Everybody Has an Agenda

Everybody has an agenda. We all have desires, hopes, and dreams. We all have principles. We all have goals, whether we formalize them or not. We all have a background and a historical perspective that shapes our actions and our outlook. In our interaction with others, we are at least somewhat aware that the person we are interacting has views and goals that may or may not be the same as ours.

Even the people we love, the people we support, and the people we usually agree with are individuals with their own way of thinking. Every interaction we have is colored by the perspectives and viewpoints of all people involved.

How often have you argued with somebody or watched two people argue when both sides are saying basically the same thing? That happens because we are all individuals and we each have our own agenda, and to some extent, we recognize that our agendas don't always agree, even when the points we are trying to make are the same.

So why should the characters in our stories be any different?

If you want your characters to ring true, they must each have their own world view, their own wants and needs, and their own goals. Their own agendas.

Characters on the same side take that position for their own reasons. Characters on opposite do the same thing. Your protagonist and antagonist might seem like enemies, and since your story is told from the POV of the protagonist (probably), the antagonist may seem evil. But from his point of view, he's probably taking his position as a matter of conscience, because he thinks it's the right thing to do. From the antagonist's point of view, and that of his followers, the protagonist is the bad guy.

But agendas are not limited to main characters. Every time a character appears in our story, even in the most minor of roles, we need to consider what that character wants. Maybe we don't need to create a detailed character analysis of our most minor characters, but we do need to know what each character hopes to achieve. Each character has a life outside the story, even if we don't know anything about it.

Too often, we write a character out of convenience, to fill a story need, without thinking about that character as a real person with hopes and dreams of her own. Usually, when we read and come across a character like that, we're unsatisfied. But still we write them.

Each person in your story world is there for a reason. Not just your reason, to fulfill a story need, but a reason of his or her own. Each character wants something out of his interaction with your other characters or your setting, or whatever he is there for. Even if the character is there solely to offer support to another character, he is offering support for his own, usually selfish, reasons. Even two characters who agree can have agendas that create conflict, and conflict creates story.

So remember that as you write. Every time a character is in a scene, consider why that character is there and what he or she hopes to get out of it. This is one of the most effective ways to turn characters into people.

Point of View, Viewpoint, and Perspective

by Deren Hansen

Ambiguity gives natural language its power: when vocabulary and grammar are fluid we can describe new situations for which we otherwise would not have the words. Specificity and precision give science its power: being clear about an object, its preconditions, and the forces or processes applied to it helps us avoid spurious and distracting information that would confound the subject. Scientific language breeds jargon in an attempt to minimize ambiguity

I may be guilty of the same thing, but I found myself unsatisfied when I heard someone assert that viewpoint, point of view, and perspective were synonymous. Of course the statement is true in a general sense. Outside of writing about writing, I would never want to be constrained to use a particular term only in a particular context. But the advantage of having a writer as reader is that the writer has terms and concepts with which to more specifically identify issues with the narrative. Instead of guessing why a reader may have lost interest in a section it is much more helpful to hear that the pacing suffered because of the long descriptive paragraphs devoted to back story.

When someone says your story has a problem with point of view they could be referring to one or more of three related but distinct storytelling dimensions: the grammatical person, the viewpoint character, or issues of characterization.

Point of View

When we discuss point of view, we usually focus on the grammatical person and the associated narrative conventions. If a story is told in first-person then logically only events in which that person participated can be related directly. A story told in third-person can stay close to one character or follow many characters without defying logic. There are subtle and not-so-subtle challenges with each point of view over which beginning writers often stumble, so it’s almost always a good place to go when troubleshooting a story.

Viewpoint

Stories are always told from the viewpoint of one or several characters. Even in omniscient mode you still have the viewpoint of the narrator. The storyteller selects what to include and omit from the narrative. Generally, someone close to the action will include more detail than someone farther away. Because story is fundamentally about understanding the why behind the external events, we usually want to hear the story from the perspective of the person closest to the action—and while physical proximity is important, emotional proximity is even more so. Sometimes, however, the story is better served by someone removed from the action: Holmes is more brilliant in Watson’s telling because we never see the internal debate in the great detective’s head before he announces his deduction. Getting the viewpoint right is much trickier than fixing the grammar and logic of point of view. Reading widely helps develop your instinct for storytelling, but when it comes to your own story you may be best served by writing several scenes from different viewpoints to see which resonates most strongly.

Perspective

Beyond the mechanics and logic of constructing a consistent point of view and the choices of what belongs in the story we reach the rarefied air of the perspective the viewpoint character brings to the narrative. We would expect, for example, a monk who had taken a vow of pacifism to describe a fistfight differently than a Mongol warrior. (And how would that description differ if the monk were a former Mongol warrior?) A perpetual challenge when writing for children and young adults is to create characters whose perspective isn’t contaminated by the mature perspective of the author.

How, What, and Why

Perhaps a simpler way to understand the distinction between viewpoint, point of view, and perspective is that they address, respectively, how the story is told, what comprises the story, and why the character or characters telling the story believe it is significant. The distinctions are important because the way you fix a mechanical point of view problem, like a character in a first-person narrative knowing something they didn’t experience, is very different from the way you fix a problem in perspective, like a child having adult sensibilities.


Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Can a female adequately write from a male point of view?

I'm a female, but I know men. I'm married to a man. I was raised by a man. I grew up with little men who grew into big men. I'm raising two little men of my own. Not a day goes by that I don't interact with men.

So does that qualify me to write from a male perspective?

It depends.

Am I creating a female who acts like a man? Or am I creating a man who acts like a man?

What is it that makes a male (or female) POV? Traits. There are traits of men that can be generalized and typified: task oriented, one track minds, talk less, work hard.... you know the traits. They are usually what we laugh at when we're watching a sitcom or movie. But they are true! And using some of them can help create a believable male character. A successful male POV must be male through and through, not just superficially or stereotypically male. Too few stereotypes and you're stuck with a lack-luster pseudo-male that people want to beat up; too many stereotypes and you have a Neanderthal that everyone despises.

Just as you would research for a story on Russia, research your male (or female). Read lots of articles about writing from the opposite POV. Read popular books written with a POV opposite of the author's gender. Practice being in a "male mindset" and writing out of those thoughts (focus on thoughts, not feelings). Write mini-scenes and think through how the situations would be seen from a male or female. Write both. Beware of thinking like a female, but writing on behalf of a man.

In the long run, it might be easier for a female writer to keep her POVs solely female. Yes, easier, safer, less stretching....more boring, less challenging. If you're up it, you can learn to write in any POV. Research, practice, feedback-- all these things will help you to unleash your inner male (female) POV.

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More to read about this: 

http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-up-writing-male-pov.html

http://www.keriarthur.com/extras/for-writers/articles/male-pov/

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/writing-the-male-point-of-view

http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/2011/12/writing-male-point-of-view.html