You Are Here

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director


If you’ve ever gone into an unfamiliar shopping mall trying to find a particular store, you know the feeling.  An endless maze of shops and kiosks clamor for your attention and you hardly know where to begin.  But before you can say “Where am I?” you spot the friendly sight of the mall directory and search for the reassuring red arrow that tells you “You are here.”

It’s only common sense that the directory is always parked near the entrance door, so shoppers have an opportunity to get their bearing right away.

By the same token, consider the opening shot in any film you’ve seen.  From the very beginning, the first thing you see tells you where you are.  It can be as obvious as an airport terminal or as subtle as a closeup on a bathroom faucet.  Before you learn anything about “who,” “what,” or “when”, the first thing your mind goes searching for is “where”.  Once we know where we are, we’re no longer geographically disoriented.

Reading a book, we have no such visual cue to establish our whereabouts.  Thoughtfully, the classics of literature provide readers with that information very early on.  Consider these opening lines from famous novels:

“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice…”

—Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Renowned curator Jacque Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.”

                                                —Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“At the beginning of July, during a spell of exceptionally hot weather, towards evening, a certain young man came down on the street from the little room he rented…”

                                                —Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream…”

                                                —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal…”

                                                —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.”

                                                —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

(Sir Arthur liked getting who, what, when and where out of the way very quickly.)

This is not to suggest that the first sentence always has to declare “where”.  “Call me Ishmael” (Moby Dick) and “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (A Tale of Two Cities) had other business to get out of the way. But within moments you do discover your whereabouts.

When we’re coming up with our own scenarios, we are intimately attuned to our characters, their actions and their dialogue. We have vivid images of all that. The location, however, can often seem merely incidental to us; almost a nuisance to have to include. But the reader needs that comforting sense of place very early on, and of course anytime the scene changes. All those establishing shots in movies answer what would otherwise be a continually nagging question. We never have to even think about where we are. But we sure would if we hadn’t been shown already.

Admittedly, coming up with something interesting to write acknowledging each changing scene isn’t nearly as fun as describing the characters’ personalities or penning their clever patter. But your readers will appreciate that nod of consideration. They will be right there in the scene with you if you give them the mile markers that say “You are here”.

In the words of George Burns, “It’s good to be here. At my age it’s good to be anywhere.”

What's Your Point of View?

Today our Editor-in-Chief, Susan Reichert, is taking a break from Wisdom Wednesday to bring us the insight of our Special Features Director, Richelle Putnam. Please give a warm Southern welcome to Richelle!
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by Richelle Putnam, Special Features Director

Defining Point of View (POV) in literature has always been a bit tricky, especially since Webster defines point of view as:

a position or perspective from which something is considered or evaluated.

And, of course, who can argue with Webster?

Literary POV, however, simply means “how” the story is told, not “who” is telling the story. Let’s say an argument happens between two friends and each tells you their side. In literary terms you’re hearing the stories from the same POV: first-person, but from two different “perspectives.”

Tricky? Yes.

EXAMPLES OF LITERARY POV:

First Person: The Narrator participates in the story, telling the story from his/her perspective. (“I”).

Second person: The reader (“You”) becomes an active participant in the story. This POV is rarely used because of its limitations and because most readers like to escape into someone else’s drama. Still, there are cases in which second person works. 

Third Person: (“he,” “she,” and “they”) Includes narrators that:

a.      See into any of the characters (omniscient). This all-knowing POV can include “editorial” omniscience, which makes judgments about the characters and their actions. Or can be “impartial,” which doesn’t make judgments about the characters’ thoughts and actions.

b.      See into one major character (Selective omniscience)

c.       See into one minor character (Selective omniscience)

d.      Remains objective and doesn’t see into any of the characters (objective  omniscience)

Writers can often get hung up between “literary point of view” and “Webster’s point of view,” thinking they’re one in the same. For instance, in a critique session, if fellow critiquers say you changed POV midstream, unless you changed from third-person to first-person, or vice-versa, they really mean you changed “perspectives.”  Third-person is third-person, whether the focus is on Helga or Swen.  For instance, in a third-person POV book, if a new chapter begins inside another character’s mind in third-person, the POV is the same. The perspective has changed. Perspectives can change throughout a book with each character sharing what he or she is thinking, planning, and feeling. Only when authors switch from First Person (I) to Third Person (He, She, They) does the book’s POV change.  Have I said that enough?

One novel that masterfully changes the novel’s POV is William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, which consists of First Person and Third Person POVs. Best-selling author James Patterson also does this well.

In short, it’s not in “whose POV is the story written,” but in “what POV” is the story written.

What’s important is to keep your characters “perspectives” from crowding the same paragraph or chapter in your novel. Give each character space by separating each “perspective” with a new chapter or extra spaces and four asterisks.

Here’s a helpful suggestion. Imagine a big room. In the center are five chairs spread out into a wide circle, like what you’d imagine for a group session. 

Imagine that room as your manuscript. The chairs represent different parts of your manuscript, either a new chapter or a section set off by four asterisks. One character is allowed to sit in each chair because, well, there’s only room enough for one.  Now, during “group,” you, as the leader, must keep your characters on the issue at hand, which is the plot, allowing only one character to share their “perspective” at a time.

By doing this, your readers obtain necessary facts and information from several different characters without getting confused as to who is feeling what, when, where and how. And there is much more opportunity to end each chapter/section with a “hook.” But we’ll save that for another blog!

Point-of-view and perspective can be tricky, but knowing the “tricks of the trade” will keep you from falling victim to the trickster.

Well…that’s my point of view.