Seminars are taught on “point of view,” the perspective from which a story is told. Because readers today want to identify with the main character in a scene, we should continually strive for a “deep point of view” in which all the descriptions reflect what that one character can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste.
We liken that point of view to the character holding a video camera. So all that the camera can sense, moment by moment, is what can be written. Nothing more.
What is often missed is the turn of the camera, when it shifts from one person’s dialogue and actions to something else. We make those focal shifts clear to readers by starting a new paragraph with each change.
Great words from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr:
“Marie-Laure.” His voice is low and soft, a piece of silk you might keep in a drawer and pull out only on rare occasions, just to feel it between your fingers. She reaches into space, and a cool bird-boned haand takes hers. He is feeling better, he says. “I am sorry I have not been able to meet you sooner.”
What we might see for an improved version:
“Marie-Laure.” His voice is low and soft, a piece of silk you might keep in a drawer and pull out only on rare occasions, just to feel it between her fingers.
She reaches into space.
A cool bird-boned hand takes her hand. He’s feeling better, he says.
“I am sorry I have not been able to meet you sooner.”
Logic for making improvements:
- We begin with the blind girl Marie-Laure hearing her uncle’s voice. This is the first time she has met him and heard him speak. She’s still focused on that voice when she makes the beautiful comparison to his tone being like silk.
- When “she reaches into space,” focus is shifted from his voice to her hand. We need a new paragraph.
- As the bird-boned hand takes her hand, we shift focus from her hand to him. We need a new paragraph to sense his touch and know what he says.
- “I am sorry I have not been able to meet you sooner” is spoken by the blind girl. If this dialogue follows He’s feeling better, he says, we’re easily misled into thinking the dialogue is from the uncle. But if we add a paragraph break to show that shift in focus, we don’t need to identify the speaker with a “she said” tag.
- Feeling the silk “between your fingers” is outside the blind girl’s point of view. To be in her deep point of view, we need “between her”
