Gold Rush Writers

2010 Gold Rush Writers Retreat

POV is Everything

Antoinette May and Kevin Arnold

Point of View is, at one level, quite simple: most fiction is in either first person or third person. Third person can be either limited to one person's point of view, multiple points of view, or be omniscient. But there's more to it than that. POV is related to the concept of "the lead" in journalism--there's a perspective on the subject material that is integrated into fiction's POV. For example, one famous novel begins by telling the reader that, even though a book is called The Great Gatsby, all he'll ever learn of Gatsby will be filtered through the eyes of Nick Carraway.

Antoinette May's most recent novel, http://www.thesacredwell.com/ , utilizes two different women’s first person narration to tell its story. Workshop participants should read this novel ahead, as Toni will share with the group her process of utilizing this unusual narration. She’ll go in-depth on how these decisions affected her characterization and plot.
Participants should also read Old School, a 2003 novel by Tobias Wolfe. It starts out in the unusual third person plural "we" POV, where recent history is related from the perspective of the Prep School. The center of the novel is first person, and the end goes into third person, from a different character's point of view than the first person voice. Toni feels it's one of the best books to be published in recent years.

Most of the workshop will focus on participant work. We'll examine, in discussion with the author, how each chosen point of view is working or not working, and discuss alternatives. So, in addition to reading the two novels, please come prepared to discuss your own work, and possibly read from relevant parts where the narration is established.

Class limited to the first twelve sign-ups.

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