Alternating Point of View
May 12, 2022Alternating Point of View
May 12, 2022Alternating Point of View
(Part 3 of 5)
What works for me is to approach a topic from a tangent, creating interest and puzzlement in about equal proportions. Intrigue did the rest. Hence why I use the alternating POV (point of view) technique.
Assume, for example, there are three people in a room. How many relationships is that? It is around ten (three sets of dyads, plus the three sets of dyads interacting with the missing other, and of course, the group itself). We all know that this chemistry has impact on our lives and our thinking and that it can never be assumed that we know what the other is experiencing – the basis of POV in writing.
How then to recreate this? Writing is an art and hence does not seek to represent the whole, only the perception.
Does the POV of one central character do this? Absolutely!
Is it the only way? I doubt it.
Does established practice set the precedence? What’s the point of research and evolution if that is the case?
Do we recognise a problem with young male literacy? If so, doesn’t this demand a different approach?
Back to the grasshopper brains.
Lives and thoughts stimulated by a myriad of topics, feelings, sounds, colours, scents, textures… flicking between them, selecting what dominates either from self or manufactured interest.
Choices, endless choices, often without a wider context that would help selection.
A recipe for what?
Now throw in child abuse as in Driven.
How is the reader to experience what has happened to Jason? That was my conundrum. How to represent in my art how the moral and psychological dilemmas he faces every second of his day, the confusion, the anger, the pain, the craving, the need to flee, the why-me syndrome.
This is the emotional kinetics I created in Mind Terrors – the seminal book of the Driven Series.
So I crafted the Driven trilogy. It shows two things:
1. a message of hope through Jason Patterson where he tries to re-establish his self and was at that point in his relationship with Rie Nakamuro when the paedophile ring strikes back; and,
2. a message of despair through Bradleigh Leon where his unresolved abuse leads him further and further into the blackness of psychosis.
Then the story takes over.
I look forward to your comments.
Regards
Eddie