The Art of Perspective
Matt: Welcome everybody to Write Out Loud, the podcast, all about storytelling, writing, authorship, creativity, just, oozing that creativity that we all lust for every day, right?
Christina: Yes.
Matt: I am, of course, Matt Cassem. I'm here with the brilliant, stunning, innovative, wondrous, beautiful, and amazing, talented Christina.
Mm hmm,
Christina: innovative. I like
Matt: mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm. Yes, yes, it does. Well, they all fit, really, but. But you know, I like, I like when you get excited about one of them that I come up with.
Christina: Yes.
Matt: That's always good.
Christina: Yes.
Matt: we're talking about point of view. And by that we mean, many stories are written in different points of view.
You have third person, you have first person, you have, Weird hybrids That's my own judgment. But you know, we're gonna talk about point of view and kind of what that Brings to the table and what really sparked this I have a blog post here, but I want to just kind of quickly share And so the blog post is by Manton Rees, and he says in his post, A small, probably unfair book rant.
When I start a fantasy book and discover it's written in first person, I groan a little. It takes a unique story and a very good author to pull it off. Thinking of Robin Hobb, even great books would be a little better in third person with multiple perspectives. So I sent that to you and was just like, this is kind of interesting.
Right. I think it's a really fascinating take. So let's talk about it. And well, here we are.
Christina: Yes. And in fact, when you sent that to me, I'm like, this is the topic. This is what we need to talk about. I actually have a lot of thoughts on choosing point of view. Why you should, why you shouldn't some other points of view that I don't think are widely used enough in fiction. But according to Jane Friedman right now, they're all the rage, which not actually seeing not in my clients, nor am I seeing it or I should say I should qualify that with, I'm not seeing it more in my clients, like the
Matt: Okay.
Christina: see it from. tend to see it deep point of view, which is technically third person, but it's from one character's point of view.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: Some people call it limited third person. But from industry that I have worked with we call it deep point of view. And that's
Matt: Okay.
Christina: You actually don't know that you're reading, point of view that you're reading, technically a first person account,
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: in third person.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: and Jane Friedman said that this is a new trend. I don't know how it became a new trend because when I started working with authors ago,
Matt: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Christina: Genius, because at that time was not an editor. I, was coming off of book selling and worked with her on marketing and other, business aspects.
But we were having a discussion in her kitchen and we were talking about the book she had just written. And of course I, I had read it, Person number three to have read it because her mother and her husband are person one and two. and we were discussing something and I made a comment and she goes, Oh, no, no, no. and she said, no, we're seeing it from character, point of view, and he is making a judgment of these two other people that he's seeing across the room. And I'm like, Mind blown, because as soon as I understood she was writing it from one character's point of view, because, I wasn't reading into it.
I'm a reader at that point. I'm not an editor or, know, any of the above. I, it clicked with me wow, she was using this point of view to keep secrets, to tell. A certain side of the story a certain way perhaps I'm not going to use the word mislead because that's not what she was doing, but she was diverting attention so that people would think one way or another.
And it was just was genius to me. It was absolutely genius. so with the fact that Jane Friedman is now saying it's, it's the trend I think it was a trend before, uh, but there are very few authors that do it so well, like Suze. So, I'm hoping sometime we can get Suze on to talk about Deep Point of View more than we're going to talk about it here today. But yeah, she's, she is an absolute genius at it. Genius. the interesting thing also with Jane Friedman's comments When I followed the, the blog posts attached with those comments,
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: by her, they were written by somebody else. So
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: that she was, taking, and not that you can't do that, but,
Matt: Sure.
Christina: someone else's thoughts on it.
So when you sent me that post and then I had just seen that Jane Friedman thing, I thought this was a perfect way to talk about the different points of view. point of view that you choose is important.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: and what are some of the things that are unique about the different points of view?
