See From a Different Point of View

How does the world look to her? Now that he’s bombed the presentation, what is he thinking? Love walked out or the dog died…what happens now?

There is that blast to the way that things are — and the response by the person that determines how things will be.

Story is what happens when expected collides with unexpected. The character encounters the result, reacts, and acts. Then there is a consequence followed by a character reaction, action, and result.

This character was like no one I’d ever met — never mind known.

She came to me with her story cradled in her hands, asked for me to write it.

So, I started, bravely wrangling her friends and misadventures.

Then, they got stuck hiking in the woods and I had no idea what to do.

Even worse, I had no idea how the protagonist was feeling, what she was thinking, and what she was going to do next.

I was trapped on a remote mountain top with happy hikers. The sun was going to go down soon and they didn’t know where they were. They were hungry, cold, and tired and started to snipe at one another.

I told another writer about getting stuck on the mountaintop. She thought about it for a long moment and then asked me what my protagonist was experiencing.

I stammered out something and she shook her head. No, she insisted, I mean, what is she experiencing with her senses? What’s it like to be her right now?

Answer these questions for her:

Got that out of a marriage encounter retreat, she said. We were supposed to ask ourselves these five questions when we got stuck in a negative thought loop, to bring us back into ourselves.

It inspired me no end, she smiled. My characters appreciated the respect of my entering their world, seeing things from their point of view. Helped with what came next, the setting, the all of the story, not just the internal world.

I used her questions when I worked on the story the next time.

Grounding a person in their physical reality can be a handy tool in a therapeutic arsenal. Breathe deep, look around, be in your body and out of your head. What is going on around you? That pause offers the chance to switch gears and move in a different direction.

Using this approach in writing put me into a character’s point of view. I was catapulted into her reality, understanding frustration, exhaustion, and just plain being done with this group of dimwits.

The next scene virtually wrote itself. All I needed to do was enter the character’s experience and see from her point of view. When I did, what came next was obvious, natural, and surprising.

We got off the mountain and into the rest of the story.

Experience the world from your character’s point of view:

Then use what you learn to write your story.

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