Vashti Farrer

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

So starts Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, written from the second Mrs de Winter's viewpoint. The story couldn't have been told from another perspective and still tell the same tale. From Maxim de Winter's view it might have been a psychological novel, from Mrs Danvers's, a thriller, but not the same.

Viewpoint is often dismissed as unimportant; whether the story is told in the first, or third person, and through which character's eyes, when it is actually an under-used, under-valued writing tool. And when authors play musical chairs with viewpoint, they risk irritating the reader and ruining the story at the same time.

Consider these viewpoints. Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, once banned, was published in 1749. Victorian gentlemen kept it out of reach of their women in case it depraved them (!?) Written in the first person, it's about a young woman who's been seduced into a brothel. There are pages describing the enormous appendages of her clients. Men loved such fantasy, but could it have been written by a woman? No. We are more subtle and a romantic poet beats a gorilla, any day. In the movie, King Kong we know it's a s.n.a.g in the ape-suit. So, no surprises, when Fanny Hill author turned out to be written by John Cleland.

In 1980, Erica Jong responded with Fanny, a better novel, with a more realistic female viewpoint. So, if you're planning to write from the opposite sex's perspective, get it right.

Jane Austen's novels are written in the third person, from the heroine's stance, but Austen sometimes criticises her heroines, by adding her own ironic observations. In Emma: "The real evils of Emma's situation, were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself."

We see things as Emma's does, but with Austen's comments. Again, in Emma: "It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successfully without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind."

Or the opening of Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" - clearly a contemporary view, but not Austen's.

Charles Dickens also gave his opinion as well as the character's viewpoint. By chapter 18 of Great Expectations, the main character, Pip, has become a snob. As he leaves for London, his brother-in-law and Biddy come to say good-bye, and Pip says:

".  .  there was a certain touch of sadness in their congratulations, that I rather resented,"    

and

".  .  I drew away from the window, and sat down in my one chair beside the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright fortunes would be the loneliest I had ever known."

This is the beginning of Pip's change of character. We still see the world through his eyes, but Dickens makes clear his own view of him.

Sometimes an author chooses a viewpoint that leaves interpretation open. Henry James's Turn of the Screw is a ghost story to some and an early psychological novel to others. James wouldn't commit himself, so we either believe in the ghosts, or they are figments of the governess's imagination.

A single perspective is always easier. Few authors can pull off multiple viewpoints successfully. William Faulkner did, brilliantly, in As I Lay Dying - the story of a family attending the bedside of their dying mother. Each character is given a viewpoint chapter and the story progresses in cycles of chapters. Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible  is written from the daughter's and the wife's perspectives. Charlotte Wood's The Submerged Cathedral has alternate viewpoints of would-be lovers.

Joseph Conrad also uses multiple viewpoints in Lord Jim to create his enigmatic character, but we're never given Jim's view. Almost all the characters have their say, his lover and friends on one hand, his enemies on the other, and Conrad swings from pro-Jim to anti-Jim views, like the balancing scales of justice. The story slowly builds the case for and against, reminiscent of jury duty with evidence for the prosecution and the defence.

Conrad never gives his opinion of Jim, the closest we get is a quote from Novalis, printed at the start: "It is certain any conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it."

Multiple viewpoint is the traditional way of writing horror. It's the old Greek tragedy trick of keeping the horror off stage and having a messenger relay the news. By offstage, it allows the reader to use his imagination which has a stronger impact. A 'normal' character storyteller is someone the reader can 'trust'. He may have seen the horror, or know an eyewitness, so the reader feels safe in believing them, no matter how implausible the tale. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is told, not from the monster's, or the scientist, Victor Frankenstein's, perspective, but by someone who knew him. Coming from Frankenstein it would have sounded more silly, than horrifying.

Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is neither gothic nor horror, but contains elements of both. Several minor characters tell the story from normal perspectives, because none of the major characters can be relied on to give an unbiased view.

Wuthering Heights uses multiple viewpoints for another reason, also. The novel spans several years and Brontë worked out a detailed timetable. The story is not told chronologically, but goes back and forth, through time present, time long past, and time recent, which requires several viewpoints to supply details.

If you watch small children playing with dolls and stuffed animals, they use different voices for each. They know instinctively that dollies don't talk like bears, so they stand in the dolly's shoes, or bear's paws, and use squeaky or growly voices as appropriate.

The late Barbara Jefferis wrote snatches of dialogue on scraps of paper to find a character's voice. Once she had it in her head, she could start writing. Voice and viewpoint tend to go together.