Matt: Yeah. So, I think as we talk about it, right, we, We think about first person and third person
Christina: yes,
Matt: as sort of the broad strokes, right? Those are the kind of the top level of options maybe.
Christina: yes,
Matt: and there's some sub sub sects of that, I guess, where there's like, third person limited, first person limited, like there's different ways to refer to that based on kind of how you approach it, I guess.
But to me, when I look at Uh, point of view, I think Suze is right. I think it's a way that you have to think about how you're going to tell the story and what you want your readers to be able to know both in the moment and ahead of time.
Christina: yes.
Matt: whether you want to keep secrets from just the characters, or do you want to keep secrets from the reader and let them kind of figure it out along with the characters?
Uh, so it all just depends on kind of your goal, I guess, right?
Christina: Yeah. I, I actually think that is the most important question you need to ask when deciding what point of view. Let me backtrack for a second, too, because here's the other thing, is when you are deciding what point of view, certainly you want to lean to your strengths. If you don't think you can write third person, your natural voice is first person, then obviously you should choose first person. you are someone who is trying out different points of view, different voices, then you
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: I, I do think you should give some of these a thought, and quite frankly, look up Deep Point of View and see if that's something that you can do, because I think some of the most successful and the most engaging for the reader and by engaging, I mean that book that plays like a movie in your head
Matt: Sure.
Christina: caught up in it that like you forget the world around you. Those for me tend to be that 3rd person and even further 3rd person, uh, deep point of view, but that's not to say that 1st person. Isn't also, great in its own way. Which one of the authors that I read that I had, she had written in the past third person and she was writing something brand new. She had been with traditional publishers and self published the first book in the series. And she absolutely used. first person, with a purpose. So this
Matt: Okay.
Christina: just a, I've been writing in third person and I haven't found success. She, she definitely was, mid to top list author. I'm not actually sure exactly where she fell other than she was successful. I would
Matt: Sure. Hmm. Hmm. Well,
Christina: released this book and first person, when I first heard that she had done this, I thought to myself, okay, is this a question of, is she trying to follow a trend? Because at that time, romance was just starting to trend towards first person.
It is absolutely first person now. It's dominated by first person romances. that's not to say someone who writes in third isn't finding success there.
Matt: Let me ask a question about that. Do you think the, the first person dominating that specific genre, do you feel like that's because they've maybe discovered that it's more intimate that way?
Christina: I think that's a possibility, but I, I actually think it's more trend related versus, uh, like the readers are like, Oh my God, I, this feels so intimate to me.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: there are still some hugely successful authors that write in third.
Matt: Sure.
Christina: I think if they were feeling that way, these authors would start, writing in first person.
I think there is an element to that. Yes, absolutely. Specifically for the romance genre, because yeah, you get inside their heads. But remember that in third person deep point of view, you are also directly inside somebody's head.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: necessarily hear the I, I, I.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: you're
Matt: Yep.
Christina: in third person. yeah, but anyway, back to this author, because this is what blew me away. I read it thinking, Oh, okay. She's, following the trend, what she ended up doing was using it as a literary device in order to keep like a big surprise, a big secret, revealed
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: revealed. You're like, Oh my God. That's right. We were only seeing it from this person's point of view. And finally, when we find out, the secret and to me, that was amazing because that was a device. So this author sat down went, if I write this in first person, I can keep some secrets.
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: can keep some suspense. I can keep some angst going on here and, and, other feelings. So I think, whatever point of view you decide to write in, whether it is your natural voice or not,
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: to use it as that literary device, it to further tell the story. one of my favorite authors writes, Both in first person third, third person in the same book.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: by literary standards, this is a no, no, this is breaking rules. Normally for me, it would also be because it's like, Oh my God, we're head hopping. but it works for her voice.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: really works for her voice. And I think sometimes even I've read one of her books that are one of her early works, she tried writing in third person and it, I, I don't know. I haven't gotten to those books yet.
Matt: You're like, well, those aren't going to work for me.
