Point of View

Banging my head against the wall for the past week did little to help figure out where I was going wrong.  That's why I decided to make this post.

POV (point of view) can change everything in a story.  And, I promise to stay away from the cases stated in any method book you can find at any library/bookstore.  I have many, and am sure most of you, do, too.  But, working the first scene again and again and again with a specific vision in mind is not always enough.

That was the lesson I was reminded of this week.  And one I'm grateful for having learned in the past.  I went back to the outline and read it forward and backward.  Yes, the plot was solid, it was down right screaming for writing.  But, the POV was all wrong.

I had focused on the two characters involved in 2/3 of the story.  Without them, there was no story.  However, the story was not about them.  The story was Charlie's.  He uncovered something and the journey was his as he followed it to the end.  It had little to do with the past.  In fact, the only thing it did have in common was that he stumbled across it.

If he hadn't, there would have been no story to be told.

So, from there, my focus on the other two involved was futile.  It wasn't about them -- never had been.

POV changed that.  It changes many things in a piece -- closes focus to a narrow beam when needed or opens vast plains of opportunity.

By shifting that, I found the story I was so close to telling -- and to losing.