Angles

"One day in the late fall of 1987�I stopped in the laundry room of our house to drop a dirty shirt into the washing machine. Our laundry room is a small, narrow alcove on the second floor. I disposed of the shirt and then stepped over to one of the room's two windows. It was casual curiosity, no more. We've been living in the same house for eleven or twelve years now, but I had never taken a good hard look out this particular window before. The reason is perfectly simple; set at floor level, mostly hidden behind the drier, half blocked by baskets of mending, it's a hard window to look out of.

I squeezed in, nevertheless, and looked out. That window looks down on a little brick-paved alcove between the house and the attached sunporch. It's an area I see just about every day�but the angle was new."

That quote illustrates something perfectly, and it's something so basic we rarely stop to consider it; where you stand dictates what you see. Blindingly bloody obvious, you would think. But I tell you, it's something I never really spent much time on until I ran into a brick wall when it came to writing a particular story. Hence this essay.

Different viewpoints of a city street; from a satellite, you get a broad picture, but not a lot of fine detail. From a five year old who lives on that street, you'll get one set of images, one feel; he might tell you about the weird old cat lady who lives down the road, and about the street cricket games he plays with his mates. From an adult who's just moved there, you'll get another tale, perhaps having to do with the welcome wagon and that cranky, stupid old woman who deliberately waters passers-by while she's watering her garden¹. An old lady who's lived there all her life will give you a third and different story, maybe including complaints about the racket those kids make when they're playing cricket in the street. There's the time factor too; present events and recent recollections will have a different flavour to nostalgia. On top of that, you've got to decide whether you're going to work in first, second or third person. The decisions you make are going to affect the whole shape of your story or novel. Whichever way you go, you've got to be comfortable with it because you're going to have to work that way for the whole piece².

Okay, first of all let's look at narrative form; first, second or third person. What's the difference? You probably went through this in language or lit classes but here's a quick refresher on the subject.

First person is that style when you're telling the story from the point of view of one person, riding inside their head; "I walked down the hallway, tripping over the phone cord on the way." Its big advantage is the intensely personal connection the reader gets with the viewpoint character. They get to hear, feel and know everything the character does. However, that can also be its biggest drawback. If a reader needs to know a particular fact for a story to make sense then the viewpoint character has to know it, and that can lead to some rather tortured plots. Swapping viewpoint characters while in first person is strongly discouraged; the form builds such a personal contact between viewpoint character and reader that an abrupt switch can really throw a spanner in the works. All of a sudden, the reader's back at square one but the story isn't, if you see what I mean.

Second person is the least used of the narrative forms. "You walk down the hallway and trip over the phone cord." I'm not going to discuss its strengths because, purely in my humble opinion, it hasn't got any unless you're writing an article or essay, and I'm discussing fiction here. Its main weakness is that it sounds like someone trying desperately to be avant garde and just coming off as pretentious³.

Third person � "Joe walked down the hallway and tripped over the phone cord" � is probably the most popular of the forms, and with good reason. It's versatile as all get-out; you can switch point of view without that sudden jarring of first person, and you can admit a little more information to the reader as well. Switching mid-scene is probably a bad idea � it can take the reader a couple of lines to catch on to your little trick � but at chapter or scene breaks it can work pretty well. Of course, there's got to be a weakness, and third person can seem a little impersonal if it isn't done well.

You can break these down further, I guess, but that's the basics.

Next question is tense; past, present or future. Past is the most popular, with present in second; if anyone ever hands me a novel written in future tense I can pretty much guarantee that I'll pitch it before I've finished the second page unless it's absolutely, undeniably brilliant enough to make me work that hard⁴. If it's in second person, future tense, I'll burn the damned thing. That's a promise.

So how do you decide which narrative form and tense is appropriate for your piece? The correct answer, by the way, does not include a coin toss.

Think about the effect you're trying to achieve with your story. In particular, there are three things to look at; information, intimacy and scale.

Information is a really big one. Your viewpoint character is your information pipeline to your reader. I originally planned on doing "One Down" from one viewpoint � probably Mark's. But it didn't work out like that, for one simple reason. I simply had too much information to convey; there were scenes that had to happen without Mark's participation or presence. In fact, there was no single character who could be in position for every scene, to convey every piece of information necessary, so I had to go with a shifting viewpoint, and that dictates third person. By contrast, in "Little Wing" one character knew all the information and another character asked questions.