Christina: I don't know. I've, I've, I've got them all and I think someday I'll probably, read them. But right now what draws me in is her first person. And then she started adding third person point of view from the male perspective.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: someone asked her once and I, I, I don't know if this is true or not. but she said that she can't, she can get into the heroine's head because she's feeling it. Female. And she knows. to write that first person and third person, she's not male. That comes out as, as third person. it, it, it's, it's interesting that way. Cause she's successful. extremely successful.
I mean, New York times bestseller and, and all that and
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: Publishes her own. I think she's at a couple traditional publishers .
Matt: But doing, doing good work for sure. Yeah. So, if we, if we assume that maybe you do listener are not too familiar with what this sounds like or what this looks like, right. I looked up a couple of quick definitions. Cause there is one I forgot to talk about, which is second person. Uh, so first person narrator uses the pronoun.
Right. Pretty straightforward. I went to this school. Here I am. They looked at me, blah, blah, blah. Uh, it does say the narrator can also use us and other pronouns such as you, them, or it, but the reader stays in the narrator's head and knows only what the narrator knows.
Christina: Okay. Yep.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: Yep.
Matt: Uh, so.
Christina: with that other
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: and keeping secrets. So
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: that if you want to hide things from your reader, that's a great one to use.
Matt: Okay, yeah. Or, yeah, and even, even again, hiding from the characters, right? Like, because you're, this character only knows what they know, and Might be easy to keep them in the dark. Second person perspective. The reader is the viewpoint character and the story is happening to them. So the narrator uses you to describe the reader's reactions, thoughts, and background.
This POV is much less popular and because it can be awkward to write long prose fiction in second person, it can force the reader to make decisions they might disagree with. So second person is often used in mediums where the reader can make active decisions like video games, tabletop, RPGs,
Christina: Oh, yeah, I
Matt: things like that.
Christina: with that. That's
Matt: so they're saying like, you walk into a barn, and you see that this is happening, and what do you do? You grab a table leg and hit somebody. They're like, no, I don't want to hit somebody. Yeah. Uh, third person. Probably the most popular, usually, in stories. I guess, I would say. I don't know. My guess?
Christina: today I would think it's, it's, it's almost more of a toss up if you're talking just Fiction in general,
Matt: Like 50 50? Yeah. Mm
Christina: the sub different sub genres, like I said, right now, I, I believe romance is kind of leaning more towards first person than third
Matt: mm.
Christina: days, but that doesn't mean that someone can't write a stellar person and be
Matt: Sure. So here the author narrates the story from an outside perspective using pronouns like he, she, and they, or referring to characters by name. There are three different approaches to third person point of view. Third person omniscient. Third person limited and third person objective. So in third person omniscient, the narrator has an all knowing perspective and can enter the minds of any character they want.
The narrator can move from character to character to show how each one contributes to the plot and can give the reader their own opinions and observations as well as those of the characters. And that is, by the way, from Kindlepreneur and grammar. Like it's a mix cause it's kind of a summary of all of these.
Christina: Yeah.
Matt: Again, just different ways of kind of breaking down the character and the way that the story is told, the voice with which that story is told.
So you can think back to some of your favorite stories. We just, really spent some time looking at some, uh, some stories over the weekend. And most of the ones that I read were in third person. And then there was a couple that I read that were, eh, kind of dancing in that first person a little bit as well, so.
Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things too that I want to talk about is first person can be difficult to write well. The reason I say that is because sometimes I think the writer can get a little lazy with it, not using it as a literary device. There can be a lot of head info dumping
Matt: Mm. Mm.
Christina: like we're in the narrator's head so much and it's I this and I that, and I think this and I think that, it can an info dump of stuff. And you
Matt: Mm.
Christina: to
Matt: Sure.
Christina: that showing is better than telling. first person lends so much to telling. That, it can be, I think, a little more problematic than, say, third person, because at least in third person, the writer has removed themselves from the narrator a little bit.
