Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [perspective]

This tag should be used for questions about the usage of perspective in different kinds of writing, such as when you are having problems with showing the emotional perspective of your protagonist to your reader or how you could switch between perspectives.

This tag should be used for questions about the usage of perspective in different kinds of writing, such as when you are having problems with the emotional perspective of your protagonist to your reader or how you could switch between perspectives.

96 questions
37
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10 answers

How to write female characters with agency?

I'm attempting to write a novel, an historical fiction with a small fantasy component (time travel through a portal). The travelers (main characters) are a young couple from the late 23rd Century who are (without preparation or intent) transported…
J.D. Ray
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34
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10 answers

Would it be cheating to change the main character's "name" partway through the story?

I'm writing a story written in third-person limited, and the main character has no real name. They simply go by the nickname they're given by the people they hang around at the time, resulting in many different nicknames depending on where they are.…
AkkaVer
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19
votes
11 answers

How do you write about the human condition when you don't understand humanity?

I was talking with some writers, and they were mentioning how writing is fundamentally about "the human condition, our take on it, what we see in our world and experience. All stories, no matter the genre, are people stories. We're always writing…
user2352714
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19
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4 answers

Can I have a non-living thing with its own perspective?

We typically have third person or first person narratives in literature. I have a requirement - to unveil the suspense, I want a non-living thing to share its perspective in the final chapter. Is this permissible, justified and/or sensible?
undocumented sophistication
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18
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9 answers

Writing from a hive mind POV

The story: Centuries ago, humanity have been incorporated into an alien hive mind, spread by a bacterial-like infection. The "bacteria" infects the blood and brain and allows the infected to join their minds together, there is no alien overlord,…
Babika Babaka
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15
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5 answers

How to describe a female character's figure without comedy?

Do you know a good way to describe a female character's figure? I'm writing a fairly serious story, but the only way I know how to describe this is from comedy stories, where they work out some joke that gets the point across. Constable Angua had…
user29283
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13
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4 answers

How to write two seemingly different characters that are actually the same person?

I'm currently working on a book with two protagonists and switching the perspective between them. They have quite different plotlines, but actually they're the same person. English is not my first language, and in my language a subject always has a…
gibihakkasy
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13
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5 answers

Do modern readers believe the first person narrator can't die?

Back in highschool in the 90s we had an assignment to write an extra chapter for a book. After some discussion the teacher told us that under no circumstances can we kill the protagonist as the book was being told in first person and therefore the…
Andrey
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12
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4 answers

Is it bad style if the personal first person narrator of a story dies during said story?

Right now I'm writing a novel in which I use the changing perspectives of two main characters with limited information each to slowly unveil the whole plot to the reader. Both use the past tense and first person (i.e. "When I woke up that morning,…
DLCom
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12
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8 answers

Colours of ultraviolet

I need to write something from the perspective of a character who sees colours differently from humans, and in particular can see multiple shades of ultraviolet. This isn't unique, their entire species sees like this. Can anyone suggest language or…
Marcus Downing
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12
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5 answers

Switching POV: Should it ever be done at all?

When I started, I had a nasty habit of hopping from perspective to perspective to perspective. I forced myself down to one perspective per chapter, but I still wonder if it's acceptable to do it at all. There are plenty of good authors who never…
Satanicpuppy
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11
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5 answers

How can multiple viewpoints be used without breaking the flow of the story?

I'm currently writing a story in first-person that has a connection to a series of external events - things that the main character has no way of knowing but are vital to the progression of the overall storyline. I've been toying with two…
Peach
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10
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6 answers

Can a scene be written to be disorienting and not be too confusing to readers?

I've written a scene in a short story where the character and her party are suddenly attacked in the night. It's written in first-person and the character had just been shaken awake from a nightmare; so I had purposefully written it to be…
Trynda E. Adair
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9
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5 answers

Is it "fair" to hide specific thoughts of a character?

I kind of like the style of writing the thoughts and feelings of many of the characters, most of which aren't the protagonist. The problem arises when some of these characters are hiding a certain secret from the protagonist, the general public and…
komodosp
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8
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2 answers

Is it a bad idea to vary the voice of the narrator in third person (limited omniscient)?

I did some thorough searching for duplicates of this question, but I don't think they really cover the same spirit of the issue I'm having. (here are some examples of similar but different questions) Third person POV Third-person objective in action…
NateDSaint
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