Perspective: The Secret to Authentic Character Voices

Perspective is one of the most commonly overlooked skills we authors can build, and the stronger the skill, the better the stories. Whether we write in first-person, third-person, third shifting, third close, it really doesn’t matter if the character is not believable. We’ve already discussed how POV (point of view) shapes a story and how each “type” creates a distinctive psychological experience.

But, POV is merely casting who will be holding the narrative camera. The next question we should ask is, “Exactly whose experiential lens will be telling the story?” Followed immediately by asking, “And is it believable?”

Once we choose a certain POV and which character we want telling the story, we need to make that character believable, relatable and someone we want to invest time getting to know (and hopefully root to win).

This is where perspective can be the game-changer.

Recently, I bought a second book from a debut author I LOVED. The first book was so excellent I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times, and even bought a hard copy and had Spawn (my teenage son) read it. So trust me, when the second book came up to preorder?

TAKE MY MONEY!

Then, no matter how hard I tried with the second book, I could NOT get into the story. Trust me, I tried. The author was still skilled, the story was excellent, so why was it losing me? And me being me, I needed to understand what (for me) had suddenly gone so wrong.

Perspective Has to Be Believable

In the author’s first book, I fell into the world and forgot to come up for air. Why? The MC, though irascible to the point I wanted to hare-lip him, was utterly believable. His mood swings, temper and often illogical decisions made sense, since he was a veteran suffering PTSD.

Hiking, hunting, fishing and being outdoors all had helped him handle (though not confront and master) his darker emotions. Not only did his stupid choices still make sense (and serve up some great dramatic tension), but his knowledge base also made sense because it was his world prior to the inciting incident.

What happened with the second book?

I’m not naming names because I want people to fall in love with the author’s books without me poisoning the well. This is merely MY opinion. That said, after many starts and stops and finally giving up, I had to backtrack what exactly went wrong.

Perspective. The author wanted me to believe a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent could see and experience the story events in a way I found utterly implausible.

Perspective Can Only Stretch So Far

The author chose to write through the POV of a young teenage boy who’d never set foot outside of a poor urban community in the South. Who’d never seen mountains in person, yet somehow knew all the terms that a person who’d grown up in the Rockies, Tetons, whatever, would toss out without even thinking.

He not only knew what a topographical map was, but why it would be important to have one…and how to read it. That’s a tough sell regardless of the character’s age. The simple fact his MC came from a sheltered, poverty-riddled life in a bayou already made this incredibly implausible.

Additionally, how the character experienced his world, problems, and even regular interactions rang false for someone that age, who also happened to come from a sheltered background (for that setting).

Had the story been set with an urban background requiring street smarts, maybe my opinion would have been different. But the author chose not only a young protagonist, but a fish-out-of-water that felt more like a fish that suddenly sprouted legs because the writer needed him to.

What bothers me most is that the story would have worked beautifully had the character NOT been so knowledgeable. Again, no one minds a fish-out-of-water story. We love them enough they have their own term. Yet, we need to make sure we are remaining true to that perspective.

It’s okay for a character to not know something. In fact, often it can be BETTER.

Eyes and Age

Some of my favorite books are written from a young person’s perspective. Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, Joe Lansdale’s The Bottoms, Jonathan Maberry’s Rot & Ruin and Stephen King’s IT, are all written from a young person’s perspective. THREE of these titles are told from a young teenage boy’s perspective, the same type of character that somehow–in this other story–fell flat.

Which made me start thinking. All of these books have incredible detail, sophisticated stories and the vocabulary is elite. How did Bradbury, Maberry, Lansdale, and King pull that off? How could they pull off such erudite description while also remaining believable as “children”?

My only working theory is the teens in these stories are all well-read, regardless of socioeconomic level. They think and observe with eyes they’ve earned from inhaling books.

Harry might be a twelve-year-old boy in rural East Texas during the Great Depression, but he has access to a library of sorts (an old maid who lends him books and rewards him for reading them).

Authorial Voice

Yes, Ray Bradbury has an authorial voice that’s unmistakably elite, but we never question the boys’ observations or the ways they choose to see their world because AGAIN, reading is part of their identities. Same in IT.

The words they choose, the details they notice (narration) are all a benefit of working their observational muscles using books that are hardly fluff: King Solomon’s Mines, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo are far from comic books (though we’ll get to comic books in a moment).

Reading is one of those activities that definitely can enhance a young character. The average adult wouldn’t normally know that the overhang thingy we pull our cars under is called a porte cochère (I didn’t). If they read Dean Koontz, however, they totally would know that.

Guess how I learned?

Reading Expands Perspective

If we want a fish-out-of-water, young or old, that’s fine…so long as they remain a fish-out-of-water. I don’t want to get hung up on age, because age is only one element of perspective. That said, if we want to transplant someone out of a Florida swamp into the Smokies, there better be a story-specified reason they (in narration) suddenly know/or at least have an idea of common terms in an utterly unfamiliar world.

Maybe we want to write a romance about a woman with a crush, and the main love interest mistakes her for a nurse upon waking from a bang on the head. She doesn’t want to admit she’s a dog-walker because the job is embarrassing.

