Fight Club: Multiple POV Fights Back [Part I]

Note: This is the third in a series of articles on demystifying viewpoint. The originals will appear first as posts here on my Spontaneous Combustion blog, then be archived on my website as downloadable PDFs.

Photo by Arash Hashemi, in the public domain

The POV Puritan is back—and I think I may have experienced a conversion. In part 2 of my series on demystifying viewpoint, I stood up loud and proud and gave my testimony as to why I thought single viewpoint was best, both for readers and writers. Nevertheless, at the end of that piece I promised to give multiple POV a fighting chance to defend itself.

But the more I tried, the more I struggled to find anything good to say about multiple viewpoint—that's how much I dislike it as a reader. Months dragged by. Every once in a while I would sit down and try to write this post, and every time I'd draw a blank. Finally I had a brainstorm: I realized that I needed to let proponents of multiple viewpoint speak for themselves. I would find four well-reviewed middle grade novels that used several viewpoint characters, then let them speak on behalf of multiple POV everywhere.

And despite my Puritan prejudices and preconceptions, I found myself enjoying the books. I'm not a complete convert, but after reading these books, I think I've come to appreciate that in the hands of a capable writer, multiple viewpoint can work well.

QUICK BREAKDOWN OF THE FOUR BOOKS

Wonder [Knopf, 2012], by RJ Palacio

What's a wonder about this book is that it didn't get a Newbery nod. Can you tell I loved it? This contemporary drama is about a ten-year-old boy named Auggie who was born with severe craniofacial dystopia that even after dozens of corrective surgeries makes him look like ET. Homeschooled all his life, the book follows fifth grader Auggie's first year at a private school in Manhattan. Although there are  many painful moments for Auggie, the theme of this book is that kindness can triumph over anything.

The book has six main viewpoint characters—and that's not counting three other viewpoints that are briefly presented, in epistolary fashion, as emails in one chapter. For me, the reason why the multiple viewpoint works in this book is due to Palacio's brilliant evocation of the kid-like voice of Auggie, his on-again off-again best friend Jack Will, and his classmate Summer. Palacio captured the hearts and minds of these three characters beautifully.

I can also see why the author chose to include the viewpoint of Auggie's sister, Via. That is important to show that things in Auggie's life aren't always the way he sees them; and also to show that as much as Via loves him, her brother's disfigurement has burdened her life as well.

However, I think Palacio could have dispensed with the viewpoint chapters written from the perspectives of Via's boyfriend and Via's best friend. And I also think it would have been possible to show the sister's side of things without getting into her head. It could easily have been done through dialogue instead.

*******

Because of Mr. Terupt [Delacorte, 2010], by Rob Buyea

I thought it a bit odd that this book features adult novelist John Irving so prominently. There are blurbs from him on both the front and back cover, Buyea singles him out in the acknowledgments, and Irving even wrote a foreword to the book. You almost never see a foreword in a middle grade novel. It made me wonder who the publisher saw as this book's primary audience: kids or adults?

In any case, I did enjoy this book, though not as much as Wonder. It's another book about a year in fifth grade, this time at a small school in New Hampshire with a new teacher.

It is told in the constantly alternating voices of seven fifth grade students, which didn't always work for me. I found that often I had to flip back to the title page of each chapter to remember which student was talking. Also, no one character had very long to speak, as each chapter was only two to three pages long.

But I can see how this multiple viewpoint might work well in a book that was being studied in a classroom setting. No matter what role a child may have assumed in school, or what label they may have acquired—joker, troublemaker, bully, mean girl, bookworm, nerd, fatso, or the Invisible Kid—they can find a viewpoint character in this book who speaks for them. That is what is so lovely about this book. I think it might be great for a group of students to read it together, almost as if it were a play and each reader took a part.

*******

Every Soul a Star [[Little Brown, 2008], by Wendy Mass

Of the four books I read, this one about three kids coming together at a remote campground to watch a solar eclipse was most successful for me in its use of multiple POV. I think that was for two reasons. First, there were only three POV characters. Second, the author spent a significant amount of time in each character's viewpoint before switching away to another. To me, this is crucial. The longer you spend with each POV character, the more a reader can settle into his or her head. If you are constantly jerking readers from one character to another every couple of pages, it's bound to be both distancing and disorienting.

[And I should note that when I was twelve, I went through a serious astronomy phase myself, so I may have connected with the story more because of that.]

*******

A Tangle of Knots [Philomel, 2013], by Lisa Graff

This whimsical, light-hearted book about how we are all tied together by fate is like a rainbow-colored version of Neil Gaiman, which I mean as a compliment. It was the only fantasy of the four, and since that is my favorite genre, I expected to like it the most. And it did have a lot of charm. Nevertheless, I think it was the least successful in its use of multiple viewpoint, primarily because it had nine—count 'em—NINE viewpoint characters. Aiyee!

