DISCUSSION 4

odule Three, you discussed methods of structuring narrative. Module Four focuses on how that narrative is told (as in, through whose means of perception) as well as the characters that populate it. Character has been called the “most important” element of creative writing (Stern 96), while point of view has been called the most “complex” (Burroway 276). Both address the who—who tells the piece, and who it is about. Sometimes, the two are one and the same, as with the first-person central narrator who tells a story about himself or herself. Often, however, they are different entities entirely—a narrative written in third-person limited or third-person omniscient point of view tells a story about other characters, for example, and a first-person peripheral narrator tells a story from a secondary character’s point of view. But even when the character and point of view are distinctly separate, the two elements, like everything else in a creative work, are inextricably linked. Module Four focuses on both.

There are several methods for developing character. What Burroway calls “direct methods”—dialogue, thought, appearance, and action—present a character to a reader by showing (rather than telling) how the character speaks, thinks, appears, and acts.

When we discuss methods for directly presenting character, the term “appearance” means more than simply what a character looks like. It also includes how that character presents herself through what she wears, what she possesses, and her body language and gestures. Burroway explains: “Features, shape, style, clothing, and objects can make statements of internal values that are political, religious, social, intellectual, and essential. The man in the Ultrasuede jacket is making a different statement from the one in the holey sweatshirt” (117). And if the character wears these particular clothes to intentionally make this statement, then it shows the reader something about his inner life.

In this context, “action” refers to the particular choices a character makes, and has everything to do with the character’s desire. As Burroway puts it: “a character driven by desire takes an action with an expected result, but something intervenes” (119). The something that intervenes creates the conflict and rising action that were covered in Module Three. But there would be no conflict to begin with if the character did not want something. “The protagonist must want, and want intensely,” Burroway tells us. The character’s motivation is the driving force behind the narrative. How do you show this desire? In large part, this is shown through the choices the character makes. (For more information, watch the video interview (cc) of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler discussing desire, a concept he calls “yearning.”

The most complex element of creative writing is point of view. At first glance, it might seem simple. A story, essay, play, or poem is told using one form of point of view: first person, third person, or second person. But there are several types of each point of view (first-person peripheral, third-person limited, etc.) that place the reader at a certain distance from the character. For example, a third-person omniscient narrator is much more distant from the characters than a third-person limited one. This is because the omniscient narrator “has total knowledge and tells us directly what we are supposed to think” (Burroway 278). Therefore, this type of narration does not allow us to experience the story as the characters do. Third-person limited, however, does because it limits the reader to only the main character’s perspective and, in this way, “mimics our individual experience of life—that is, our own inability to penetrate the minds and motivations of others” (Burroway 278).

Additional types of point of view include, but are not limited to:

First-person central: In this type of point of view, the narrator is also typically the protagonist of the piece. The first-person narrator uses the “I” perspective.

First-person peripheral: This is a narrator that tells someone else’s story, as Nick Carraway does in The Great Gatsby.

Second person: The second person is a rarely used, “idiosyncratic and experimental form” (Burroway 280) that addresses the main character as ‘you.’

Third-person objective: This is a Hemingway-esque narrative voice that restricts “your knowledge to the external facts that might be observed by a human witness” (Burroway 279) and, thus, puts the reader at a greater distance.

What makes point of view so complex is that it involves the intricate relationship “among writer, characters, and reader” (Burroway 276). When you choose a particular point of view—say, third-person limited—you enter into a contract with the reader, establishing the perspective and closeness in the beginning of the piece. If you, as a writer, then break that contract by, say, suddenly shifting perspectives to a different character, the reader feels cheated. It is important for a writer to choose a point of view and perspective and remain consistent throughout the piece.