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: don't get so much of that, info dump. like
Matt: Mm.
Christina: There are positive and negatives to each one. I think number one is you definitely have to look at what your natural voice leans towards.
Matt: Sure.
Christina: And number two, look for what literary devices can you use in those points of view.
Matt: Mm.
Christina: keep secrets? How do you tell the story in the most effective way? Keeping some secrets, as you go. First person, I think, if you're telling the story from solely one person's point of view, know, think about why you're telling that story. It
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: more personal story. It has to be something that's like a journey of growth or, know, a trauma based like here I am and learning and so on and so forth. So think about what the themes of your story are and what are the best ways in order to tell that. I think a lot of times, when When a new writer sits down, don't think out, which one of my best at, they just kind of
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: Allow themselves to, write or, not my favorite thing, but you know, Oh, it's the trend to write in first person, so let me write in first person
Matt: Sure.
Christina: when their natural voice would be, a third person. Point of view.
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: but it is, you have to be passionate about you. You have to, be a little more natural at it. Not saying that if you're a more natural first person, that doesn't mean you can't write third.
Matt: Mm
Christina: I had a client who started writing in first person and they said they wanted to try third
Matt: hmm.
Christina: and I suggested deep point of view and I sent them, the materials that I had, uh, And, uh, they ended up writing a great, great story. So I think sometimes you don't actually know what your natural voice is until you actually start writing,
Matt: Sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, too. I, I remember writing growing up and, and getting into stories, and I would typically lean towards third person,
Christina: hmm.
Matt: or, or not, didn't matter, but would be a smattering of all, all of them. Mm hmm. But I remember dabbling in first person for a couple of stories.
And I think it was at the point where I was actually starting to get into like writing horror stories. And I remember writing one and it's like the first page, I think. I mean, and I was terrible at writing at this age. Like it was, I was young. But, I remember my first, I think the first page was something like Like, I'm a dark, dark person, dark soul.
I am a serial killer. And I remember as of writing this, as the opening to the book, right? Like, my mom reading it going, No, you're not! And I was like, it's not me, it's the character. Like, I'm not talking about me, the writer. Like, I'm talking about this character, right? But it's just funny, because I think first person tends to throw people off that way, right?
Because it can be hard. Sometimes you tend to think, am I supposed to identify with this person? I don't know. Like you can have a little bit of struggle, so it does take some skill to write that.
Christina: Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of new writers that I speak with not a lot of thought goes into what point of view should they be writing in.
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: I think it's because, their favorite author writes in this point of view or the trends are that point of view. But I think that if you're, if you're really trying to lean in who you are as a writer. Which I think is, is the most important thing that you can do in your writing career. Because that's how you stand out.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: You stand out because, it's a cliche, cliche for a reason. Only you can be you,
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: you're the only one that can write that, back in the day when vampires were a huge thing everybody wanted to write vampires, some people were saying, Oh, you can't write vampire. You can't write vampire. But there were some good authors that said, no, I'm writing vampires and I'm putting my own twist on it. So, not the Stephanie Meyer, twilight sparkly
Matt: I was like, yeah,
Christina: They
Matt: I was like, that's how you end up with sparkly.
Christina: they had their own style of vampire.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: and, and, And rightly so. And, there's one of them still writing vampires today and continuing to do so. So I think, if you know who you are as a writer and you know what you can do with point of view, I mean, I think that's, that's half the battle right there.
Matt: Yeah. Agree. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. But there was an author, I think you were working with, or at least had read that was changing in between first and third person.
So like when they would, if a chapter was from the protagonist standpoint, they would go into first person, but when it jumped to anyone else, they went to third person.
Christina: That is, uh, Kristen Ashley
Matt: Okay.
Christina: That's who I was speaking about before if I didn't say it. She writes first person for the female
Matt: Mm-Hmm.
Christina: and third person for the male point of view.
Matt: That's right.
Christina: she, like I said, she makes it work.
