Hi L2W.
Literature is funny -- it's not like film where the director can switch viewpoint whenever she likes (one minute you'll be in a helicopter looking down at a house; the next minute you're in a stalker's eyes; then you're in the eyes of the girl inside who doesn't know the stalker is there). Literature could do the same, but it usually doesn't. Film chases the best picture, but literature chases
thoughts and
ideas -- and those are usually close to the major characters. Whatever story's going on in literature, the
real story is about how the major characters struggle and change.
But that means that our 'camera' can't just follow the action around. It has to
follow the important struggles. That means we don't get much choice in viewpoint at all.
Let's do an example.
Annie is a schoolgirl who was captured by a man in an ice-cream van. He's a mad film-maker who's trying to get her to act out the part of Sleeping Beauty on video -- and then he means to kill her. Every time she does a scene, he feeds her. If she refuses, he doesn't. She's scared and she wants to go home.
Bree is a detective who's just come back to work after twelve months being sick. Before she was on leave, she tried to save a mother who was going to jump off a building with her baby. She spent an hour with the woman trying to stop her, but the woman jumped -- and took Bree too. Bree fell but caught a ledge, and hurt her back. Now she's working again, hiding her back-pains and trying to forget the terrible experience she had.
Charlie is the mad film-maker. He was a talented film-student who got thrown out of film school because of his macabre films about animals dying. He thinks he's a genius (and he is talented), but now he works as an ice-cream vendor. He kidnap children and makes them act in his movies. He just wants to create (for him) the perfect Sleeping Beauty.
So, which are the characters who'll face change in this story? Annie's not going to change much -- she's scared, she wants to go home. She'll try and escape, she'll fail and hopefully she'll eventually be rescued. Bree however, suffers deep
inner conflict. She wants to go back to policing, but she's afraid to. She's afraid that they'll find out about her back injury and send her home. She still has nightmares about the mother and her baby. We definitely want the viewpoint on her.
But what about Charlie now? On the surface he just wants his murderous film. But is he conflicted? Does he hate himself? Is he afraid of being caught? If the answer is yes then we have another possible viewpoint. We could jump between Bree and Charlie and create a lot of suspense. If the answer is no then our viewpoint is just on Bree. And that would mean that any scary action between Annie and Charlie, Bree would have to find out about so the reader could find out too... Is Charlie sending videos to the police-station? Can Bree interview a survivor of one of Charlie's horror movies? Can she guess what's going on? Does she have strange, prophetic dreams?
So in my example the viewpoint is either Bree-and-Charlie (my preferred way to do it) or just Bree aided by videotapes, magic dreams etc... (which could also work).
The next question is
who narrates. Is it Bree? Is it Charlie? Is it a friend of Bree's? Is it a fly on the wall? This comes down to how you want the sympathy to work.
If we have a viewpoint on Charlie then it probably won't be Charlie narrating. He's a whack-job, an unreliable narrator and the reader will hate him. We'd probably have a fly on the wall telling us about what he's thinking and doing. And if we use that, we'll probably use the same narrator for Bree.
But if the viewpoint is just on Bree, then we could either narrate as the fly on the wall again, or let
her tell her story. Which one would you choose?
It's up to you, but if the character is sympathetic with a lot of inner conflict and maybe prophetic dreams I'd let Bree tell the story in her own words. If she's tough, unsympathetic but nice underneath I'd narrate from outside her. Or if Bree were a brilliant but damaged detective -- perhaps destroying herself with pain-pills -- maybe I'd have her partner narrate it. It's all about getting the most sympathy for the character.
So, to make it simple:
- Focus on the interesting internal conflicts;
- Bring the action to the viewpoint -- don't swing the viewpoint to the action;
- Narrate to get audience sympathy
Hope that helps!
