The Helps Point of View

Novelists use lots of different points of view. First person is preferred by many because it is close to the reader and comfortable for the writer. First person is very American. Ever since Huckleberry Finn came long with his Missouri patois of Mississippi river idioms a love affair was born with the down home insider who gives us the real low down as we navigate our way through the novel. Many first novels, mine included, are first person narration because a single point of view naturally coalesces around the main character

The Help uses multiple points of view. Mostly in the first person of the characters. Faulkner did this in Absalom Absalom and really became the benchmark for this type of narration. Multiple viewpoints gets around the restriction of first person which is you are stuck inside the head of one character. This can be tricky in a novel that moves around and we have to have insight into areas the main character might not necessarily be involved in. Authors use tricks like the ones I used in Tobacco Sticks of sneaking my character around, putting him outside doors and literally peering in keyholes

But in Katherine Stockett gets around this problem in The Help by using the view points of the  maids and one of the women who also it turns out to be a writer. This allows us to move around in the story and yet get the inside scoop which is the essential element of The Help which is the maids point of view. So in that regard it works very well. The risk of multiple narrators is that the author cannot pull it off or these switches are jarring to the reader. When I first started The Help I was sad to leave Abilene, but then along came Minny who picked up the slack with a more fiery blunt point of view.

Stockett gets in one jam and that is The League party where she goes omniscient or third person. She could not afford to be stuck in any ones head there because it moved around too much . But this chapter is by far the weakest and yet it is a center point of the novel. The third person is just too removed and we don't feel the pain or joy of the characters. She must have agonized over this decision and found it is the only thing that works. In a sense it is a violation of the POV, but I too cheated in Tobacco Sticks and went to third person for a brief chapter.

The novel dictates the point of view and so the only rule is that which works for the book,. Multiple narration clearly works for the bulk of The Help. Ultimately it is the authors call and demonstrates the basic maxim of all fiction. There are no rules.

http://www.billhazelgove.com/

Choosing a Point of View

I'm going to start a new novel after Christmas and I have the plot squared away and I know what I have to research, but I haven't decided on a point of view. I assumed third person would allow me to do everything I wanted and had pretty much made up my mind, but then I started reading some old first person novels and thought about taking it straight first person. This would allow me to get cozy with the reader right away and also give me the latitude to throw in everything but the kitchen sink as a I muse along. I have written three first person novels and one third person and I like, as most Americans, having someone tell me a story as if they are sitting next to me. But there are drawbacks.

First person depends entirely on voice. If you don't have an  interesting narrator then first person will not work. The voice of the author should draw a reader in and there should be a melody, a musical quality to the narrator that is pleasing to the ear. I write from the sound of prose as most writers do. You can just tell when something is not right and so you play with the words or the voice until it flows with an unbroken cadence. Of course some first person narrators attack the reader and fight against cadence. But it is the way we like our stories told and there it is no coincidence that blogging with its first person narrator is so popular. It is the great "I" telling the story and we are there.

Now the problem is there are limits. We cannot be everywhere as a narrator and that limits our scope. So that brings in a strong authorial third person. Authors used to be much more assertive, talking to the reader and coming out from behind the curtain. Now a lot of our omniscient narrators hide behind the curtain and tell the story without getting in the way. A lot of people prefer this as they don't want some author getting in the way of  characters and action and giving his or her take on what is happening. We want the author to be essentially invisible, a voice from above.

Or you can get esoteric and use second person which is you. You take the train. You feel sick. You punch the man. You arrive at work and hang your hat and look at your watch. You know that it is a long time from lunch. I am using second person in this essay. I do it in most of my posts about writing and politics. It allows the reader to be part of the story...You. But you have to make a decision about what you want to use in your story.

So I will have to make up my mind soon. I am drifting toward third person because I just don't have a powerful voice nudging my authorial narrator aside. But if he does then I will go with it. And so should you.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will be out in January