That doesn't even count the prologue, which is written in omniscient narration that dips periodically into the head of an 18-year-old man who shows up later in the book as a viewpoint character. There is also some second person narration early on, and then there are nine other viewpoint characters: the heroine, Cady; three other children; and five adults. 

This parade of characters made it difficult for me to say that Cady is the true protagonist of the book. Rather, I would describe her as the hub around which all the other characters revolve. But with so many characters to read about, I never felt that strong a connection to her. Although perhaps that was Graff's point. She may have deliberately written a book in which no one character predominates in order to make her point that each of them got where they were through the tangled actions of many others.

.... [continued in part IIhttp://chiralangel.blogspot.com/2014/04/fight-club-multiple-pov-fights-back_28.html]

[Note: This article is running so long that I am publishing the second half in a separate post. The entire article is archived as a single downloadable PDF at my website.]

Fight Club: Multiple POV Fights Back [Part II]

[Note: This is a simple continuation of my blog post on multiple POV, divided into two parts because it ran so long. The entire article is archived as a single downloadable PDF at my website.]

Photo by USMC Lance Cpl. Chris Korhonen,
in the public domain

....[continued from part I]

WHAT THE FOUR AUTHORS DID WELL

Unlike adult books with multiple viewpoint, where authors feel free to change POV characters in the middle of a chapter, a scene, or even a page, all four authors were very careful to make it clear for young readers when the viewpoint changed, and whose viewpoint it was. They always changed chapters when they changed viewpoint characters, and they flagged this in multiple ways. The viewpoint character's name was prominently displayed at the start of each chapter, and sometimes in a header at the top of each right-hand page as well. In addition, different fonts were sometimes used to distinguish each POV character. 

And in some cases graphical elements were  used to help readers remember which  viewpoint character was speaking at any time. In Every Soul a Star, each character had an astronomical symbol: crescent moon [my favorite, as in my own novel Cheshire Moon] for Ally; the planet Saturn [also my favorite planet] for Jack; and a star for Bree. 

I especially liked how this was handled in Wonder. Each viewpoint section had a sketch of a face. For every character other than Auggie, there was only one eye in the face: the character's left eye. For Auggie's three POV sections, the graphic changed. In Part 1 he had no eyes; in part 6 he was wearing an astronaut's helmet with one eye—his right—and a hearing aid. And in part 8, he too has one left eye represented, just the like other characters—as if to signal that he now sees the world as a more welcoming place. Clever.

WHAT THEY MIGHT HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY

1. In each book but Every Soul a Star, I think the writers simply used too many POV characters. There were six in Wonder, seven in Mr. Terupt, and nine-plus in A Tangle of Knots. Even with all the effort made to distinguish which character was speaking when, I frequently got confused. And if a professional writer and editor couldn't keep all the viewpoint characters straight, I doubt young readers would fare any better.

2. In Wonder, I think the author veered away from Auggie for far too long. He appears in Part 1, and then doesn't reappear until the final quarter of the book, in parts 6 and 8. That's far too long to stay away from the character you want your readers to empathize with the most. 

3. In both Mr. Terupt and A Tangle of Knots, I think the authors spent too little time with each character, and changed characters too frequently. 

CURMUDGEONLY ABOUT MULTIPLE POV NO MORE

Despite my strong Puritan prejudice against multiple POV, I now have to admit, however grudgingly, that there is a place for it in children's literature. How could I deny that after reading these four delightful novels by such talented middle grade authors? 

But why use multiple POV at all? Remember the first article in this series, the one in which I compare viewpoint to wearing glasses? Well, on her website, Palacio says that she didn't initially intend to write Wonder in multiple POV. But after she started the book, she got interested in Via and the different way she viewed Auggie and his problems. In other words, Palacio wanted kids to put on Via's glasses for a while and see the world through those lenses. Then Palacio says she got interested in Summer's glasses, and so on. 

"The Glasses Apostle," 1403
by Conrad von Suest

In an NPR interview, Buyea said that all seven characters in Mr. Terupt suddenly appeared to him one day while he was working his mother's garden. So in his case, it wasn't a conscious decision—this was simply the way the Muse decided to deliver the gift of this novel to him.

What does multiple POV accomplish that single POV cannot? I think Palacio says it best. It's a way to help young readers see many different sides of a story. Kids tend to be very ego-centered. I don't mean that they are selfish; I mean that they tend even more than adults to see other people as reflections of themselves. That is probably why single POV is so effective in gaining young readers' attention, because it mirrors their own experience of life. 