Okay. So maybe she grew up with a mom in nursing school and she happened to be the only person (despite being only thirteen) who could help her mother study. Maybe she faints at the sight of blood, but still found her mother’s textbooks fascinating. Perhaps she dated a medical student. She might even have mostly dog-walking clients in the medical district, so she absorbs an unfamiliar world via a sort of osmosis.

She can possess just enough knowledge to make the deception plausible while still being wildly unprepared for what might happen next.

Her partial expertise becomes a potential source of conflict.

That’s good storytelling.

We ARE What We DO

Perspective is an incredible literary device that can transport the reader into a world so thoroughly they never want to leave. This is why it is crucial we make sure the perspective rings true. Perspective will impact vocabulary, decisions and even what a character does or doesn’t notice.

Try a fun little exercise. Think about a neighborhood, a restaurant, or a shopping center. Describe the same place but from different perspectives.

A veteran suffering from PTSD will react to a roll of carpet lying in the road very differently from a real estate agent hoping to sell a house three doors down from the trashy neighbors using an old toilet as a planter.

An architect will “see” an old gingerbread house with a sagging porch far differently than a twelve-year-old kid who might read far too many comic books. Two different jump scares. The architect is blanching at the cost of repairing the termite-infested pier-and-beam floors, whereas the tween is certain an evil clown lives in the crawl spaces.

Perspective is Accumulated Experience with an Opinion

Suffice to say that our background, where we come from, the education we’ve had (or haven’t had), the job(s) we’ve done all inform perspective.

For instance, I haven’t worked in industrial sales in over twenty years, but I still notice the quality of a company’s corner board (or lack thereof). I also happen to be a generous tipper. Why? Because I waited tables through school and know they rely on tips to survive. Meaning I pay attention to more than my own dining experience, and can tell if a server is in the weeds or dealing with an incompetent kitchen staff. It isn’t her fault the hostess spread her tables across three time zones.

Additionally, as a middle-aged Gen Xer who’s “seen things”, trust me when I say my cumulative experiences make me notice things others might not. Anyone old enough to legally buy BEER would likely say the same.

Conversely, a young character–as we mentioned above–might possess impressive book knowledge, but their lack of practical experience should come across in the writing.

King does this brilliantly in It. No matter how book smart or even street smart a fifteen-year-old might be, there will be areas of authentic naïveté. At least there should be if we want our characters to be sympathetic/believable.

Yes, our spunky fifteen-year-old girl boss might know weapons and Kung Fu and have special vampire killing powers…yet also be oblivious as to why Mom might be having an aneurysm over the power bill.

Method Acting and Perspective

A dimensional character should feel as if they’ve lived a life before setting foot in our stories. Where did they grow up? What environment? Were they well-off or fast friends with poverty? Maybe a mix of BOTH?

Did they come from a sane family or a broken one? What roles have they inhabited (or not)?

An only child won’t have the same emotional repertoire as the eldest child made responsible for tending house and keeping a gaggle of younger siblings ALIVE as well as fed, clothed and entertained. Neither is good or bad, merely different.

I say this when I look at my only-child husband like he’s an alien…and he’s staring at me with the same expression. As for Spawn (only child, homeschooled, and a Zoomer)? There needs to be a translation app.

***INDULGENT SIDE QUEST: When Spawn was in Kindergarten we saw a “spooky” rotary phone in the Halloween decor and he genuinely had NO CLUE what it was. Not only that, but he genuinely believed I was punking him when I told him it was a phone. *me dying of old age*

Anyway….

Perspective is Cumulative

All our life experiences (or lack thereof) build in micro observations that make a character seem more than simply a paper doll there for the author’s amusement.

Ideally, we want to get inside the head of our characters to the point we practically inhabit them. If you’re writing a character who’s elderly or maybe a fighter with a recently blown knee, what would they notice? What would suddenly become important?

While an athletic teenager might not think a bathroom is scary unless the mirrors start bleeding, try tackling a shower without being able to trust your balance.

Someone with an unstable knee might notice slippery flooring, the absence of grab bars, or the distance between the shower and something sturdy enough to hold.

A healthy teenager might never register those details.

The environment hasn’t changed. The character’s relationship to it has.

In the End

Ultimately, plenty of people loved the book that started this whole post, so I wouldn’t say my advice is some sort of Holy Grail or anything. Yet, there is something to be said for reading (and more than just for any young protagonists we might want to write). I’ve read two books a week for almost a decade, and I dissect all of them.

If I loved them, what did the author do? Or, as was the case here, if a book fails to capture my attention, what was missing? What was too much? Is there a way the author could have kept my interest and if so, what?

I’ve said this time and time again over the years, but writers who don’t read aren’t fooling anyone. I can tell in one page a writer who doesn’t read because the prose is about as appetizing as food from a chef who only eats Hot Pockets. I know none of y’all are guilty of this, but pretty sure we have all met the “author” who believed anyone could write and their story was so extra special they didn’t need to bother about reading anyone else (or learning craft).

Yet, perspective, like vocabulary, narration, setting, theme, are all those advanced techniques that immediately can demonstrate mastery if we are willing to do the hard work.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Does this make you think a little differently about what exactly makes a dimensional character? Had you given as much weight to perspective before? Has this post maybe given you new ways you hadn’t considered to add additional depth and mystery to your characters?

I love hearing from you!