I’m learning a great deal about the importance of point of view (POV) in character development. In my first novel FIRST TENTATIVE STEPS I started by telling the story from a single POV. I’m a fan of Craig Johnson, the author of the Longmyre mysteries series. He tells all his Longmyre stories from a single POV and calls it a long soliloquy. He warns, in some of his interviews, that it is difficult to do entire novels and series from in the first person and keep it interesting.
As I told the story from Mike’s POV in first person, it was easy to show his entire arc. I put the poor guy through hell and had him claw his way out of deep-rooted psychological issues. I was able to use the interactions with his psychologist to show the reason for his new perspective. It was fun to see him develop as a person, and answer his cousin’s question: “Mike, are you focusing on the right thing?”
The problem I ran into is that this was, initially, a romance story with strong erotica elements. Now I realize that it is less a romance, but I still want to show the two main characters arcs. I could not do that without going into ‘telling’ for Helen. The only avenue left to me, using Mike’s first person POV, were his dialogs with Helen. I think if I was better, more experienced, I might pull that off. However, at my current level, that was and is a tall order.
In order to tell the story, I want to tell, Helen has to have her own first person POV. I thought of using third person to bring her in, but that would take you away from ‘feeling’ what Helen is going through. One of the most difficult things to get across in a hotwife or Stag-Vixen story, is the importance of communication. It is the foundation that allows people to explore in a healthy fun way. If you start from a shaky foundation, the relationship is going to crumble from outside pressures. This could be a good story, but it is not the one I’m telling.
Helen needs to show her own arc. She has to demonstrate her starting point, the doubt, the anguish, the trepidation of the fundamental change their marriage is undergoing. We see Mike’s easily, but I need to bring Helen in.
Questions that I had to go back and answer before I wrote the first line from Helen’s point of view included: Is she vulnerable and if so, how and why?
This forced me to do a much deeper dive into Helen’s persona and backstory. This story is still told mostly from Mike’s POV, but I think I’m adding enough of Helen to make the full story arc and their individual arcs to make more sense.
The proof is still in the pudding, isn’t it? I’ll have to see how this full revision and new POV work for the entire story, and whether or not having Helen tell her own arc will do the job I hope it’s doing.
AUTHROR’S NOTES:
Do you prefer erotica told from a single POV?
Are you more accustomed to seeing erotic romance told in the third person omniscient POV?
I usually write from my own point of view. I have tried writing as a man, like my husband might do, but it didn’t work out too well. When combining real life experiences with my fantasies, I have had to improvise because I dont remember every thing that was actually said. Sometimes using third person dialogue helps , makes my imagination work better when responding to a man’s words or tone of voice.