Why Viewpoint Characters Are Fundamental to Fiction

Successful Fiction Writing = Creating + Organizing + Marketing

I blog weekly on one of the above three topics, alternating between them. This week, I’m blogging on Creating. We’ll talk about three critical decisions you must make when you’re choosing a viewpoint character for a scene.

Before You Write Your Next Scene…

A scene is the fundamental unit of fiction. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end—it’s a small story in its own right. Each scene is like a brick that you use to build the larger story of your novel. If you can write one good scene, you can write a hundred, and that’s a novel. So it’s crucial to get each scene right.

Before you begin writing a scene, you need to make three key decisions:

Whose story are you going to tell in this scene?
Where is the video camera you’re using to show this scene, and which way is it pointed?
What tense will you use for the verbs in your scene?

Let’s talk about each of these, in turn.

What is a Viewpoint Character?

First things first. Every scene is a miniature story about somebody. That somebody is called the “viewpoint character.” They are also sometimes called by other terms—the “point-of-view character” or the “POV character” or the “lead character.” These all mean the same thing.

In your scene, you’re going to show your reader a movie in which they find themselves inside the skin of the viewpoint character. The scene is a small story about one particular incident in the life of the viewpoint character. The incident usually lasts for some minutes, but it can last mere seconds, and it could in principle go on for hours.

Why do you need a viewpoint character? Because the viewpoint character provides the emotional yardstick that tells your reader how to feel. The events of the scene only have meaning when the reader knows who is “the good guy” that they’re rooting for.

Suppose you’re writing a scene about the 100 meter finals in the next Olympics. Here are some options for viewpoint characters:

The 17-year-old phenom who wins, shattering the world record in the process. A year ago, he was nobody, and now he’s on top of the world.
The 35-year-old veteran runner just behind him, who also breaks the previous world record, but comes in second. He’s spent his whole life dreaming of a gold medal, and now he’ll retire with only a silver, because he was one millisecond too slow.
The sportscaster calling the contest on TV, who is secretly battling Alzheimer’s and mixes up the names of the runners as they cross the finish line. He’s been lying to his network about his condition, and now he’ll lose his job.
The new CEO of a failing shoe manufacturer, who hopes to sign an endorsement deal with the winner of the race. He doesn’t care who wins. What he cares about is saving his company from bankruptcy.

The story you tell in your scene depends critically on which of these characters you choose as your viewpoint character. If you choose the winning kid, it’s a story of sudden, life-changing victory. If you choose the second-place guy, it’s a bittersweet story of running the best race of your life and still losing. If you choose the sportscaster, it’s not about the race at all, it’s about losing your livelihood while all the world is watching. If you choose the CEO, it’s a story about dollars and cents and brutally real dog-eat-puppy capitalism.

Choose your viewpoint character so as to tell whatever story you want to tell in your scene. You can use different viewpoint characters in different scenes if you like. Or you can write all the scenes in your novel using the same viewpoint character. It’s up to you, and there’s no one choice that’s always right.

What is a Viewpoint, and Why Does It Matter?

Once you’ve chosen your viewpoint character, you still need to decide how to show that character on the page. Your goal as a novelist is to create a movie in your reader’s brain. And a movie requires a video camera. A camera has to be placed somewhere. It has to point somewhere. The choice of where to put your camera and which direction to point it is called your viewpoint.

There are six commonly used options for the viewpoint of your scene:

First person viewpoint. You put the camera inside the viewpoint character’s head, using the pronoun “I” to refer to the character. The camera points outward, showing only what the viewpoint character knows. This is a fairly common viewpoint.
Second person viewpoint. You put the camera inside the viewpoint character’s head, using the pronoun “you.” Again, the camera points outward, showing only what the viewpoint character knows. This is a very uncommon viewpoint.
Third person viewpoint. You put the camera inside the viewpoint character’s head, using suitable third-person pronouns, such as “he” or “she” or “they”. Again, the camera points outward, showing only what the viewpoint character knows. This is the most common viewpoint.
Third person objective viewpoint. You put the camera outside the viewpoint character, not inside. Again, you use suitable third-person pronouns, but you can no longer show what the viewpoint character is thinking or feeling. You can point the camera at the character or at anything else, as you like. You can show things the character can’t see, such as the smudge on his forehead, or the spider walking across her hair. But you can’t show what’s inside the character’s head, because you’re outside. You have to suggest the character’s thoughts and feeling based on their facial expressions and body language. This is a very uncommon viewpoint.
Head-hopping viewpoint. You switch the location of the camera to be inside the heads of multiple characters at different times in the scene. Typically, you use either third person or first person, but now you’re doing these for multiple viewpoint characters in the same scene. Some writers think this is a horrible thing to do, and others think it’s perfectly fine. You get to make your own decision on this.
Omniscient viewpoint. You can move the camera anywhere in the universe or outside it, popping inside the heads of any of the characters, inside the head of God, or anywhere else you feel like. This viewpoint was more popular in the 19^th century than it is now. It can be amazing when it works, but it’s difficult to do well, and it’s easy to do badly.

Past, Present, or Future?

The last decision you have to make is what tense you’ll use for your verbs. This is very simple. You have three choices: past, present, or future.

Past tense is most common, and it’s easy to do.

Present tense has become more common in the last couple of decades. It takes a bit more work, but it’s also relatively easy to do.

Future tense is rare, but you can imagine cases where it makes sense. If you’re writing a scenario for how to deal with a nuclear reactor catastrophe, you might write a scene in second person future tense, like this: “You’ll see a safety switch below the main shutoff valve. You’ll switch that to Override. Then you’ll turn the valve all the way Off. Then run to the escape hatch. You have a maximum of 8.4317 seconds to get there. Approximately.”

Homework:

Look at the most recent scene you wrote in your current novel.

Who is the viewpoint character (or characters)?
Why did you choose that person, and might your scene be better if you had used a different viewpoint character?
What is the viewpoint you used? (Where did you put your camera, and which way did you point it?)
Why did you choose that viewpoint, and might your scene be better if you had used a different viewpoint?
What tense did you use, and why?
If you’re inside the head of your viewpoint character, did you show the reader anything that the viewpoint character can’t know? This is called “breaking point-of-view,” and it’s considered bad because it can disrupt the movie you’re creating in your reader’s brain.