Description
This class is part of our “Summer Novel Series,” a variety of single-session classes on Thursday evenings designed to tackle one element of novel writing in each class. You can take one class, pick and choose, or take all of them! You can find all other classes in the series here.
Of all the formal decisions we must make at the start of a project, point of view is arguably the most consequential and often the least considered and effectively executed.
In this craft class, we’ll discuss WHY as we delve into the three primary types of POV and break down their subtypes and the unique advantages, limitations, and pitfalls of each. How do we determine which one is right or wrong for a story? What’s the importance of calibrating the reader’s distance from our characters? Why is third-person so often mishandled; omniscient and second-person so often misunderstood; and multiple narrators so easily defaulted to?
We’ll tackle these and other common issues and work towards the notion that POV is, by necessity, an obstructed window into the world of a story: for the reader eventually, but more urgently for the author who must choose a precise lens to help them imagine and interpret this inherently biased but vital view of that world.
