveyed in his first person narrative, that made the book so creepy.
House of Cards uses a Shakespearean trick (think Iago and Richard III): letting the duplicitous villain speak directly to the reader/audience. Some odd magic happens when when the manipulative liar decides to speak directly — and honestly — to us.
Happy New Year!
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Oh yes, plus Humbert Humbert…repellent characters who nevertheless fascinate us are many. I, in turn, am fascinated by why that is so.
My belief is that when repellent characters grip us, their authors highlight in them something strong, even admirable, or at least human and understandable.
It’s the contrast between what we can understand, even admire, in a character and what is objectionable about that same character that, ask me, makes that character so fascinating.
Put more simply, the author sets up a cognitive dissonance in our reader brains–a dissonance we seek to resolve, but cannot. Fascinating.
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The Goldfinch triggered some very personal experiences for me because I spent a lot of time in Manhattan from the sixtes on. But I recently read Tana French’s ‘The Trespasser’ and got impatient with the main character’s almost-constant deep first-person ruminating. She nearly lost me a few times, but I hung in out of curiosity. In the end, though, the MC’s endless analytics overshadowed the story. I wonder if I’d feel differently, though if I’d grown up in Dublin! I have a teen protagonist who is pretty self-absorbed and I’ve been grappling with this very issue, looking for the sweet spot where her thinking serves the story and doesn’t make the reader want to smack her! Thank you for this today, Don.
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Such a good question, Susan. I think our degree of tolerance for an author’s annoying writing habits (like excessive use of immersive POV) will vary depending on our personal interest and the inherent appeal of the story.
What’s striking me today is how many readers are admitting that they can find immersive POV a slog. Writers, take note.
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I think what makes immersive POV work is several things. First, does the character care? Whether it’s a big thing or small, whether the character is exploding at the increase in postage stamp cost as a matter of social justice – cost of good for the poor, because this represents everyone else making money when the MC has lost his job, whether everyone but the MC knew about the stamp increase – or as a matter of displacement that can be tied (in the reader’s head) to other things going on in the character’s life. Second, is it tied to the character and the story in some way. If I suddenly start babbling about the weather in China (I live in the U.S.), WHY? We can often see this in metaphors and rhetorical devices. Yes, that comparison may exactly capture the feeling. But is is one that the character would use? If not, we lose the sense of immersion and praise the prose, but lose the story (or complain the prose jerked us out of the novel. But the most immersive prose is, as Don notes, the prose that stirs us up as readers. With our own preferences and backgrounds, am I thinking/feeling/reacting to the character and his world? If so, great job. And that means the immersiveness of prose is defined not just by the author and his/her words, but by the reader. Which suggests immersiveness needs to target a group of readers/audience….
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I agree: Musing must matter. Rumination must reveal. Without great meaning, internal passages are just muttering.
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Very timely post, Don. My current WIP has gone from first person to third person and now back to first–immersive first (I realize, now that I know what it is). I’ve struggled because the protagonist is beyond empath, and it’s hard to figure out how much the reader needs to read/feel as she feels what everyone around her feels to experience her world. It’s a tricky balance to overwhelm the reader enough to immerse them but not so much to turn them off. This advice helps me a lot: “Readers need space. Force feed them everything there is to experience about a character and readers may, paradoxically, experience little.”
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Yep, as I said above, there’s a balance to strike between how much we get of what’s in a reader’s head and what’s happening outside it.
Obviously, for many readers even Pulitzer-level fiction over-balances and overwhelms with immersive POV.
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As a writer trying to get inside the heads of middle-grade characters, I love the deep immersion POV. Kids see the world differently than adults. And most kids think they are going insane right around the 5th grade (or about the time they notice the opposite sex). Middle grade writers like me want to show them that, no, they are not going insane and that they should enjoy this freedom to think off-the-charts before the world stuffs their brains into a box. The problem, as you point out, is that story must come first. And when you’ve only got 30-50k words to tell the story, much of that deep immersion has to get cut (I’m gutting one now for a publisher who “loves my writing but please rewrite the entire novel”). During the paring down phase of editing, those lovely bits of deep immersion are often the first to go. But hopefully we can find a way to keep a gem or two.
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With the tight length requirements of MG fiction, I suspect that the right amount of immersive POV material is “just enough” and no more. I’m with you.
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Great stuff to think about, Donald – thanks for putting this out there. Like so many things in writing, I like what you’re calling the Immersive POV when it’s done well. When it’s not, it can be tedious, or simply turn into oversharing – literary “TMI,” if you will.
Two authors who I think do the Immersive thing well are Jonathan Tropper and Matthew Quick. Tropper is particularly good at having characters confess “guilty guy stuff” – mostly focusing on not-terribly-honorable emotional revelations that most men would never speak out loud, yet can relate to. And Quick takes it to a new level in “The Silver Linings Playbook,” where he combines the Immersive with the Unreliable: the first-person narrator has suffered a brain injury (this was changed in the movie), and is unaware that the unconventional thoughts and behaviors he openly shares are foreign, often funny, and sometimes flat-out scary to the reader. Brilliant stuff, and SO much better than the movie (which was admittedly pretty darn good).
