Qualities of POV
1st Person POV
The issue of trust always comes up—should we trust this person? How far? How are they
twisting the information?
It is limited with where it can go—can’t travel into others’ minds, others’ homes, without
permission or without supposing a good deal.
In general, all things realized in the story must be realized by the character /narrator.
Is immediate, engaging and instantly convincing.
You create a distinctive voice, a character, a personality, with the first words of the story.
When told in present tense, there is one “I.”
When told from past tense, there are two “I” characters—one from past and one telling.
Always need to decide on the spectrum for the “I”—How different it will be from past
“I”; how accurate or distorted the perception will be; how involved/aware of another
character(s) “I” will be.
If the “I” is to be distorted, writer must be constantly and reliably signaling to the reader
that the “I” is distorted.
1st Person Plural—“We” can demonstrate a variety and an intensity of experience, shared
experience, within a group.
It invites the reader into the group.
Very good for “solving mysteries,” creating a playful element to stories
2nd Person POV
Brings reader into the story. In fact, it pushes the reader into the story the author has
created for him/her.
This can create a resistance, it can seem too pushy. Needs to be delicately handled, often
joined with humor.
Often, in some way, it is about ego—either the lessening of it (taking away the “I”), or
the increasing of it (“I” is too big, needs to be a “you,” too. Ex: “You’re a rock star. You
got it.”)
Helps to achieve a relatively disembodied tone, and create a widely shared feeling.
Can be used to invite readers to be someone they clearly are not. Demands the reader be
someone instead of observing someone.
3rd Person POV (Close, Distant, Roving)
Allows description / scenery to be elaborate without needing to be filtered through a
narrator who loves scenery.
The reader must trust the voice / the narrator. The third person POV should not
deliberately mislead the reader.
There can be revelations beyond the character: the character can go on, living as he/she
otherwise did, but the reader has an epiphany.
A close third allows the immediacy of first person, but doesn’t limit perceptions.
Particularly good for a short story because of the economy and concentration.
Omniscience
A very fine line between a nimble third person (switching from person to person) and
omniscience.
It can reveal things, describe things beyond any character.
It must deal with a “mystery” that is beyond personal: it must not be just “keeping a
secret” / “playing tag.” It needs to deal with “mysteries of life.”
Narrative voice can become distinct, almost like a separate character. It can comment on
the social customs of the period, make generalizations about behavior in the culture, and
speculate on causes.
Notes from Boswell’s “On Omniscience”
General Idea: In literary fiction, the “half-known world” must be created. “To accomplish
this, the writer must suggest a dimension to the fictional reality that escapes
comprehension. The writer wishes to make his characters and their world known to the
reader, and he simultaneously wishes to make them resonate with the unknown” (5).
Boswell gives twelve “planks” on the effects of omniscience. Here are a few:
-the narrator must be definitive, and consistent in tone, not wishy-washy
-the narrator’s voice, by what it chooses to include, shapes the narrative
-the mystery of omniscient narrator lies in the “fullest and earliest
revelation of all relevant detail” (75).
-omniscient voice is useful to make “reader question her life” and to raise
questions that “cannot be readily resolved” (89).
From Roxane Gay’s “Not Here to Make Friends”
Our Questions:
*What are the advantages and/or dangers of writing “unlikable” characters? (“Unlikable”
meaning characters who behave badly, characters who aren’t trying to make friends.)
*Why are women more likely to be called into question for being unlikable?
84--“Even from a young age I understood that when a girl is unlikable, a girl is a problem. I
also understood that I wasn’t being intentionally mean. I was being honest (admittedly,
without tact), and I was being human. It is either a blessing or a curse that those are rarely
likable qualities in a woman.”
84--“They are freeing themselves from the burden of likability, or they are, perhaps, freeing
us from the burden of guilt for the dislike and eventual contempt we might hold for them.”
85--“Why is likability even a question? Why are we so concerned with whether, in fact or
fiction, someone is likable?”
86—“I want characters to do the things I am afraid to do for fear of making myself more
unlikable than I may already be. I want characters to be the most honest of all things—
human.”
86—“That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd….Certainly
we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to
be friends or lovers with those about whom we read. Frankly, I find ‘good,’ purportedly
likable characters rather unbearable.”
88—“In literature, as in life, the rules are all too often different for girls…. An unlikable man
is inscrutably interesting, dark, or tormented, but ultimately compelling, even when he might
behave in distasteful ways…. When a woman is unlikable, it becomes a point of obsession in
critical conversations…. Why are these women daring to flaunt convention? Why aren’t they
making themselves likable (and therefore acceptable) to polite society?”
89—[Claire Messud’s response to interviewer] “The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a potential
friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive?’”
89—“Perhaps, then, unlikable characters, the ones who are the most human, are also the
ones who are the most alive. Perhaps this intimacy makes us uncomfortable because we
don’t dare be so alive.”
90—“It is a seductive position writers put the reader in when they create an interesting,
unlikable character—they make the reader complicit, in ways that are both uncomfortable
and intriguing…. Freed from the constraints of likability, they are able to exist on and
beyond the page as fully realized, interesting, and realistic characters.”
