Character Perspectives

    Last time I posted an actual post (FWSG doesn't count because I'm not really saying anything; you guys are), I talked about perspectives, and how I think perspectives are more akin to the color wheel than they are a sliding scale. Now that it's a new month and I have the brain cells and post space to talk about it, let's discuss how that perspective on perspectives can be applied to writing.

    In most books, having a wide variety of perspectives is... (crucial? critical?)... very important. Sure, you can write an okay novel without having a bunch of different views among your characters--in fact, in some stories, you could probably get away with representing only the ideologies of the villain and the hero.

    But if you want to write more than mediocre fiction, and you, like me, are not yet a great author who could get away with having incredibly few perspectives in their book via clever machinations, perspectives are probably something you'll want to consider at some point in the process of writing your novel.

    The first point I want to make is that not all perspective differences have to be as drastic as the hero's versus the villain's. In fact, in most cases, I think the differences are going to be more subtle. For example, the hero and his sidekick. Perhaps the first is an archer, the latter an expert swordsman; furthermore, let's say that the hero (the archer) doesn't like to do more work than necessary, but his sidekick thinks ranged combat is cheating. All of a sudden, you've got potential conflict in your scenes--minor conflict, to be sure, but conflict, all the same. Depending on the direction you choose to take it, you might even end up with banter between the two like that found between Legolas and Gimli in Lord of the Rings. Perhaps they compete during fights and battles to determine who has the better method.

    But the differences can be even more subtle, still, and this is where we really get into characterization.

    To cite an example I got from Patricia Wrede: Let's say that three characters come up to a little cottage in the woods. The first, a florist, notes the flowerbeds out front, the wildflowers in the yard, the vines growing up the walls, and the blossoms painted on the door. The second, a mason, sees the cracked stonework in the foundation and chimney, the imperfect mortaring of the bricks/stones in the walls, the weathered cobblestones that make up the path. The third, a young and dandy nobleman, sees the untidy lawn with weeds all over the place, the garish, clashing colors of the paint job, the ramshackle front porch and splintered railing. All three are looking at the same house, but because of who they are and what they do for a living, they all notice different things about it.

    This technique can actually be a really good way to provide lots of details about an important part of the world. Most how-to writing sites agree that the infodump (a lot of exposition and/or description lumped together into one large, unmanageable chunk, for those who don't yet know the terminology [looking at you, brother of mine😁]) is an ineffective technique, since the majority of readers tend to skim over long sections of dull and action-less prose.

    However, if it's truly important that the reader know all these details about something, having multiple people encounter it and describe it in different ways could be a great way to get in those extra details without boring the reader to death. If three people see it and all give five details about it, and two of the details are so distinctive that all three mention them (so as to clue the reader in that this is the Same Thing the other people saw), that's eleven different details you can work into the story without the reader noticing the "infodump"--two that are the same from all three people, and three unique ones from each person.

    Another benefit that different perspectives bring is the ability to start arguments between different characters and create animosity. I mean, look at politics. There's a whole lot of differing opinions there, and everybody argues about them. Examples from my country include gun rights, abortion, and election fraud. Everybody has opinions on those things, and nobody can agree, and look at how that divides our society. Republicans and Democrats hate each other--at least as a political group, if not necessarily individually.

    If different groups of people have different perspectives and opinions, and all of them are at least partially right and partially wrong in regards to everybody else, you then have a foundation on which to build factions. Do you support the Guilds or the Noblemen? If you support the wrong group, what enemies do you make, and how dangerous are they? If you're writing a political fantasy like Game of Thrones, that could be a useful thing to consider.

    On the other hand, if you hate politics like I do, you might just use the perspectives to create bullies to torment your main characters. :)

    If I were to offer one bit of advice that I think could apply to everybody, it's to remember an old, kind of cliche phrase that says, 'Every person is the main character of their own story.' Every character's reasons make sense to them, even if the other characters and even the readers think that those reasons are dumb. Every action has a why behind it; it's up to us, the writers, to find it.

    Ultimately, what you do with perspectives is up to you. I thought of a few things, but this is by no means an exhaustive or complete list. How do you use perspectives in your stories, or even in your everyday life? Let me know in the comments; I'm excited to see what y'all think!