The Writing Process

I was reading a blog today about when you should use certain point of view. I thought the essay was well-written and it made a lot of sense except that I never go through that process when deciding what point of view to use. The comments at the end of the article were very positive as was mine except that I never sit down and decide what point of view I am going to use. I let my characters decide. It just depends on what story is and what the characters want to do.

My story or plot is character driven. That is how I started my writing career. I began by developing the who the main character was that I was going to write about. I formulated that person in my mind with a past and present. Usually, there was a pressing problem facing that character and in my story the character or protagonist was going to try to resolve it. How this was done by the character decided the point of view.

If my character, Tommie for example in a story that I am working on now, has a problem trying to figure out why she can't seem to get men to like her. She is attractive and intelligent and has a normal family background. It is such a mystery and the character wanted to tell the reader in detail how normal she is in every way. She went on and on about visiting therapists and asking people about it and no one had a clue except to say there was no problem. It was obvious the way Tommie kept talking to the reader that the story was a first person narrative. She wanted people to see she was normal when it was evident something was a miss. Then slowly the reader could begin to see by the way the character talked what the problem could be. The question is at this point is whether or not Tommie is going to figure it out for herself and what she is going to do about it. The layers are peeled by Tommie herself and the reader sees the truth before the protagonist does.

Another story is about two people both deep in personal tragedy can't see what is happening around them. It takes a supernatural event to knock their depressive glasses off. Both of the characters are not talking to themselves or each other. First person point of view is not what they want. They want the point of view of the third person so that the reader can see all of the events happening and how what is happening on the outside world is connected to the inside world. Again, the reader sees it before they do.

In my stories, the reader is often privy to what is happening before the characters. I just follow along and write what is happening. Sometimes, the main character can reason it out for themselves and sometimes has to be told. I like stories in which there is some transformation takes place. I guess I remember the tough times in my life when I got hints on what to do in my own tough circumstances when a character in a book went through a similar situation and what they did to survive. The stories in which one point of my wall took the hits from thrown books were ones in which a person went through all kinds of trauma and the resolution was a new romance walking or I should say waltzing through the door. How realistic is that?

I am the kind of writer that lets the inner writer loose. I also let my characters loose as well. I figure they all know what should be happening best. Of course I buttress all of this with a fairly substantial amount of reading of other writers and the daily exercise of journal writing and of course the heavy so-called indulgence of dreaming of stories in my head. I can't tell you that huge amount of training that gave me. Most of all, it all feels very comfortable to me.

I let myself tell me what is right and what is not. Maybe that puts me into the camp of the instinctive writer. I don't know. I do know that I have read many writers who often say the same. They just put the pen on the paper or the fingers on the keys and just start to write. I try not to think too much about it and make it more difficult than it has to be.