The Power Of Point Of View, page 11
Harper Lee, in her masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird, deals with the awkwardness of a child narrator by telling the story from the retrospective of the adult Scout. From the first page, she makes the approach clear:
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. … When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.
While the voice is adult throughout the book, the action following this is narrated more or less in the time of the book. The reader gets a sense of the distance between the narrator's current life and the events of the book, but once the story actually begins, the scenes are told as they are happening.
Descending Into the Past
When you're doing this future-looking-back method, the clearer the time references, the better. Use future markers — like Lee's “When enough years had gone by …” or “That summer I turned forty and lost my job …” — to delineate the passages that have the narrator looking back. Then, when you descend into the past, try to narrate it directly as it happens. Here's another example from To Kill a Mockingbird that illustrates how Lee descends into the past and then picks up the story in straight time:
That was the summer Dill came to us.
Early one morning as we were beginning our day's play in the backyard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford's collard patch. We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy — Miss Rachel's rat terrier was expecting — instead we found someone sitting looking at us. Sitting down, he wasn't much higher than the collards. We stared at him until he spoke:
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Jem said pleasantly.
“I'm Charles Baker Harris,” he said. “I can read.”
The “early one morning” and the specificity of detail (Miss Rachel's rat terrier, the collards) place us very definitely in a particular moment in the past, and the dialogue enhances the sense of immediacy. We're no longer in the future looking back; we're now watching the initial encounter with Dill play out as if it is happening in front of us.
To increase that immediacy, aim for the most active prose you can create without being obnoxious. Go for strong verbs, but they must be ones your narrator would use, nothing overwrought. “I shoved open the door” would be stronger than “I opened the door.” Envision the setting and provide the sharp details and sensory aspects that will anchor the scene in the moment.
Immediate Action of the Present
One contemporary technique in first person is to narrate the story in present tense, as if the narrator is telling the story as it happens. This technique definitely increases the immediacy of the events, and eliminates the awkwardness of future retrospective. I also suspect it aids the author in keeping the first-person account sharp and active. It's hard to slip into “retrospective” when the action is unfolding right in front of you. It allows for a more stream-of-consciousness narration, including thought and feeling as it they happen.
Brad Meltzer crafts most of his thrillers in this fast-paced style. Here's an example from The Millionaires:
Now that lunch is over, most of the pews are empty … but not all of them. A dozen or so worshippers are scattered throughout the rows, and even if they're praying, it only takes one random glance for one of them to be crimestopper of the week …. Three-quarters down the aisle, along the left-hand wall, a single, unmarked door. Trying not to be too quick and noticeable, Charlie and I keep the pace nice and smooth. There's a large creak when the door opens. I cringe and give it a fast push to end the pain ….
The door slams shut, and Charlie is still silent. “Please don't do this to yourself,” I tell him. “Take your own advice. What happened with Shep, it's not my fault, and it's not yours!”
Collapsing on a wooden bench in the corner, Charlie doesn't answer. His posture sinks. His neck bobs lifelessly. He's still in shock. Less than a half-hour ago, I saw a co-worker get shot.
The “There's a large creak …” interruption gives this passage an immediacy. The present tense allows more of a running commentary of the event. This can be a lot of fun, or it can be tedious. Concentrate on making the narrator's experience and perceptions vivid and entertaining, with plenty of emotion and conflict. You're not cataloging events; you're telling a story. Every action should increase tension and further the plot.
In the example above, he's not just noting the worshippers in the church; he's thinking of them as potential adversaries, “crimestoppers of the week,” who might turn him and his fugitive brother over to the police. He's not just walking down the aisle; he's trying to keep anyone from noticing that they're trying to hide from the police. He's not just trying to buck up his brother; he's begging him not to fall apart. Lots of conflict, lots of emotion — all presented in an urgent, immediate way.
EXERCISE
CONSTRUCTING NARRATOR VOICE AND ATTITUDE
When your book opens, what is the narrator's worldview? How does he perceive the world? Is there a dominant religious or political philosophy?
What's the narrator's self-image? How does this differ from the persona she presents to the world? How does this color how she presents the narration? (For example, someone who thinks of herself as persecuted will interpret an accident as something aimed at hurting her in particular.)
Is the narrator past-focused, present-focused, or future-focused? Is he optimistic or pessimistic? How will this affect the narration?
Choose one event from your plot. Jot down a few notes on the character's worldview, self-image, mood, and intention at this moment in the story.
Now write the narration of that event, using what you've learned about this character's POV. Try your best to let the character do the writing here. Once you're done, read it over and try to revise in a couple “asides” that reveal the internal thoughts, feelings, and interpretations.