Photo by Tangopaso,
in the public domain

But that may be precisely why a multiple POV book is a refreshing change of pace for kids. It knocks the glasses they're used to wearing off their noses, so they are forced to look through someone else's lenses and discover that not everybody sees the world the way they do. There aren't just two sides to any story; there are a thousand. Shifting between several different viewpoint characters encourages readers to imagine how one event can be experienced in unexpected ways by a variety of different people. 

And that may be the best reason to use multiple POV in a middle grade novel. 

However, as I said above, I'm only a partial convert. I stubbornly maintain that multiple POV is not to be undertaken lightly. It is very, very difficult to pull off—even as much as I liked these four books where the authors handled it well, I still had some issues with how they used it. 

And unfortunately, I've also read many books with multiple POV that were not done well. I'm not going to list those here, because that would be mean-spirited. 

Like so many things in writing, there is no one right way to craft a book. I hope I’ve been able to step far enough aside from my own aesthetic preferences to allow multiple viewpoint a fair chance to duke it out against single POV. Even I have to agree that a compelling case can be made for using multiple POV in some books. There are always risks and trade-offs to doing that, however—a subject I’ll speak about in the last installment of this series.

In the meanwhile, with writers as gifted and skilled as Palacio, Buyea, Mass, and Graff as its champions, it's clear that this narrative technique needs no help from me. Sometimes multiple viewpoint may be the best way to tell a certain story.

Next time, however, I am finally going to write about a specialized form of single viewpoint that is near and dear to my heart—something called Deep POV. I can't wait!

Next time: What Is So Special About Deep POV?

Finally researching that piece on multiple viewpoint

I've just ordered five middle grade novels via inter-library loan that use the dreaded multiple POV: Wonder by RJ Palacio, Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass, Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea, A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff, and A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements.

© Photo by Nancy Butts

I make no bones about being a single-POV Puritan; in fact, I wrote an article about that which I published both here and on my website last summer. At that time I promised that I'd give multiple POV a chance to defend itself, but I'm only now getting around to it. Sorry! After trying rather unsuccessfully to set aside my POV prejudice and write a fair, objective piece on why and when and how to use multiple viewpoint, I got a brainstorm. Why don't I let some the best examples of it that I can find in middle grade literature speak for themselves?

So that's what I'm doing. It may take a while for all five books to arrive, so I can't give you a definite date for when the article will be published. But in the meantime, if you have any favorite examples of multiple POV, please share them with me in the comments!

Steeping in silence

© Photo by Nancy Butts

There is too much silence in my life; and there is nowhere near enough.

That is the line that keeps echoing in my head as I sit down on this windy March day and try to find something worthwhile to say after a five-month absence from this blog.

For the first time in months, a syzygy of events more rare than a conjunction of five celestial bodies has finally occurred: I have the house to myself at the same time that I have zero—count 'em—zero work deadlines to meet. Making it even more miraculous, I also do not have an appointment with either a physical therapist or an orthopedic surgeon. Since those both require driving anywhere from 80 to 140 miles round-trip, such appointments tend to devour most of the productive, creative hours of my day.

And since last October, I've had a slew of such appointments. First it was the rather unsuccessful aftermath of my knee surgery, and then it was some still-mysterious tectonic event in my neck on Dec. 8th that led to twenty-six days of unrelenting, excruciating pain. That was not conducive to writing, let me tell you. Opinions differ as to what happened, but the MRI of my neck looks like something exploded in there, and the physical therapy isn't helping. So I don't know what lies in store for me on that score.

Meanwhile, students and freelance clients and educational gigs have been flooding me with work. It's flattering to be in such demand, and it's good for my bank account, but it's also exhausting. I woke up one day last week feeling so depleted, both physically and mentally, that I could barely function. I had to declare the day a Work Free Zone and hide out from my email, so no one could find me and give me any more assignments with deadlines so tight that they require traveling back in time to get them done.

All of this is to explain [rationalize?] my absence from this page; and also my pervasive creative silence. It may be a paradox, but my life is so filled with noise—in the sense of a bombardment of what electrical engineers and information scientists call "signal interference"—that I have fallen silent. I have nothing to say.

At least, that's how I felt this morning when I uploaded the edits of a client's manuscript, checked both my work inboxes, looked at my calendar, and realized that I have an entire afternoon to myself. I don't have any assignments to correct, manuscripts to edit, or educational texts to research and write. I don't have anywhere to drive. And the house is blessedly silent, since both my husband and son are at their respective college campuses teaching. It's just me and Yukon, the neurotic Newf.

The house is silent, and so am I. Or so I thought. Obviously, I found something to say, because I've just written six hundred words about it. But it's just a tease, a delusion. I can't hear any of my characters in my head right now; are they just sleeping, or did they give up on me and move away? I don't know.