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: it work. I, I would not have been able to stay a fan had it not worked.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: I get pulled out of a story it's, it's, it's not fun. But no, I, I remain a fan of hers and she, she is my case study for a lot of things she's, she's actually the one I'm going to credit her with starting the first person point of view trend
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: now see in romance that is leading that way. And in the beginning. There were no e books at that time, and she was submitting to New York, and they kept telling her, Sorry, we do not publish first person for romance. No, seriously, this
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: is, this part of it I know is absolutely true.
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: because I was in the industry back then. So for her to say that, she was rejected because of that.
That's exactly why she would have been rejected. And then once self publishing came out, she decided to go, okay, this is, this is where I've got to go. And I think the idea that she was so strong her own voice that I write romance in first person and I'm not going to change that for New York. And maybe she did.
Maybe she tried. And maybe those are the third person books that I haven't gotten to yet. But yeah, so that's why I say you can't discount breaking the rules if it fits your voice,
Matt: Sure.
Christina: can make it work. She somehow makes it work. Nine times out of 10, I'm taken away in her books and like, Ooh, this is great.
This is, Oh, I can't wait to read another one. There is a small percentage of, of some that haven't liked, but. know, she's written a hundred books
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: so, what is it that oh gosh, what's his name? Uh, his name just flew out of my head. Oh, I'll remember it when the podcast is
Matt: King,
Christina: Uh,
Matt: No,
Christina: He's, he's a he's not a, a fiction writer. He is a nonfiction writer uh, that interviewed Brit Marling and Yeah, and I, I'm just not going to think of his name. Oh! Malcolm Gladwell! He actually said the percentage of people per 100. So just easy mathematics
Matt: Sure.
Christina: is not going to like what you do. So if
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: hugely successful author and you're selling a billion copies, that means 20 percent of those billion copies that are sold. don't like it.
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: Whatever the math is on that.
Matt: Yep.
Christina: so yeah, so you, so you've got a hundred books out there. I do like more, than than their 20%, the 20 percent that they're that you
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: I dislike fewer than that.
Matt: Like, more like 5%.
Christina: Yeah. Yeah, there's a handful that in that case, I don't think it was the point of view that threw me. I think it was other things in the story that she was trying to do. So it's not, it's, it's never been the point of view that has thrown me off. Like I said, with the exception of the third person. And I think that's just because her natural voice is first person. those are. more grabbing. They, they pull you in there, her natural voice. So that's not to say she wasn't good at writing the third person. Like I
Matt: Yeah,
Christina: I can't say because I didn't get far enough into any of them to, to know
Matt: yep.
Christina: because I always went to the, Oh, this isn't catching me.
Let me go to another one. Deep point of
Matt: So let's talk a little bit more about this third person, just deep perspective or deep point of view and like, how does it differentiate between, some of the other kind of definitions of that that we've heard and what, so let's talk about it.
Christina: Okay.
Matt: Okay.
Christina: And say that it is third person, from a first person perspective,
Matt: Okay.
Christina: Meaning
Matt: my face and curiosity.
Christina: that it is written in third person,
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: it is actually first person.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: So
Matt: crinkling.
Christina: is, yes, it is one person's perspective, just like first person is.
Matt: Okay,
Christina: seeing the scene. From that point of view of that character.
Matt: gotcha. So first person, but using like he, he did, he went,
Christina: it is from Matt's perspective, but me as the writer narrator is calling him he. we are only seeing it from his point of view, so it is his interpretation, his rose colored glasses that are making judgments on the scene.
Matt: okay.
Christina: that's what I mean by that it can be used for some, really great literary devices. Because once Suze told me it was from that person's perspective, I suddenly understood else that happened in the novel and how it was completely, misinterpreted or, I
Matt: Like how it all went down.
Christina: it was, it was one of those moments in my. reading lifetime that totally changed my perspective on writing, editing.
Matt: Sure.
