Virginia Smith - Dive Deep: Exploring the Depths of POV

Narrative Voice is the style the author selects to tell his or her story. The narrative voice is defined by the characters relationships to the story, and encompasses three elements: the tense , the viewpoint , and the scope. Combined, these elements define the perspective through which you will tell your story .

( Ill use the terms viewpoint and Point of View and POV interchangeably throughout this booklet.)

Tense

The tense has to do with the timing of the storys narrative. For example:

Past Tense: A child ran into the street. Sally slammed on the breaks and jerked the steering wheel.

Present Tense: A child runs into the street. Sally slams on the breaks and jerks the steering wheel.

In the first example, note the use of the past tense verbs ran, slammed, and jerked. Whereas in the second example, the verbs are present tense: runs, slams, and jerks.

When choosing a tense to tell your story, you will want to consider reader expectations . By far the most common tense used in fiction is past. Mystery, romance, books with historical settings, contemporary womens fiction, speculative fiction the majority of books in these genres are written using past tense. Readers have come to expect it, and they fall into the voice of the story almost effortlessly because theyre so accustomed to reading stories written in past tense. Since our goal as writers is to establish a vivid fictional dream, thats an important consideration.

Some genres use present tense as an almost-standard. Chick lit novels, for instance, are almost always written in present tense. Present tense is also used fairly often for gumshoe detective novels, the Sam Spade-type books. And Ive seen a good number of spy thrillers written in present tense.

The benefit of present tense is a sense of immediacy the reader experiences the action as it happens . (Of course, a good writer can accomplish the same sense of immediacy with a skillful use of past tense!) The downfall with present tense is that many readers have a hard time identifying with the style. That makes it pretty difficult to establish and maintain the vivid fictional dream.

Regarding the concept of tense in relation to genre : Im speaking in generalities. Im sure we can all come up with notable exceptions in every genre. Well talk more about selecting a tense for your story in a minute, in conjunction with viewpoint.

For now, t he important thing to keep in mind about tense is this: dont switch back and forth. This is a common mistake of new writers, and its one of those things that interrupt the flow of the narrative voice. It jerks your reader out of the dream. The readers may not even realize why they feel a slight distance from the story, but they will feel it. Plus, mixing tenses sends a major red flag up in the minds of editors. So if your book is Past Tense, be careful not to throw in any Present Tense verbs.

Incidentally, my published novels have all been past tense. I dont know why . Thats the style that feels natural to me and seems to appeal to the majority of my readers, so thats what Ive stuck with.

Viewpoint

The viewpoint is how the characters are referred to in the storys narrative.

If your story is told as though a character is speaking herself, using the pronoun I, then you are writing a First Person story.

In a Second Person narrative, the character (or narrator of the story) addresses the reader directly.

If the characters are referred to with third person pronouns, like she or he, then youre writing a Third Person story.

Like tense, its best if you stick with a single viewpoint style throughout the entire novel. In other words, dont write one chapter in first person viewpoint, and another chapter in third person viewpoint. This disorients the reader for a while, which interrupts that deep affinity were trying to create.

Now, there are authors who have successfully switched from First to Third in a single book. The ones who have done it successfully, in my opinion, are established writers with large readerships, so they can get away with stuff the rest of us cant even begin to get away with. Plus, an accomplished writer knows how to break the rules effectively. My advice, especially to inexperienced writers, is to stick with the accepted norm, and select a single viewpoint style for your entire book.

Lets look at some examples of viewpoint and tense:

First Person, Limited, Present Tense: I walk through the door. Rain pours from the sky to soak my bare head.

First Person, Limited, Past Tense: I walked through the door. Rain poured from the sky to soak my bare head.

First person viewpoint is the second most popular viewpoint in genre fiction either past or present tense. Ive seen both about equally. My two chick lit novels were written first person past tense.

First person POV is limited to what the viewpoint character sees, hears, smells, feels, tastes, and knows. Even the narrative is interpreted by the reader as internal thoughts of the viewpoint character. (Were going to see later in this booklet that this technique is also true of Deep POV, so First Person POV is setting the stage for us.)