Point of View

A writer must be mindfully aware of point of view in writing, so that the reader doesn't have to.

This evening I had one of those moments teachers live for. A student in my Creative writing class was telling his classmates about a book he read, Elements of Fiction Writing: Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card.
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Fiction-Writing-Characters-Viewpoint/dp/0898799279
The student said that Card emphasizes how important it is to maintain a consistent point of view--whether it is third-person limited, or third-person omniscient--for example. Then the student said he had never thought about point of view in his writing until I had the class do a writing exercise in which they described the same scene from different points of view. I felt gratified both to hear that Orson Scott Card (a wonderful writer) reinforced the same message I give in my classes, and also that the student acknowledged that he learned form the classroom exercise.

The exercise was very simple. I handed out a one-page anecdote in which an incident in the classroom was described from the limited first-person point of view of the instructor, who was out in the hallway when an altercation erupted. Then I asked the student to describe the same events from the limited first-person point of view of one of the students in the class. Then I asked the students to describe the same scene from a limited third-person point of view in which the narrator describes what one person sees. Finally, I asked the students to describe the scene from an omniscient point of view.

I know I never understand something so well as when I teach it. Both my students and I learned a lot this evening.