How to Write Fiction (4 page)

Writer's workshop 3

Why changing your point of view can conceal or reveal hidden truths

P
oint of view can be paralysing if you think about it too early. For the first draft or two, write in whatever point of view comes naturally, or in many different ones if that's what comes out. Worry later about choosing a consistent point of view.

English grammar lets us write in three ways:

• in the first person, using an “I” narrator
  
• in the third person, describing everyone as “he” or “she”
  
• in the second person, “you”.
  

First person

A story told in the first person has the limitations, and the strengths, of being filtered through the consciousness of “I”.

This means that an “I” narrator can only know about events he or she saw. Otherwise the narrator has to rely on what other people said.

An “I” narrator needs to establish its authority for telling the story. Was the narrator actually there? If not, how does the narrator know so much? Is the narrator putting together evidence from somewhere else: what other people have said, letters found in an attic, messages in bottles? Or is the narrator just guessing?

Also, an “I” narrator tends to become a personality: it's an individual speaking directly to the reader, and a character in the story. So the reader tries to build up a picture of that “I”: what is “I” like? Do we like “I”?

An “I” narrator is likely to have an axe to grind in the story because “I” was involved in it, even if only as an observer, or as the person who put all the evidence together. In that case, what motive does “I” have for telling the story? Does this narrator just want to get to the truth? Or do they want to talk us into something? Can “I” be trusted to tell the truth?

The kind of language a first-person narrator might use depends on who “I” is. This is not to say that the language needs to match up with the type of character in a stereotyped way: a first-person narrator who was a child wouldn't necessarily have to tell the story in childish language. But a child “I” using adult language would need to be made convincing to the reader: it's another factor the writer has to be aware of.

First person can give an immediacy, an idiosyncratic and personal energy to a piece of writing. It is limited, but limitations in fiction are not always a bad thing. The story may be more interesting, more dramatic, if it's told by someone who doesn't know the full story, or who gets it wrong, or who isn't telling the truth.

Third person

Sometimes a third-person narrator can be almost as personal as a first person, with the same sort of limitations – this is called “third-person subjective”.

At the other extreme, a third-person narrator can be a God-like voice who knows everything and is equally in the heads of all the characters: “third-person omniscient”.

Third person can lack the intimacy of first person, the sense the reader has of identifying with the narrator. On the other hand, a third-person narrative can be enriched by its flexibility – a third-person narrator can go anywhere, do anything, know everything.

Second person

Using the second person is a challenge. It's very limited in knowledge, and over an extended piece it's unsettling for the reader. It can start to sound rather bullying or it can force you to identify with a character you feel very much at odds with.

At the same time there can be an overwhelming intimacy about the second person which can make the writing very powerful.

The point of view we think in is first person – our own perceptions and our own words – so we'll start there.

1
Write a portrait of yourself – your physical appearance and your personality – from your point of view, in the first person.

It will have a fairly limited point of view, as you don't know the “objective” truth about yourself, you only know what you think. It's likely to have a kind of intimacy, although it might be critical as well as sympathetic. See what you discover when you do this:

2
Using the same basic facts and information, rewrite this portrait from the point of view of one of your parents.

The subject of the portrait, yourself, will now be a third person in the writing. The parent narrating will know different kinds of things and might have different judgments. They might conceal and reveal different things and for different reasons. They have a vested interest here, too: they are connected to the person they're describing and might feel ashamed, proud, responsible, guilty or self-satisfied. There might be some distance on the subject: this time the intimacy may be with the parent doing the narrating.

3
Now rewrite the description from the point of view of someone writing your biography, a hundred years in the future. This person may have access to all the above information and more, but might, on the other hand, know certain things.

This will be a third-person account. There may be no limitations to knowledge, and although there may still be judgments, the narrator won't have a personal stake in the description. The subject will be seen at a great distance and in an impersonal way; the subject will be seen to be just one individual among many, and all affected by the mood and theories of the times.

These narrators are all trying to tell the truth as they see it. But let's explore the murky depths of untruth.

4
Write a portrait of yourself, in the third person, using the same basic facts, in the form of an obituary.

No one ever says anything bad in an obituary. This usually means that the whole truth is not usually being told. Sometimes an obituary is just one long gush. A more interesting obituary is where the person giving it never actually says anything bad about the dead person, but you get the picture just the same. The pleasure is in reading between the lines.

5
Now we'll try the other end of the spectrum: write the portrait of yourself from the point of view of your worst enemy. It should still sound like the truth, but it will be slanted to bias the reader against you.

Have a look now at all these versions. Which one did you find most interesting to write or read? Which was funniest? Which was most enigmatic? Which was most dramatic? Did any of them suggest stories within stories, layers of meanings?

Once you've written a piece, in whatever point of view came naturally, you can ask yourself what other points of view are possible for the material and which one might work best. Some more than others will offer potential for suspense, drama, pathos, humour or polemic.

6
Write a summary of the Cinderella story from the point of view of Cinderella.

Think about what a different story it would be if it was written from the point of view of another character in the story: the Prince, the Fairy Godmother, the Ugly Sisters, the Stepmother. You could retell the story from the point of view of an all-knowing narrator who could look into the hearts of all the characters.