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I’m not sure I agree about Quick, in Silver Linings I found his first person narration more objective, his protagonist self-absorbed yet also distant from himself–which works to comic effect since he’s in massive denial about his life. For what it’s worth.
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That’s a fair point, Donald. But to me the obsessive detail and the passion behind his dedication seemed immersive, if I’m interpreting the term correctly.
Disconnected from reality? Absolutely. But still incredibly earnest, even in his denial, and to me that couldn’t be conveyed without his first-person narration and his openly naive rationalization of his behavior. To me, the movie really didn’t capture his self deception anywhere near as vividly (and they got too caught up in trying to make it a star vehicle for DeNiro).
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I guess I’d call the POV in Silver Linings obsessive rather than immersive. Semantics aside, it sure works.
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Okay, I’ll meet you halfway, and call it obsersive. :)
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Last week I read Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? in one sitting. There’s an immersive first person POV of a character that is often hard to like that completely sucked me in. Anyone else read that one?
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No, new to me, will check it out.
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I’m glad to see you comment on this, Don, because the shift is very obvious within the romance genre. Deep third person from hero and heroine’s POV used to be the standard presentation, which allowed for secondary romances within the same book to act as mirrors and foils, comedic counterpoint, etc.
It seems like that’s shifting to dueling 1st person PsOV, driven primarily by the New Adult subgenre.
If done well, the result is a more emotional read. But it’s a hard job to carry off two distinct voices with that much intimacy, never mind four, so there’s a trade-off on macro-story structure.
Also, don’t you find there can be a fine line between self-awareness and intimacy versus an overwhelm of angst? Or maybe it’s just me, and I’m just becoming someone who shouts at sky with a clenched fist. ;)
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To me the issue is whether immersive POV adds something or whether it just churns the obvious–which I find to be the case in some New Adult work and some less involving romance. You’re right in that interest Macy is not always interesting.
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That should read…
“…immersive is not always interesting.”
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Such a great post, Donald. It made me do some thinking and wondering.
My thinking: Over the holidays, my family and I watched Miracle on 34th Street. My husband and I had never seen it . . . the horror, the horror. Our kids (age 12 and 13) disappeared partway through and my husband and I were left on the couch to giggle at the stiff and affected acting. I felt no deep affection for or connection to the characters, but I was rooting for them. I was not immersed, but I was entertained. I liked the movie for its simplicity and sweetness.
Your post today reminded me of that movie and made me wonder. Comparing these emotionally controlled stories of the forties with films and stories of our current decade, I wonder what got us from then to now. Do you think we see more immersive POV in novels because we are so willing (via blogs, reality TV and social media) to reveal ourselves and be immersed in the private lives of others? My kids see TV ads for erectile dysfunction. We learn about people’s private lives (miscarriages, marriages dissolving, addiction) via magazine covers in grocery check-out lines. Maybe we have gotten so used to others’ revelations that we seek it in our novels? Or maybe we seek immersive POV because we are lonely. We don’t merely want entertainment; we want connection.
Could today’s cultural openness have brought about the increase of immersive POV?
Thanks for making me think and wonder today. I hardly ever do either on Wednesdays, and it felt great!
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I think immersive POV arose because it worked, creating a hyper-real psychology and new honesty in characters, but now it sometimes is just a style, an affectation, empty and–as we see today–exhausting for readers. Same thing happened with present tense writing, in my opinion. It works sometimes and sometimes is a cold affectation.
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GREAT observation on both of those trends. Totally agree.
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“There’s another reason for caution: Overloading the reader with a POV character’s mental and emotional state takes not only page time, but room in the reader’s imagination. Readers need space. ”
I do like immersive POV, but in doses, so I agree with this cautionary advice. As a reader, I need space. When passage goes on for many pages loaded with minute details about the character’s thoughts and inner dialogue, I do find myself skimming, trying to get back to the action. I also feel overwhelmed (and overloaded, as you noted) if there’s too much detail, another reason that makes me skim, which is the last thing a writer would want.
Great post, Don. Something to think about for my next WIP.
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Thanks, I’m picking up a strong sense that immersive POV can easily be overdone, to the point that readers are setting down even a Pulitzer novel.
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Yes indeed. Tartt, for example, would not be for me. Nor Tana French. I need narrative pace, which is why I read so much noir and hard-boiled.
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I started writing novels in third person, quickly switched to first and now can’t seem to get out of it.
My question about immersive POV is this: is it compatible with narrative pace? It would seem to be the opposite? If it is compatible, how so?
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David-
The whole topic of pace is misunderstood. Ask me, it’s useful to think less in terms of narrative pace (how quickly events unfold) and more in terms of tension levels.
Inactive passages can be full of tension and keep us reading. Conversely, high action can leave us shrugging.
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Thanks for that. Tension levels. You’ve given me food for thought.