95—“[Unlikable women] accept the consequences of their choices, and those consequences
become stories worth reading.”
Qualities of POV
1st Person POV
The issue of trust always comes up—should we trust this person? How far? How are they
twisting the information?
It is limited with where it can go—can’t travel into others’ minds, others’ homes, without
permission or without supposing a good deal.
In general, all things realized in the story must be realized by the character /narrator.
Is immediate, engaging and instantly convincing.
You create a distinctive voice, a character, a personality, with the first words of the story.
When told in present tense, there is one “I.”
When told from past tense, there are two “I” characters—one from past and one telling.
Always need to decide on the spectrum for the “I”—How different it will be from past
“I”; how accurate or distorted the perception will be; how involved/aware of another
character(s) “I” will be.
If the “I” is to be distorted, writer must be constantly and reliably signaling to the reader
that the “I” is distorted.
1st Person Plural—“We” can demonstrate a variety and an intensity of experience, shared
experience, within a group.
It invites the reader into the group.
Very good for “solving mysteries,” creating a playful element to stories
2nd Person POV
Brings reader into the story. In fact, it pushes the reader into the story the author has
created for him/her.
This can create a resistance, it can seem too pushy. Needs to be delicately handled, often
joined with humor.
Often, in some way, it is about ego—either the lessening of it (taking away the “I”), or
the increasing of it (“I” is too big, needs to be a “you,” too. Ex: “You’re a rock star. You
got it.”)
Helps to achieve a relatively disembodied tone, and create a widely shared feeling.
Can be used to invite readers to be someone they clearly are not. Demands the reader be
someone instead of observing someone.
3rd Person POV (Close, Distant, Roving)
Allows description / scenery to be elaborate without needing to be filtered through a
narrator who loves scenery.
The reader must trust the voice / the narrator. The third person POV should not
deliberately mislead the reader.
There can be revelations beyond the character: the character can go on, living as he/she
otherwise did, but the reader has an epiphany.
A close third allows the immediacy of first person, but doesn’t limit perceptions.
Particularly good for a short story because of the economy and concentration.
Omniscience
A very fine line between a nimble third person (switching from person to person) and
omniscience.
It can reveal things, describe things beyond any character.
It must deal with a “mystery” that is beyond personal: it must not be just “keeping a
secret” / “playing tag.” It needs to deal with “mysteries of life.”
Narrative voice can become distinct, almost like a separate character. It can comment on
the social customs of the period, make generalizations about behavior in the culture, and
speculate on causes.
Notes from Boswell’s “On Omniscience”
General Idea: In literary fiction, the “half-known world” must be created. “To accomplish
this, the writer must suggest a dimension to the fictional reality that escapes
comprehension. The writer wishes to make his characters and their world known to the
reader, and he simultaneously wishes to make them resonate with the unknown” (5).
Boswell gives twelve “planks” on the effects of omniscience. Here are a few:
-the narrator must be definitive, and consistent in tone, not wishy-washy
-the narrator’s voice, by what it chooses to include, shapes the narrative
-the mystery of omniscient narrator lies in the “fullest and earliest
revelation of all relevant detail” (75).
-omniscient voice is useful to make “reader question her life” and to raise
questions that “cannot be readily resolved” (89).
Notes on Epiphanies
“Suddenly I realized”—The language of literary epiphanies naturally has something in
common with the rhetoric of religious revelation. The veil of appearances is pulled aside and
an inner truth is revealed. A moment of radiant vision brings forth the sensation if not the
content of meaning.” (55) Comes directly from religion—the awe felt at seeing Christ child.
--A moment of radiant insight. A result of intellectual and spiritual discipline.
--Joyce pulled the term into secular use.
About “Araby”: It’s as if the outer world gradually shuts itself off switch by switch, echo by
echo, leaving the boy in his one burning isolated spotlight on his small diminished stage. He
becomes visible to us and to himself. (57)
All these epiphanies, regardless of context, begin to seem stale, rotten. “However, in
contemporary society almost anything can be mass produced, even insight. Especially
insight.” (60)
Insights depend on an assumption that the surface is false. (61)
Insights leave one stunned. Immobile. “A belief that one is a victim will lead inevitably to an
obsession with insight.” (62) In everyday life, most large-scale insights turn out to be
completely false.
Insight is difficult to capture on film, and radiance is worse. Has more to do with class,
though, how the middle class needs to know how things work and how they may be
controlled. “Bingo moment” (66)
Obvious point: Short stories end before novels do and therefore have a more critical relation
to the immediacy of closure and what might constitute it. Arguable point: Characters in
short stories, unlike the characters in novels, do not, as a rule, make long-term plans. They
tend, instead, to be creatures of impulse. (67,8)
-- A story can be a series of clues but not a solution, an enfolding of mystery instead
of a revelation. It can contain the images without the attached discursive morality.
Alternatives to epiphany (some): Ending story with action—not insight. Ending on a scene
that seems frozen. Suspended metaphor.
Literature is not an instruction manual (77) (Connection to Gardner’s concept of moral
fiction.
From Charles Baxter, “Against Epiphanies”
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