Playing
with Point-of-View
by Emma S.
Young
adult fiction authors love to break the rules and norms of writing. These
writers play with the boundaries of genre, character diversity, and edgy
content. But most of all, there is no set point-of-view that all writers of
young adult fiction must use. They use omniscient third person, limited third
person, limited first person, and alternating first person. They write from the
POV of the rich, the poor, love interests, enemies, an imaginary friend,
personified death, a squirrel, and even a bench.
Omniscient
third person is defined in Perrine’s
Literature as “a story told in the third person by a narrator whose
knowledge and prerogatives are unlimited. Such narrators are free to go
wherever they wish, to peer inside the minds and hearts of characters at will
and tell us what they are thinking or feeling” (254). Perhaps one of the best examples
of omniscient third person POV appears in Falling
into Place by Amy Zhang; this book is the story of Liz Emerson, a girl who
tries to commit suicide by crashing her car. The entire book is narrated by
Liz’s childhood imaginary friend, who delves into the minds of many characters
and uses flashbacks to show what Liz and others were thinking and feeling. Of
course not every character’s thoughts and feelings are shown, but they are for
Liz’s mother, best friends, and the boy who has a crush on her. Consider this
excerpt from Falling into Place.
There
are three kinds of people after the surgery is pronounced successful.
There are the ones who are breathless, shaking, crying in
that crushing and desperate kind of relief—namely, Liz’s mother and Julia. When
the doctor first told Monica that her daughter had not died on the operating
table, she went to Julia and held her, because she couldn’t hold Liz.
All team practices have been cancelled for the day, so the waiting
room is clogged with the second kind of people, the ones who aren’t surprised
at all. They shrug and say that they were never worried, never mind the fact
that they had all abandoned their homework out of their profound concern. They
sit around the low tables and say that they always knew Liz was strong enough
to pull through.
And then there is Matthew Derringer, who is just the
slightest bit disappointed, because he has already ordered flowers for the
funeral. (128-129)
Omniscient
third person is extremely effective in a book such as Falling into Place. The protagonist is in a coma or surgery for
most of the present-day scenes. An all-knowing, all-seeing narrator is
necessary to tell what Liz was thinking before the crash and to show the
reactions after. Additionally, Liz Emerson is not a sympathetic character in
the least, so the use of her imaginary friend makes her a bit more
approachable. Omniscient third person does what limited cannot.
Limited
third person is “told in the third person, but from the viewpoint of one
character in the story. Such point-of-view characters are filters through whose
eyes and minds writers look at the events. Authors employing this perspective
may move both inside and outside these characters but never leave their sides”
(255). In her book, Princess Academy,
Shannon Hale utilizes limited third person. We see the story unfold through
only the protagonist Miri’s eyes. She sees how other characters react and can
guess how they are feeling, but we have to do the same. There are no breaks in
the POV; the “camera” stays with Miri the entire time, as seen in the following
excerpt.
Her hands were on fire, her leg was numb. She tried to kick
him off but could not budge his weight. Dan tried to climb the cliff wall with
one hand, using her leg to pull himself up. Miri screamed from the pain of
holding on. Her hands were slipping, and she felt herself nearly falling with
the snow.
Then something struck Dan on the forehead. He looked up, but
his eyes seemed blind, as if his vision were lost trying to following a
snowflake. His hold on the cliff slipped, his weight lessened, and then,
unexpectedly, Miri was watching him get smaller and smaller. His arms and legs
splayed as though he were making a snow angel in midair. The wind blew the
falling snow into circles and spirals, washing out everything below, so that
Miri did not see him hit the ground.
She looked up. Her pa was leaning over the cliff edge, the
mallet gone from his hand. (277-278)
Finally,
YA authors often write in first person. They rarely use objective POV, likely
because teenagers are all about thinking and feeling. Objective POV imparts
only what is visible. First person POV is the author disappearing into one of
the characters, who tells the story from only their thoughts. Perhaps half of
young adult novels utilize this style. Many take it a step further, however,
and write in alternating first person. An example of this style is Being Sloane Jacobs by Lauren Morrill.
This book tells the story of two girls named Sloane Jacobs (although their
middle names differ), who switch places at their figure skating and hockey
camps. Obviously, simple limited first person would not work here. Both girls’
thoughts are necessary to the narration. There would not be enough action or
explanation if we were only shown Hockey Sloane’s thoughts and vice versa.
As
prevalent as alternating first person has become, regular limited first person
is still common and just as effective. There are books where readers should
only be given the protagonist’s or antagonist’s thoughts and feelings, apart
from what he or she sees or is told in dialogue. First person perhaps works
best in introspective contemporary, where the narrative focuses on the
protagonist’s growth. The Start of Me and
You by Emery Lord is a perfect example. Paige Hancock is a half-broken
protagonist who needs to find herself and be brave and finds love along the
way, all of which is displayed in the following excerpt from Lord’s book.
I used to think it took me so long because, on some level, I
wasn’t quite ready to be with Max. But now I think I wasn’t quite ready to be me. I needed to relearn myself, to
venture into new friendships and nerdy after-school activities and my own mind.
I needed to realize that I was one-fourth of a family that is not normal and
that no family is normal. I needed to start seeing my sister as a person, so
nearly a peer, and to watch girlfriends grow, each in her own way, together. I
needed to paddle without my grandmother, despite my sadness. I needed to let go
of my unknowns about Aaron, to let peace fill the empty spaces.
Max stood waiting for me, not moving closer, and maybe he
had been waiting for me to take the steps for myself this whole time. I was
closing in, nearly reaching the three steps down that separated us. And I
jumped.
I felt my feet leave the ground, the air beneath me. If I
was scared, it was in that pulsing, breathless scared you feel when what you’ve
just done might change your life forever. When you know that there’s someone to
catch you, and he does.
He set me down and, the moment my feet hit the floor, I
pressed up onto my toes and kissed him for the exact right reason: because I
wanted to. Not because he was a silly crush or an item on a checklist. Because
he was Max, plaid shirts and robots and airplanes and all. (372)
Point-of-view
is very effective when used correctly, and it can either make or break a book.
There are many YA novels that do not properly utilize the chosen POV, or the
author does not even choose the right one. However, it is clear that there is no
single way to narrate—an author can do anything he wants. A book’s POV might
involve alternating first person, both first person and limited third person in
the same book, and even the POV of a squirrel.
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