‘Point of view . . . is the window that takes you to the story. You can’t see the window unless you are standing in the right place, once you find the right place the story can almost write itself.’
Maureen Freely1
Jane Austen was a pioneer in the way that she handled point of view and experimented with telling stories. Point of view is everything.
EXERCISE: THE IMPORTANCE OF POINT OF VIEW
This is a fun exercise for a group of writers. Choose a setting that everybody knows. At Jane Austen’s House Museum I have used the museum as the setting, but with university students I usually use a branch of Costa Coffee or McDonald’s or the students’ union shop or bar.
You need lots of folded slips of paper, each bearing a very brief character outline. Have a range of characters of different ages and backgrounds, for example a lost child, somebody who is stoned, a health and safety inspector, a pickpocket, someone who has just fallen in love, an artist, a blind person, somebody with a broken leg, a carer having a break from the person they look after, someone who has come about a job, a mother with three under-fives. Each member of the group takes a slip of paper and must not let anybody else see what’s written on it. If people don’t like the character they’ve chosen let them choose another one; this means having lots of spare character slips.
The characters (for whatever reason) arrive at the venue. They go in and up to the counter or just wander about, depending on your chosen location. What do they notice? How does the place make them feel? Each group member writes from their character’s point of view. Writing in the first person is preferable as it means having to concentrate on the character’s voice and what they would notice. Using the present tense may also help each writer to inhabit the character and the moment. People shouldn’t spell out who their character is: don’t say, ‘Well here I am to do the health and safety inspection.’ After about fifteen minutes people read out their accounts. Compare them. If the point of view is handled well, people should be able to guess the character.2
FREE INDIRECT NARRATION OR DISCOURSE, ONE OF JANE AUSTEN’S MOST IMPORTANT STYLISTIC INNOVATIONS
Jane Austen didn’t invent free indirect narration but was the first person to use it so extensively and effectively. Free indirect narration gives the writer the advantages of using the first person as well as the freedoms of using the third person. You can switch between points of view and effectively convey the thoughts and feelings of individual characters as your story unfolds.
Characteristics of free indirect narration
1.The language used is subjective and indicates the character’s opinion.
2.Exclamations and questions may feature in the narration.
3.It pins the scene in place and time from the character’s perspective.
4.There’s often no need to label who thoughts belong to – readers will understand.
5.There’s plenty of potential for humour, irony and misunderstandings.
Here’s an example from Emma, Chapter 10. Emma is trying to engineer an opportunity for Mr Elton to declare his love to Harriet Smith.
Mr Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail; and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday’s party at his friend Cole’s, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beetroot and all the dessert.
‘This would soon have led to something better of course,’ was her consoling reflection; ‘any thing interests between those who love; and any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I could but have kept longer away!’
They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short, and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to entreat them to stop, and acknowledge her inability to put herself to rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort.
‘Part of my lace is gone,’ said she, ‘and I do not know how I am to contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of riband or string, or any thing just to keep my boot on.’
Mr Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and endeavouring to make everything appear to advantage. The room they were taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr Elton should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her appearance.
The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point. He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.
1. Write using free indirect narration. You might like to try giving an account of a time when you or one of your characters got something very wrong. There is no need to reveal the truth in your account; just inhabit the moment. If you are writing autobiographically use the third person for this exercise.
2. Practise inhabiting a character to get the point of view right. This is an exercise that uses objects to help writers get into the minds of their characters. There is a handling collection at Jane Austen’s House Museum which is perfect for this, but you can use any object that interests you. If you are in a writing group, ask everybody to bring in a few things they have found in charity shops or that have been passed down to them.
First choose an object to work with. Sometimes objects that are less obviously appealing will provoke the most imaginative and surprising responses because we have to think harder about them. The objects don’t have to be very old, but they must have had at least one owner.
Then, using all your senses, examine your object carefully and ask yourself questions about it, for example:
•What is it? Who made it? How?
•What does it look/feel like?
•Where did it come from? Who might it have belonged to?
•How did they feel about it? Did they like it or dislike it?
•Did they use it? Did they treasure it? Did they throw it away? Might they have lost it?
•Why has it survived to be part of a museum collection/ended up in a charity shop/been passed down in a family?
•Do you have anything like it?
•What does it remind you of? Does it spark any memories?
Write down your answers. Don’t censor yourself or worry that you might be getting things wrong. Don’t strain for exquisite phrases – just keep writing. Don’t worry if what you write is personal or might seem eccentric. Spend about ten minutes on this.