THE ART OF MANIPULATION:
THE TRICKS OF FIRST PERSON
Again, keep in mind that the narrator is a character, not just the mouthpiece. But first person adds the element of intentionality; that is, the narrator is able to manipulate the narrative to achieve some effect. So while in third person, intentional misleading would be cheating your readers, in first person, it's allowable.
Consider that we are seldom really honest about our own emotions, even to ourselves. We tell ourselves we're angry when we're really scared. We think that we're being helpful when we're really being controlling. That's why deception “feels” so right in first person, because we know we do it when we narrate our own lives. Narrator deception and self-deception will deepen the narrative and add subtext — what's going on, consciously or subconsciously, under the surface text. Think of a flirtation: When a man and woman discuss their favorite movie, underneath the surface banter, there's a whole secret conversation going on. This is a common type of subtext, but the sort that shows up in first-person narration lets the reader know something the narrator doesn't mean to express. The narrator in Robert Browning's “My Last Duchess” thinks he's doing a great job memorializing his late wife, while the reader is getting the suspicion the narrator loved her to death.
I the Lie: The Unreliable Narrator
Not every first-person “lie” has to be something serious (like how poor old Berenice got buried alive in Poe's story). It doesn't even have to be willfully deceptive. It can be an effort to “spin” reality to better suit the character's purposes or make him appear in a more favorable light. It can be the subconscious suppressing some important fact or the wishful-thinking interpretation of some event. The unreliable first-person narrator is at least as old as Laurence Sterne's classic The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. This is something you might want to exploit as you craft your narrative; it's one option that really isn't available in third person. Readers expect that a third-person narrative will be more or less true when it describes the action of the scene. Gauge your own reaction to these examples:
He inched forward and just tapped the car ahead of him. To his shock, the other car's bumper collapsed like a sheet of tin foil.
In this third-person, more objective-seeming account, the reader will generally assume that the narrative is correct and the character really did just tap the other car; its bumper must have been defective. But with first-person narration, there's room to be skeptical:
I inched forward and just tapped the car ahead of me. To my shock, the other car's bumper collapsed like a sheet of tin foil.
Yeah, right, you think (if you're like me). Either he hit the car ahead of him way harder than he's letting on, or that's one seriously defective bumper. Now just to make it more fun, think about how the first-person narrator might embellish that to be more “persuasive”:
I inched forward and just tapped the car ahead of me. Really. Just a tap. I couldn't have been going more than 2 miles per hour. To my shock, the other car's bumper collapsed like a sheet of tin foil. But it was one of those foreign cars, and everyone knows they don't use the same materials we do here in the U.S. The cop asked if I'd been drinking, but those idiots define a single beer hours earlier as “drinking.”
Now don't you just know the truth, that the narrator jammed on the accelerator and rammed right into the other car? And now that you know this narrator can't be trusted (at least when there's alcohol involved), how might that change your experience of whatever story he tells next?
Most people have built-in lie detectors, and that gives authors an advantage. We can be subtle and still guide readers to doubt our narrator's objectivity and honesty. They don't need many cues, but you do want to provide at least one. Here's where your real-life “reading” of other people comes in handy. How do you know that people are lying or fudging or exaggerating or spinning? Some of this will be body language and tone of voice, which won't be easy to replicate in first person, so concentrate on the language and sentence construction. What are the signals of deception, and how do they explain themselves and their actions?
Methinks he doth protest too much is one technique — emphasizing something just beyond the point of plausibility. Liars usually take things one step too far, and thus alert us to their deception. First-person narrators might be deceptive, or they might be self-deceptive, but when they deceive, they usually reveal it through an excess of sincerity.
Look again at the Rumpole passage about the hardness he has achieved with maturity:
I suppose, when I was young, I used to suffer with my clients. I used to cringe when I heard their sentences and go down to the cells full of anger. Now I never watch their faces when the sentence is passed. I hardly listen to the years pronounced and I never look back at the dock.
Read it aloud and listen to your voice. Listen to what you instinctively emphasize, what rings hollow and unconvincing, and what sounds excessive.
I suppose: Hear the attempt at offhandedness, casualness?
I used to … I used to: The repetition makes this almost sing-song.
Now I never … I hardly … I never look back …: He sounds insistent, as if he's trying to persuade himself. He never looks back. He hardly listens. Clearly what he claims he doesn't notice is precisely what eats away at him — that he can't win them all, and when he loses, someone's life is ruined.