Christina: The other thing about Deep Point of View that's really great is you can have more than one character's perspective. You, you can have two, three, four, five. You can have as many as you want. That work to an
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: At some point you get too many characters, points of view, and then a reader gets lost. But I think
Matt: Sure.
Christina: such a great point of view to write in. I think it's the most immersive that you can be within a book
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: It's a point of view that lends itself to showing rather
Matt: hmm.
Christina: because you can't tell. Um, when it's in the third person, perspective that way.
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: I don't know if that
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think as you're describing it too, I think of it as a lot of the video games that I've played where. You're literally, driving your character around, right? So like, think Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Like, you're, you don't see through their eyes, but you see their perspective.
And you're walking them around and you're experiencing the world as they experience it. Again without just literally looking through their eyes and
Christina: Right.
Matt: seeing it that way. So, yeah, that's interesting. Okay.
Christina: in this case, it's the I person.
Matt: Mm mm.
Christina: I did that. Cause you're not seeing it that way. It's, Matt did this, he did that. And,
Matt: Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Christina: Yeah, I, like I said, what I would really like to do sometime, tuned, maybe this'll be a, know, end of season three, beginning of season four. We'll have to
Matt: Part two.
Christina: yeah, we'll have to reach out to Suze and see if she'll come on and talk about the Deep Point of View perspective. Because, like I said, she, to me, is the genius at it. She really has crafted. Some of the best, know, books I've ever read with, with, deep point of view.
Matt: Sure.
Christina: rich in the writing that, again, it's like a movie playing out, it's not letting you know everything. You're not, you are absolutely not but that's actually good. I don't know that I would want to be, I, This is a personal thing. This is not an edit editor thing, but I personally am not a fan of the omniscient. I don't necessarily want to know every single thing that is going on because that where's the surprise in that? Where is
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: Oh, I needed to figure that out for myself. Why didn't I figure, those
Matt: Yep.
Christina: you're so caught up and then you're like, what did I just read? Page
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: see where, where did I go wrong?
Where did I get it wrong?
Matt: How did I miss that? Yeah.
Christina: that? Yeah. So yeah, so, uh, we'll, we'll put a, a reach out to Suze and
Matt: All right.
Christina: on and talk about it.
Matt: Yeah. Suzanne Brockman. Come on, join us. Join us. Jump right in. Let's talk about this. We would love to have you. All right. Well, very good. Uh, I look forward to that. I think that's going to be a great discussion. It'll be cool to hear. Her perspective, her point of view on that and, uh, break it down a little bit further.
So there you've got it. We've talked about point of view and the various ways that you can leverage that in your writing to make it maybe a little different or a little more impactful depending on what you're looking to do. Uh, again, as you said, it kind of comes down to whatever your goal is in writing that story.
How do you want to tell it? How do you want it to come across? What do you want to keep from the reader? What do you want to keep from the characters? You've got to have it all kind of planned out a little bit.
Christina: And also consider your natural voice, still use it as a literary device. Don't just think, oh, this is my natural voice and this
Matt: Yeah.
Christina: stuck with, no, use it. Use it to your best. I think the one thing that I want you to walk away with from this conversation is that point of view, isn't just a, let me choose or third.
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: is, what do I want to do with this book and which voice of view lends to be able to do that better or, okay, I write in first person point of view. That's my natural voice. How can I write first person? To the best of its, literary devices, or
Matt: Sure.
Christina: if that's, your choice.
Matt: Okay. Well, perfect. There you have it. So, thank you for tuning in, listening as you do every single week. Very much appreciated. And that is going to do it for this episode. So, I You know, point of view, something we all have, something we're all going to use. And sometimes we have to practice at it because there are different points of view that we're not so good at just yet, but we'll get there.
We'll get there and we'll get there together. All right. Very good. Well, thank you again for listening. Thank you, my dear, for joining me as always. And we'll see you next time. Bye.
Christina: Bye.