There are no rules to viewpoint but there are some tricks. For instance, it's almost impossible to make the hero a first person narrator. No matter how hard you try, he usually emerges as an egoistical goody-goody. It's better to write in the third person, and allow another character to comment on his finer qualities.
 
If you have a character suffering mental illness, dementia, or going through a nervous breakdown, try a first person monologue. That way the reader sees the trauma through the character's eyes and experiences the breakdown with them. But never let the character become a victim, at no stage should they feel sorry for themselves. This may sound hard, but it's the quickest way to erode reader sympathy. It's far better to show the independence, anger, defiance and pain, which gives them their inner strength.

On the other hand, if you write about a mentally ill character in the third person, you can appear to be laughing at them, or appear overly sentimental. Be careful. Viewpoint should act as a buffer, a dispassionate barrier. The more you hold emotion at arm's length when writing, the better. By holding back your tears, you engage the reader's sympathy far more effectively and create a more powerful character in the process.

Albert Facey's autobiography, A Fortunate Life, tells of an extremely hard childhood, but as the title suggests, he didn't feel sorry for himself and we admire his strength and resilience. It's a sad fact of life that society tends to feel more sorry for people who don't complain, than for those who do. The same applies to fiction.

Another drawback in using first person is not being able to supply important information the character couldn't have known at the time. I overcame this in a monologue-style short story by having a slight break at the end, to allow a nurse to give a clinical report, which filled in the gaps.

In my kids' novel Plagues and Federation - The Diary of Kitty Barnes, a diary kept by a 12 year old girl in 1900, she couldn't have known much about the Boer War in South Africa, so the editor suggested 'slipping letters' from her trooper brother in between the pages of the diary.

Third person viewpoint is the easiest and, used carefully, can still allow the reader to see the character's viewpoint, plus the overview story. This is particularly effective when the character is a child, or animal, with a limited view of life.

Faithful Ruslan is a Russian novel about a former guard dog in a Stalin labour camp, who doesn't realise the camps have closed, so he 'tails' an ex-prisoner. The prisoner understands and befriends him, so we not only see the world through the dog's eyes, but also through the prisoner's.

In my youth, I wrote a short story from first and third person perspectives in alternate paragraphs. I thought this very clever and sophisticated at the time, and sent it to a literary journal. Back came a pleasant rejection slip saying if I cared to use only one viewpoint, the editor would take it. Being all of 23, I was outraged at his presumption, but a fortnight later, I made the changes, sent it back and he accepted it.

When you start writing, don't automatically opt for the logical viewpoint. Play around with different perspectives, especially if the story isn't working. It may be one person's story but is he the best to tell it? Could another character? Would it be more gripping, exciting, moving, or sensitive, if told by someone else?

The so-called omniscient viewpoint, ie when an author acts as puppeteer, juggling several characters at once, allows the reader to see inside all their heads. BUT - and it's a very big "but" - NOT all at once. Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner never dealt with more than one character's viewpoint at a time. Even in a vast work, like War and Peace, with hundreds of characters, Tolstoy only ever gave one perspective at a time.

Think of it as playing solo chess. You move on one side of the board, then walk round to the other side, and look at it from there before making the next move. You cannot play two pieces simultaneously. Nor can you be inside two characters' heads at once. Playwrights play a kind of solo chess when writing dialogue. They have to think what Character A would say and then how Character B will react before responding.

The most common mistake with viewpoint is slipping out of one character's head space into another's. You risk making statements or observations that character couldn't possibly have known, and your readers will always spot such mistakes.

If you're unsure who should be where and when, keep a checklist. Ask yourself could your character have known / heard / thought this, at the time? If the answer is 'yes', you're on track, but if 'no', then you've skidded off the rails. In other words, you've reached across and played another character's chess piece, without walking round the board.

No two authors write the same story from the same material, just as no two characters see events from the same perspective. So you can recycle material by rewriting it from other viewpoints. In this way a family story could be seen from the father's, the mother's, a child's and a dog's perspectives. Don't be too hasty deciding on viewpoint. Stand in the character's shoes and see life as he does.

Remember the old Mortein ad: When you're on a good thing, stick to it!

Don't, like a flea, in a plague pandemic, jump from character to character.

To avoid changing viewpoint, put this notice above your desk:

An author may be omniscient,
but only God can be everywhere at once.

copyright Vashti Farrer 2009