7
Retell the story from another point of view, or several.

Which version did you most enjoy writing? Which one flowed most easily? Which one made you think of other things you could write about? Which had most feeling?

‘Who are you really?'

Your ‘voice' lies somewhere between your conscious and subconscious mind. Finding that place is a challenging exercise in self-confrontation, writes
Meg Rosoff

D
o you have a voice? Can you recognise a voice when you hear one? And while we're on the subject, what does “having a voice” actually mean?

Poetry is a great place to look for a strong voice. How about:

How to Kill a Living Thing

Neglect it

Criticise it to its face

Say how it kills the light

Traps all the rubbish

Bores you with its green

Continually

Harden your heart

Then

Cut it down close

To the root as possible

Forget it

For a week or a month

Return with an axe

Split it with one blow

Insert a stone

To keep the wound wide open

Do you hear a voice in those lines? Despite being unable to pronounce her name, the author Eibhlin Nic Eochaidh's voice is so clear to me, I'm tempted to offer her a chair and a cup of tea.

Many would-be writers spend far too much time nervously scrabbling about for a voice, but the word itself is horribly misleading. “Voice” (unlike “power”, for instance, or “presence”) suggests a superficial quality, one that can be manipulated by having singing lessons, or by changing the tone, volume or accent.

There is nothing superficial, however, about voice when used in the context of writing. Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

So … what is the essence of your personality? What is the clearest expression of your DNA combined with a lifetime of experience? What does the combination of nature and nurture add up to? In other words, who are you? Who are you really?

If you don't know, you need to find out. Self-knowledge is essential not only to writing, but to doing almost anything really well. It allows you to work through from a deep place – from the deep, dark corners of your subconscious mind. This connection of subconscious to conscious mind is what gives a writer's voice resonance.

Read a great writer and you'll feel the resonance – it's the added dimension of power that can't quite be explained by mere talent. An ability with words is nice, but it's not a voice.

Connecting with your subconscious mind is not easy. It requires confronting difficult facts – about yourself and about the world. Can you know who you are without understanding your own weaknesses? And what frightens you? Can you know who you are without understanding the evil, the selfishness, the cruelty of which you're capable? OK. And the goodness, kindness, brilliance as well?

Of course the biggest, darkest question of all is death. Not an easy question to meet head-on. Some people naturally confront death. Some seem incapable of not confronting it. Woody Allen says that when he was a small child he lay in bed, terrified, contemplating eternal nothingness. So, apparently, did William Golding. Many people, however, live their lives in evasion of the central fact of existence.

Of course it is perfectly possible to be a writer without facing death face-on, without years of psychoanalysis, and without a tendency towards depression. But the resonant, powerful, exciting voice that grips you in its thrall is likely to be a voice with a good deal of hard-won wisdom about humanity.

Which brings us to “throughness”. “Throughness” is a word I've borrowed from dressage: “The supple, elastic, unblocked, connected state that permits an unrestricted flow of energy from back to front and front to back.” Synonymous with the German term Durchlässigkeit or “throughlettingness”, it is often used in conjunction with the word “connection” – defined as a state “in which there is no blockage, break, or slack in the circuit that joins horse and rider into a single harmonious unit; the unrestricted flow of energy and influence from and through the rider to and throughout the horse, and back to the rider”.

Now think, for a minute, of your subconscious mind as the horse and your conscious mind as the rider. The goal is a combination of strength, suppleness and softness. If the rider (conscious mind) is too strong, too stiff or unsympathetic, the horse becomes unresponsive and difficult to control, or resistant and dull. The object of dressage is to create an open, graceful exchange of understanding and energy between horse and rider.

In writing, a powerful flow of energy between conscious and subconscious mind will result in extraordinary occurrences. Characters will behave in ways you had not anticipated. Twists of plot will astound you. The part of your brain that concocts elaborate dreams while you sleep will emerge in daytime, informing your story in ways you might never have anticipated.

A book written with an exchange of energy between the conscious and subconscious mind will feel exciting and fluid in the way that a perfectly planned and pre-plotted book never will. Writing (like riding, or singing, or playing a musical instrument, or painting or playing cricket or thinking about the universe) requires the deep psychological resonance of the subconscious mind. It requires throughness and connection, and only then will the reader feel the surge of power that a clever borrowed voice never achieves.

The good news is that you can achieve throughness by writing. Practice, in other words. Write first thing in the morning when your conscious brain hasn't quite taken over yet. Write letters. Or essays. Write and write and write, and then look at what you've written to find out who you are.

Last bit of advice? Stop thinking about your voice. Think about your life instead. Live. Take risks. Seek wisdom. Confront the unconfrontable. Find out who you are. Let your voice gain power as you go.

Then write your book.

Meg Rosoff is the author of five novels including the bestselling How I Live Now and Just In Case. Her books have won eight major literary prizes including the Carnegie medal. Her latest novel, There is No Dog, is published by Penguin