Now look back through what you have written and use your notes and thoughts to create a character inspired by or somehow connected to your object. Your character could be from the same period as the object, somebody who lived later, a person who is alive today or someone in the future. They could be an owner of the object, somebody who finds it, looks after it, hates it, steals it or . . . It’s up to you.
Then write a quick sketch of your character. Use the third person. Include your character’s name, age, occupation, who they live with, the things they care most about, details or quirks about their appearance, something that they long for . . . Spend about ten minutes on this.
Finally write an internal monologue for your character or practise writing using free indirect narration. Try to capture the character’s voice. They could be talking/thinking about the object or about something else entirely. For example, if you chose a glove, the internal monologue might begin: ‘My new gloves are here. I can’t wait for tomorrow evening, when . . .’ or: ‘The new gloves had arrived. She couldn’t wait for the evening, when . . .’ Or, if you chose a candlestick: ‘I hate having to polish these. My hands ache; I’ve been up since before dawn, and however long I spend on them Lady Catherine won’t think it’s enough . . .’ or: ‘She hated having to polish them. Her hands ached. She’d been up since before dawn and knew that however long she spent on them Lady Catherine would find something to criticize . . .’ Spend about fifteen minutes on this, but then carry on if you want to. You could use it as the starting point for a poem or story.3
Your character’s view of their world
Think about your character’s way of looking at their world. Show us what they see. You might like to show them looking out of a window, looking across their office, walking to work . . . This need not be a passive scene; you can make something happen. Look at the scene where Emma gazes out of the window at Ford’s (here) and at the following scene from Persuasion (Chapter 14) where Anne Elliot and Lady Russell look out at Bath.
Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity. When Lady Russell not long afterwards, was entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of newspapermen, muffin-men, and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of pattens, she made no complaint. No, these were noises which belonged to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose under their influence; and like Mrs Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that after being long in the country, nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness.
Anne did not share these feelings. She persisted in a very determined, though very silent disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish of seeing them better; felt their progress through the streets to be, however disagreeable, yet too rapid; for who would be glad to see her when she arrived? And looked back, with fond regret, to the bustles of Uppercross and the seclusion of Kellynch.
EXPERIMENTING WITH OTHER FORMS OF NARRATION
Just as Jane Austen experimented with different styles of narration, have a go at writing in a way that you haven’t tried (or tried much) before.
Try using a sly, objective or seemingly objective narrator. Useful examples to look at include Tim O’Brien’s short story The Things They Carried and parts of Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost. In this novel she uses the first person, third person (with some free indirect narration), entries from a child’s journal and objective narration.
Try using different modes of narration to add texture and avoid trapping the reader in a character’s thoughts. You can use the second person to put the reader at the centre of the action and to create humour, irony and empathy with your protagonist. My favourite examples are Lorrie Moore’s short stories in her collection Self-Help and Mohsin Hamid’s novel, How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.
Using the first person plural can be really effective if you are writing about people in a recognizable group situation, for example an office or a team. And Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris is a notable example of how well this can work.
Think about how Jane Austen used her characters’ eyes in her work and how you can utilize glances, exchanged looks and unspoken communication. What are your characters’ eyes like? How do they use them? How good is their vision? What is the light like where they live and work at different times of the day? With some genres the lack of artificial light will be really important. Here is Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 43) visiting Pemberley and looking at a portrait of Mr Darcy.
The picture-gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were all that remained to be shewn. In the former were many good paintings; but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy’s, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible.
In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked on in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her – and she beheld a striking resemblance of Mr Darcy, with such a smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father’s lifetime.
There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth’s mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original than she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people’s happiness were in his guardianship! – How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! – How much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she stood before the canvas, on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression.
Mr Darcy has certainly enjoyed looking at Elizabeth’s eyes (Chapter 6).
Occupied in observing Mr Bingley’s attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware; – to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable no where, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.
He began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so drew her notice. [. . .]
Mr Darcy with grave propriety requested to be allowed the honour of her hand; but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion.
‘You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour.’
‘Mr Darcy is all politeness,’ said Elizabeth, smiling.
‘He is indeed – but considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance; for who would object to such a partner?’
Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley.
‘I can guess the subject of your reverie.’
‘I should imagine not.’
‘You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner – in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity and yet the noise – the nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all these people! – What would I give to hear your strictures on them!’
‘Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.’
Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr Darcy replied with great intrepidity,
‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet.’
And, in Chapter 8, in which Elizabeth has walked across the fields to Netherfield to visit Jane, Mr Darcy responds to the Bingley sisters’ criticisms of Elizabeth by saying that the exercise only brightened her fine eyes.