“Because it’s easy”

The other day I ran across an article on writing scenes, and the very first tip in it was “stick to one viewpoint per scene.” Based on context, the writer meant “stick to one viewpoint character per scene,” because it is rare for a writer to switch the type of viewpoint even from scene to scene in a novel (and even then, it’s usually because someone in a third-person viewpoint has found a letter or a journal, which are perfectly normal and acceptable ways of switching both viewpoint type and viewpoint character within a scene).

Even the revised version of the advice is problematic, simply because it only makes sense for someone writing in tight-third-person. First-person, second-person, omniscient, and camera-eye viewpoints all have pretty clear requirements for their narrators, and while violating those requirements by switching to a different character’s viewpoint would certainly be a serious problem, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a writer try it. (Why would you need two different omniscient narrators, anyway? And switching characters in mid-scene in either first- or second- person would be incredibly confusing—“You pick up the toast. You watch Fred take a bite of toast. “This toast is too dry,” you say. “I thought you liked dry toast,” you tells you as you watches you take another bite…”)

What made me want to pick up the computer and throw it across the room, though, was the reason the blogger gave for their advice: you should stick to one viewpoint per scene “because it’s just easier to write.”

There speaks a writer who got close-third-person viewpoint for free, because otherwise they wouldn’t describe writing a single-viewpoint scene as “easy.” (Forty years later, I still have vivid memories of how hard learning to write single-viewpoint-tight-third-person was.) From context, the blogger was also assuming a multiple-viewpoint structure, which is also not a terribly easy thing to manage effectively (especially with a large cast) unless you get it for free.

This is also a writer who possibly doesn’t consider first-person, second-person, or omniscient viewpoint an option. Okay, for most writers, omniscient isn’t an easy solution to viewpoint conundrums (though some people seem to think it is), and the blogger was recommending single-viewpoint scenes because “they’re easier to write,” so this is a bit of a quibble on my part. But I have known writers – not many, but a few – who got omniscient viewpoint for free, and who would be absolutely hamstrung if somebody forced them to stick to a single tight-third or first-person viewpoint, even for just one scene.

In addition, every writer I know who has made a career of it has, sooner or later, found themselves with an idea for a book that needs to be written in something other than tight-third-person, multiple viewpoint. Even writers who get tight-third-multiple-viewpoint “for free” are likely (in my experience) to eventually find themselves wanting to write a single-viewpoint story, or one in first-person, or something omniscient…and, as pointed out above, “stick to one viewpoint character” doesn’t make sense as advice for such stories.

There is no good writing reason for a writer to stick to third-person-multiple-viewpoint if their natural form is omniscient, first-person, or single-viewpoint-third-person. There is absolutely no good reason for a writer to force a story that wants to be in a first-person style (epistolary, stream-of-consciousness, interior monolog, journal, autobiography) into the third-person, let alone a multiple-viewpoint third-person. (There is also absolutely no good reason to force a story that wants to be omniscient or multiple-third-person into tight-third or first-person, but the article writer wasn’t advocating that.) Arguably, an author who is adventurous enough to try writing in second person is unlikely to pay any attention to this kind of limiting advice, but that’s still no good reason to shove it at them.

One can make a reasonable argument, I think, for writers to start from whatever their strong points are. Writing is hard enough to learn without making it harder by trying to write flash fiction when your ideas are all better suited to multi-fat-volume series, for instance. And there are certainly writers who have made long and quite successful careers out of writing the same kind of thing over and over. Most writers I know, however, want to improve and experiment, once they have whatever they consider the basics down. (And the basics aren’t the same for all writers.) Sticking to the easiest way of writing something doesn’t improve the writer’s other skills.

Tight-third multiple viewpoint is fine for a lot of stories and a lot of writers (especially writers conditioned by the multiple-focus storytelling of movies and TV), but it emphatically is not the right choice for every writer, let alone every story. Giving this kind of advice without any of the above caveats is, in my opinion, not a good idea.

And of course, I am a big fan of having a gigantic toolbox overflowing with as many different tools as possible. If there is no One True Way of writing—and there isn’t—then learning as many different writing skills as possible is a good idea, if not a necessity. I don’t use every last tool in the box in every single story, but they’re there for use in some other story when I need them.