One of the most important aspects of writing is getting out
of your own head and into the heads of your perspective characters. Some
characters might be quite a lot like you, but many of them will view the world
much differently—and it’s important that you keep your perspective (or the
perspective of other characters) from bleeding into the heads of your
protagonists, especially when you’re describing the world around them.
In this post, we discussed one way that such perspective
bleed can happen—when an author is an expert on a certain topic, it can pop
up in their writing even when it shouldn’t. For instance, I’m pretty
well-trained in English grammar and editing. If I were writing from the point
of view of a well-educated librarian, I might have her note that the text on a
sign misused a present-continuous participle and left a modifier dangling.
However, if I were writing from the perspective of a largely-illiterate street
thug walking past the same sign, describing the sentence using those detailed
terms would be completely out of place.
This problem—describing things in ways your perspective
character wouldn’t—is probably most common when a perspective character is of a
different nationality, race, or gender from the author. For instance, here is
the single most common and jarring example that I have come across (and I have
come across versions of it many, many times):
Diana frowned at
Detective Mullens. “My husband didn’t keep secrets from me, detective. If he
had been involved in something illegal, he would have told me.”
Detective Mullens
raised his hands in a placating manner. “I’m not trying to cast aspersions on
your husband, ma’am. I just have to follow every lead and possibility I come
across. Do you recognize these ledgers?”
The detective
handed her a three-ring binder. She did recognize it—it held their family
finances. It usually sat on a shelf in her and her husband’s bedroom. She hadn’t
even realized it was missing. “Where did you find this?” she asked.
Before the
detective could answer, the front door opened and Diana’s twenty-three year old
daughter Stefanie walked in. She’d clearly been jogging—her bronze skin was
glistening with sweat, her body firm and lean but still curvy. Her dark hair
was pulled up in a simple ponytail, though a few strands had fallen loose to
dangle in front of her vivid brown eyes and her full, red lips. Her ample
breasts were outlined clearly through the tight sports bra she wore, moving up
and down as her heavy breathing slowed to normal. She bent down almost sensuously
to brush some dirt from her tight red leggings, and Diana frowned when she
noticed that Detective Mullens was watching appreciatively.
Diana cleared her
throat, and Stefanie looked up in surprise. “Oh, hi,” she said. “I didn’t see
you there. What’s going on?”
Now, I sincerely hope that you all can see the problem in
this passage. We’re in Diana’s head—that’s clear from the fact that we’ve been
given her thoughts and no one else’s. Therefore, everything we see should come
through the filter of Diana’s mind. Everything should be described as she would
describe it—and if that is how she
would describe her own daughter, there’s something seriously wrong with this
family.
These particular scenes usually happen for one of two
reasons. First, the (probably male) author is describing the daughter as he,
the author, pictures her without any regard to viewpoint. This is poor writing—if
your viewpoint doesn’t allow you to describe something in the way you’d like,
either change your viewpoint to one compatible with your description or change
your description to one compatible with the viewpoint.
The second possibility is that the author wants to convey
how Detective Mullens sees Stefanie, because he’s the actual protagonist and we’ve
only temporarily leapt to Diana’s perspective. If that’s the case, then why are
we in Diana’s perspective? Very few stories are well served by multiple
viewpoints—you might as well keep the point of view with Detective Mullens.
(By the way, this particular problem—sexualizing a character
while in the viewpoint of a character who wouldn’t sexualize them—is much more
common from male authors than female writers. But female writers are definitely
not immune to this error, so be on guard!)
These two people should not describe things in the same way. Don't describe what he sees in a way she would describe it, or vice versa. |
Always remember that description should match the
perspective of the character—don’t let your personal viewpoint or the view of a
non-viewpoint character influence description, unless you want to make some unfortunate implications about the perspective character!
For more on this topic, check out this post.
For more on this topic, check out this post.
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