Intimacy, in this context, is how closely you want the reader to identify with the characters. Got one person you want to really bring to life? First person may be the way to do it. Or, if you don't want to highlight one person so thoroughly but instead want a range of views, you might consider third person with a shifting viewpoint. In "Little Wing" I really wanted to get inside one character's head, map the thoughtstream that was going on. Naa-Dei achieved a similar effect when she wrote "To Superman." It's all internal. That's not to say that first person can't be used in action stories; it certainly can, and to great effect. But, to me, first person stories will always have a greater emotional impact simply because the reader is right inside the viewpoint character's mind. Third person can get close, put the reader on the viewpoint character's shoulder with a pipeline into their mind; first person puts the reader in the character's mind.

Scale is a kicker. Quite simply, how much ground is this story going to cover? Alex Hailey's "Roots" is grand scale, so is most of Tom Clancy's stuff, to pull two examples out of my hat, and I can't imagine either of them working in first person. It's easy to use first person if you're telling a tale that occurs over a few days, but if you're telling some multi-generational saga third person may be a better bet. Present tense carries the reader along nicely, but it can get wearing; again, a decades-long epic may not lend itself to the intimacy of first person.

There's one other thing I wanted to throw into the mix, and I'm not going to discuss it in detail; instead, it's just something you might want to keep in mind. That's the difference between the viewpoint character and the lead role. Just because you're telling the story from one character's point of view � first or third, doesn't matter � that doesn't necessarily make them the protagonist. Your viewpoint character may be nothing more than a 'sounding board,' a way for you to tell someone else's story; F. Scott Fitzgerald did it in "The Great Gatsby." Nick, the viewpoint character, watched what was going on and reported back to us readers. In this fandom, Heather Graves did something like that with Dr Sukya-Ti in "In a Small Room." If you're having trouble with finding a central viewpoint to tell your story, you can always resort to the time-honoured tactic of throwing a journalist in there; after all, it's a journo's job to dig out information and pass it on.

You might get lucky; your story might arrive with all questions answered, needing only your effort to write it down. If that happens, great. But sooner or later, you're going to get this great idea for a story � it might be no more than the general theme, an image or a sentence, something you really need to work on, and then you're going to have sit down and hash this out for yourself. Sometimes I wish there was an easy formula; action level plus time span multiplied by number of characters equals third person shifting. Unfortunately there isn't one and, on consideration, I'd be reluctant to give it anyway. There are those times when breaking the rules can turn out something truly special. It's all up to the author in the end; think about the type of story you're trying to tell, the scale of the tale. If you can't settle on one viewpoint character, maybe you can use a Nick or third person shifting. Experiment. You might make a couple of false starts, but we all do that.

One other thing; chuck favouritism out the window. Just because Joe or Ace or � heaven defend us � Zark is your favourite character doesn't mean they're the ideal as a viewpoint character. That can hurt, but in the long run your story will be better for it, and your readers will thank you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and get back to this story of mine. I think I just had an idea�

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Footnotes

1. True story. She runs a motel in Moree, where I grew up, and you walk past the motel at your peril.
2. Well, you're going to have to work that way unless you're Harlan Ellison or someone of that calibre and reputation. Mr E could probably roll dice to decide on narrative form and tense every third paragraph and it would be called "experimental" and "brilliant", but the rest of us ordinary mortals�
3. Certain poets and, again, Harlan Ellison are excepted from this comment. Actually, ol' Harlan is an exception to a lot of things, mostly because he is in some ways barking mad. But a visionary and a legendary writer nonetheless.
4. You can spot the exception I'm going to quote here, can't you. Oh Haaaarlan�

Just before I go, a quick Harlan Ellison story, courtesy of my good friend William Shatner. Harlan Ellison originally wrote the draft and teleplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever." The ten-page outline from Ellison was terrific, exactly what they needed, so the producers told him to go off and work his creative magic to produce a full teleplay. Six months later, when the show's in full production, no script has appeared. So the producer, Bob Justman, rang Harlan and told him they needed the script urgently. When it didn't materialise in the next few weeks, Justman took drastic action and locked Harlan in his (Justman's) office overnight so he'd actually do some work on it. Harlan apparently agreed to the plan, although he took drastic action of his own. You see, there had been a potplant on Bob Justman's desk, a beautiful green, leafy houseplant. Come morning, there was nothing in the plant pot but dirt and stems.

Ellison ate it.