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Terrific post, Don. I agree that immersion in a character’s thoughts/musings/internal experience can be overdone. I’m one of those who will skip ahead to find out what’s happening. Give it to me in small doses. On the other hand, I constantly coach writers to craft a narrative that, using the senses as well as inner thoughts, immerses the reader in the character’s experience, challenging them to try to make the reader, as you said, become the character. It’s a tough row to hoe, but the effort can lead to a more powerful narrative. Many thanks for your insights.
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Like you, I’m for balance of inner and outer. Thanks, Ray.
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So much wisdom here, summed up with your simple observation within the comments: “Take us inside sometimes. At other times, make that unnecessary.”
I think deep POV is arguably one of the most powerful tools in our toolbox, but mastery will give you just that: one tool in a rich and diverse art form that, in its fullness, allows us to hear what isn’t on the page.
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Perhaps there’s a different post to be written: When *not* to be in a character’s head, but to leave it to the reader to experience the moment for herself. Noted.
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As always, an excellent post full of interesting observations, Don, and you can see the result in the dozens of well-thought out comments here!
I’d like to ask you what you think of Karl Ove Knausgaard? He’s another master of the immersive POV (besides Tartt). Indeed, he’s such a master that he’s gone on to write 6 books about his (epic?) life. But don’t misunderstand me when I say he’s a master: While I enjoyed reading his first book (My Struggle), at the end of it I had enough of him and couldn’t face the second book, much less the third.
So yes, I totally agree that the immersive POV can be overdone and is (very) tiring for the reader. I also think that – like in K.O.Knausgaard case – it can become claustrophobic. It’s all about him, nothing but him, when he was a child, when he grew up, when he became a man, a lover, a father…Help, I want to get out!
And that brings me to the real limitation (in my humble opinion) of this tool in relation to the broader art of story-telling: To push forward a plot you (often) need several POVs. Focusing on just one POV means that some sections of the story cannot be told – or at least, not told with the same amount of detail and depth.
Depending on the plot line, that can be an advantage or a disadvantage. And I feel that’s terribly important for a writer when planning a novel. It’s a big decision to take with deep consequences on everything, the plot, the pace of telling, the level of psychological detail, and it also seems to vary according to the novel’s genre… Your views?
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I haven’t read Knausgaard! He’s on my list. Such reviews!
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Immersion like this is the only way I know to write, but I don’t use it in the first person. I use it in the third-person (so close it feels like first, I’ve been told), and I don’t use it to highlight his thoughts of portray feelings. I use it to get away from the thing I hate most in a novel, descriptive prose.
In my very first book, I wrote the first sentence and said, “Now what?” I certainly didn’t want to write pages of description about the when and where of the scene, that’s the stuff I skip, and Elmore Leonard says to leave that part out. So I invented a technique (never having taken a class in this stuff) of revealing the setting as the characters move through it, as they perceive it. This is a more active technique, an act of perception, and it allows me to focus the reader’s attention on those parts of the scene that matter to the guy walking through it. I, the author, am and should be invisible.
It also introduces a concept of ‘focus’, or who is perceiving the scene. Each of us brings our own experiences to the act of perception, and multiple people will see the same scene differently. In the technique I use, the very words used to describe a scene or an act depend on the person perceiving or thinking about it, from one paragraph to the next. When A speaks, all the associated description and thoughts use his vocabulary. When B responds, he has the focus and the words used are his, not A’s. Not head-hopping, since the whole POV shifts to B, more like multiple cam,era angles in a movie scene.
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Another benefit to my technique is the lack of heavy-handedness. I don’t have any obvious signs of introspection, or internal monologue. Thinking in actual words, which has always struck me as artificial and implausible, takes place very infrequently, mostly when a strong emotion forces itself into a strong concept, such as contemptuous disbelief. ‘Yeah, right.’ Short, sweet, and too the point.
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I fell into it quite naturally in my WIP, “I Detest All My Sins,” in which guilt is a major underlying theme and driver of plot. There are only so many behaviors which manifest guilt, and once mined, can become repetitive — only so much over-drinking, overcompensating, or confessing an ex-seminarian can do, and sooner or later the interior struggles and spiritual dilemmas must bubble up into consciousness. Still, it’s a crime/mystery/thriller novel, so other stuff happens too.
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Don, in terms of narrative distance, I thought this might interest you as a followup that arrived in my inbox by coincidence just this week. Alexandra Sokoloff talks about creating mythic characters with the use of a narrator, as with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby. http://www.screenwritingtricks.com/2017/01/using-narrator-character-to-create.html
Imagine those books with Finch and Gatsby talking to us in deep, immersive POV.
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It seems to me an immersive POV moment can and should be added in otherwise broader POV stories when we zero in on an important moment and so magnify places where the key turns. It’s usable for critical moments that make big points within small scenes. Revelation is not always a fire, sometimes it’s a spark.
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As always, a GREAT article about POV. Referencing this article in an upcoming blog. Thank you!
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