Another telltale sign is when the liar will provide just a bit too much information, especially information that's on the other side of relevance. He'll attempt to divert the blame (“It was a foreign car”) or switch a bit too clumsily to a new subject (“Anyway, the Colts lost …”) or quibble about a term (“those idiots define a single beer as …”). For more training in this essential art, watch those press conferences where a politician or a football coach tries to squirm out of some tough question.
They Can Lie, but You Can't
One word of caution: Readers like being teased but not outright tricked. The narrator can lie, but the author can't. If the narrator, for example, is the murderer, the author has to provide clues, however subtle, that this is the case. The narrator can lie about what has happened, but the attentive reader has to have enough evidence to suspect that something in the narrative is hidden or incorrect.
And the narrator can't completely leave out important events in order to keep the secret. Maybe the narrator can say, “And then I lost consciousness,” when a straight narrative might go on to describe him beating the other guy to death. But the narrative can't skip the whole event and give no sign that it ever happened. Consider revising if you find in the end of the book your narrator saying, “I didn't tell you, but in between that trip to the grocery store and the drug store, I stopped at the hardware store and bought the hammer that was the blunt instrument that caused Tom's death.” Instead, after your grocery store scene, try something like “I stopped off at the hardware store and picked up a few items for my toolbox.” That's enough to keep from cheating the reader.
EXERCISE
LYING TO THEIR FACES
How is your narrator going to lie, shade the truth, or hide something from the reader? Why?
Have you given the reader a hint that there's some deception or concealment going on? How does this show up in the narrator's narration?
What are the consequences in the story for this deception? Is it ever clearly revealed as deception?
Interpreting and Misinterpreting in First Person
Something we all do, but never “hear” from anyone else, is the mental translation of conversation and action. You know what I mean — few of us take everything at face value. We're constantly assessing and interpreting — What did she really mean by that? Whose ox is he trying to gore here? How stupid does she think I am? Doesn't he know how uncool he sounds?
Well, one of the pleasures of first person is witnessing how another person interprets and misinterprets what is being said. First, this emphasizes the whole purpose of first person, to remind us that the interpretation of what happens is more interesting than a direct reflection of “reality,” and maybe even that “reality” isn't a collection of facts but includes inner perception as part of a larger truth. First person also makes us aware that we are “the other” to someone else's “I”; getting into another's thoughts makes us realize that we don't necessarily think that way.
For example, in Up Island by Anne Rivers Siddons, Molly Redwine starts out in an upper-class Southern milieu where discreet deception rules. So she's learned to interpret everything as a metaphor or sign. The rash on her buttocks is a sign that her husband is being unfaithful. Swimming in the pool is a metaphor for a return to the womb. The fidelity of a pair of swans is a metaphor for a love her widowed father has lost and Molly will never experience. Her former friends' consolation means she's being fired from all their charity committees. Consider this example:
From my committees and boards and panels: “Don't worry about a thing. We're coping splendidly. Why don't you just take the summer for yourself … only if you think you might want to take longer, do let us know; we'll need to make some plans for the fall.”
Translation: “If you're going to be divorced by fall, maybe you'd better think about passing the torch. We love you, but you're not going to be who you were.”
As long as Molly was part of that milieu, she could deal with the disconnect between what she knew to be the truth and what everyone around her presented as reality. But her husband's deceptions make her realize how much she has given up to maintain this facade of social civility. By the end of the book, Molly insists on challenging life directly, both her past (the loss of her mother) and her present (a lover's terminal illness), symbolized by her literal interpretation of a metaphor — she literally “throws her hat into the ring” as the first action of her new, honest life:
“What the hell are you doing?” Dennis Ponder said.
“Throwing my hat into the ring,” I said back.
I opened the door and walked to the edge of the porch and stopped.
“It's not forever, Mama,” I said aloud. “Just for right now. It was never really mine, anyway.”
And I gave the hat to the wind, which took it and whirled it away over the lashing trees, toward Gay Head, all the way up island.
Showing character change through the interpretation technique is a subtle way to show progression of the story's theme. Slowly, the character's interpretation gets more acute, moving perhaps from unthinking acceptance of literal meaning in the beginning of the book to a more subtle reading of people's motives later — or in Molly's case, vice versa, from constant suspicion to a decision to live honestly.
As you let your narrator interpret others' statements, allow for a bit of subtext. That is, since the narrator doesn't take a declaration at face value, the reader will probably interpret how, not just what, the narrator interprets. The style of the internalization is in itself a hint at the inner reality of this character. Look again at the phone exchange in McGrory's The Incumbent:
“Jack, Agent Stevens.”
Agent Stevens. Isn't that precious beyond words? Perhaps I'd like to be identified herein as Reporter Flynn, or Journalist Flynn for all you National Public Radio types.