There isn't going to be a tidy end to this post; I haven't come to any epiphanies, or suddenly found my creative voice again. I just need to set this down: although the noise of my life has momentarily fallen silent, I still can't hear myself. And for a writer, silence is supposed to be this horrible thing. We're always running away from it, always scrambling desperately for characters and ideas and words and images—for something, anything to say.

But maybe that's the epiphany I'm supposed to be having. Maybe silence isn't such a horrible thing; maybe we as writers need to stop fearing it. Perhaps we need to stop once in a while and let ourselves be filled up with it. Instead of struggling to drown it out with an increasingly frantic deluge of words, maybe we need to steep a while in silence and listen, really listen, to what it may have to say.

"Without silence, words lose their meaning." The Belgian priest Henri Nouwen said that; I used it as the epigraph of my first novel, Cheshire Moon.

Time to listen. 

Fiction is the lie that tells the truth

I'm recovering from knee surgery six days ago–my third operation in 25 months. I often joke that I should just find those scientists who gave Wolverine his adamantine skeleton and get one myself! And check out what I call my Transformer crutches: much easier to use than the axillary crutches they give you in physical therapy, even if they do make people stop and stare at me when I hobble down the street.

I'm up and limping around, feeling fairly good, all things considered. But surgery takes something out of you, mentally as well as physically, so I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on my writing, teaching, or editing at the moment. As a three-time veteran, I was prepared for that this time. So I'm logging lots of hours on my Kindle, catching up on seventy—yes, seventy—books in my " find time to read someday" pile. It's heaven, but I have to work hard not to feel guilty about "goofing" off this way.

A few days before my surgery I came across this link in the Guardian to a speech that fantasy writer Neil Gaiman gave in London earlier this month. I want to write something profound in response, but I'm reduced to saying, "Oh wow oh wow oh wow." Gaiman plucked every word I might ever think to set down about this glorious craft of fiction writing and said it so much better than I ever could. So please, please–if you love books, either as a reader or a writer, do yourself a favor and read his speech. I'd quote my favorite parts, but by the time I was done, I'd have reproduced the entire thing.

What exploded in my heart most of all was when Gaiman said that fiction writers—especially those of us who write for children—have an obligation to daydream, to entertain, and most of all, to tell the truth. Gaiman didn't mean that writers should teach or moralize: far from it. He specifically lists as one of our obligations that we should avoid preaching at all costs.

So what did he mean? I'll let him explain.

,,,truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are.

To me, that is another way of saying that truth in fiction isn't a simple regurgitation of facts. There is an alchemy that happens when you enter a book, a combustible reaction between word and reader that can forever change the way you see life, the world—even yourself. That I think is what Gaiman meant when he said

Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

Now if that doesn't get you to read his speech, I don't know what will!

Couldn't have said it better myself: kick the adults out of your stories for kids

Can I hear an amen? This quote from my friend Mary Scarbrough's article over at Quick and Dirty Tips says it so well: get those Buttinskys out of the books and stories you write for kids. 

"Real kids get told what to do, how to do it, and what not to do all the time. Parents, teachers, older siblings, coaches, music instructors – kids have to listen to adults blathering all the livelong day. Think of a child you know and start enumerating how many adults/authority figures that child interacts with on a daily or weekly basis. Sure, a lot of this instruction from one’s elders is necessary in real life, but it doesn’t make for good literature, not for a young reader, and not if you are the adult reading to a youngster. Ugh. It gets old fast. Give kids a break!"

Resisting the urge to insert a wise older adult into stories for kids seems to be difficult for a lot of my writing students and freelance clients. I think this is because as adults ourselves, we are hard-wired with a strong instinct to protect the children under our care—even the fictional ones. But as writers we have to step back; we have to set the young heroes and heroines of our books free and allow them to take wrong turns down dark and even dangerous alleys. Because this is what makes stories interesting, whether that means scary, dramatic, funny, or sad.

I wish Mary had written this article a long time ago, so I could have been recommending it to my students for the past fifteen years! But I'm glad it's there now. Take a look at the entire article, and also at Mary's other columns about the crazy craft of writing for kids while you're there. She manages to dispense a lot of wisdom in a candy-coated wrapping of zany humor.

My neurotic need for redundancy finally pays off

I apologize for the long silence. After a summer tsunami of work—culminating in a four-book project for educational publisher Amplify—I needed a break. So I snuck off for a week-long sabbatical.

Upon my return, look what I found!

This is the title of an article I wrote on computer backups that was just published in the October 2013 edition of the electronic magazine Children's Writer. Seeing my name in print again is great inspiration to shift back into full work mode again.

And it tickles me because my husband has long teased  that my obsession with backing up everything I write, not just to one place but to several, amounts to a "neurotic need for redundancy." At long last my neurosis had paid off—in an article sale.