In her comments to yesterday’s post on point of view, Malissa said:
I try not to head hop but sometimes I can’t help it. I want everyone’s emotions laid bare.
Readers do want to experience the emotions of all the characters in a story, and this is where the amazing tool called point of view comes in. It’s also where having a handle on showing vs telling will make a huge difference.
Let me explain by using examples from TV and movies since more people will have seen the same movies than read the same books. It’s a matter of quantity is all. Obviously, spoilers will follow.
Sense and Sensibility – Remember the scene at the end where Edward Ferrers FINALLY comes to claim Elinor Dashwood? Since we’re WATCHING a movie, we’re not READING the internal thoughts of either character, but we don’t need to. Say this movie scene (as opposed to however this scene plays out in Austen’s book) was written in Edward’s point of view. Wouldn’t you know what Elinor is feeling simply by reading Edward’s thoughts about her reaction, and knowing from previous scenes spent in Elinor’s head what such a moment would mean to her? If you were writing this scene from Edward’s POV, there would be no need to switch to Elinor’s to understand her emotions. The reader knows Elinor, and if the author has done her job, the reader can experience Elinor’s emotions through Edward’s viewpoint.
Grey’s Anatomy – At the end of last season, Seattle Grace Hospital admitted a John Doe bus crash victim. As the final episode closes, we learn the victim is George O’Malley, and we learn what this means to the staff and his friends by watching Meredith’s reaction. If the scene had been in a book and written from George’s point of view, the author would never have had to hop into Meredith’s head to understand her emotions. They would be there on the page through George’s eyes. The reader would know their history, having read the book’s previous chapters. Meredith’s emotions, had they been on the page through George’s viewpoint, would have been palpable.
This is the power of point of view. An author can lay bare a character’s emotions by showing them through the eyes of another.
