Perspectives I Like

I really enjoy getting into a character’s head, and seeing a world through their eyes. A lot of this shows in my writing I think, because that’s where my base state of writing tends to end up. Much like my focus on characters as a focal point for most any story I write, the perspective tends to rest squarely on the shoulders of the perspectives of those characters.

Some of my favorite novels belay this exact thing. I love Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, for focusing on a person who’s life was spent in third person multiplicative perspective, from seeing out of many bodies, and from a ship as well. Breq’s life was pared down to just a single body in the ship, and the story does a great job of conveying the alien nature of being singular, alone, and incomplete.

Another favorite book of mine (and author) is Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. Written soley from a first-person perspective from someone who’s passionate, grouchy, and constantly selling herself short, the perspective is sprawling and nearly stream of consciousness in a way that feels incredibly lived in for me. Intentional or not, the story does an amazing job of selling how much Sunshine (the main character’s name) absolutely undercuts her own actions with such a casual dismissiveness that I still find layers in twenty reads in.

Neverwhere more or less rounds out my three favorite books (series) and with Richard Mayhew, you find a person imminently relatable as someone who’s fallen from a world of accounting in modern day life into a dreary Wonderland of London Below, into that place between worlds. Sure, the perspective does jump a bit between a few characters, but the focus is on Richard, Richard Mayhew, Dick. Those other perspectives are to help enhance the world, and by the time the book enters its third act, Richard is the only perspective we see.

I love a whole lot of stories. I love stories most, however, that give me a perspective to live in and breath from. I try to deliver the same, even if I give it from the perspective of a banshee who’s out for revenge on who stole her body, or a terraformer who’s trying to fix a colony ship in transit.