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Some time ago I talked about the overwhelming number of writers that have flooded the modern publishing market. I focused on the inevitable consequence of having a large number of substandard works out there, a fact that affects audiences’ idea of indie authors in general. But make no mistake: a novel can be substandard regardless of whether it’s published traditionally or independently. Both by reading and by participating in online literature discussions, I have discovered that a significant number of authors don’t have a clear idea of narrative focalization. Perhaps they semi-instinctively still use it, but if you’re an author wanting to be in total control of your book, then keep reading!

The first thing we need to do is offer some definitions. We need to know what it is we’re talking about. Indeed, many of the misunderstandings and ignorance surrounding the topic are a result of confusion. I have often seen people confusing narrative focalization with perspective or point of view. So, let’s try to clarify the matter.

 

Definitions: Differences between Narrative Focalization and Perspective or Point of View

Let’s make up an example sentence which we can use, as I think it’s much better to be as practical as possible.

Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John. A sense of tension filled the space.

Aspect 1: Direct and Indirect Speech

Most people recognize the difference between Mary opened the door and “I feel cold”. It’s the most basic difference of narrative exposition, indeed one that most people learn already at school. It’s the difference between direct speech and indirect speech. Although you can see it as a starting point for point of view, they are not always synonymous. Consider these two cases:

• “I feel cold,” Mary said.
• “I feel cold,” John thought he’d heard Mary saying.

Both are examples of direct speech uttered by the same person (Mary in this example), but the point of view shifts from one example to the next.

Aspect 2: Point of View

As you saw in the example above, point of view isn’t necessarily linked to direct speech. Many people use the terms interchangeably, but I think it’s pertinent to allow for this subtle difference. Similarly, many use interchangeably the terms point of view and perspective, but I would again argue that it is productive to keep them separated. In the terminology of this article, I offer the following definition for the former:

In narrative, point of view refers to the sentence-level exposition strategy that indicates to whom a certain action or experience belongs.

I again emphasize that this is the definition I use for the purposes of this article and for reasons of clarity. You might hear someone saying “I wrote my book from the point of view of a man serving prison time”. It is a valid thing to say, but it comes perilously close to confusing point of view with perspective, as the next aspect on our list will demonstrate.

Aspect 3: Perspective

As I mentioned just above, people often use perspective and point of view interchangeably. However, there is merit in separating them. So, what is narrative perspective and how is it different from point of view?

In some sense, their difference is that perspective refers to narrative-level strategies, whereas point of view to sentence-level strategies, as we saw. Just as in the example with the book about a man serving prison time, you have almost certainly heard someone saying “this book is written from a 1st-person perspective”. Another option would be: “this book is written from a 3rd-person perspective”.

Perhaps there are some very few books written from some other perspective, but there must be comparatively very few and experimental. However, notice that there can be such perspectives used for limited excerpts. For instance, there can be a 3rd-person-perspective book, featuring a chapter where the author addresses directly the reader.

Aspect 4: Focalization

And now we come to narrative focalization, which is the aspect most people confuse and misuse. Let’s go back to our example sentence for a moment:

Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John. A sense of tension filled the space.

The aspects we have listed so far help us understand certain things about the experiencing occurring in the scene. For instance, we understand who opened the door and took a peek. We also know what Mary felt (and to whom she communicated the fact). The narrator might or might not be an actual character in the book, we can’t say from this excerpt. But thanks to “him” (or her, or it, or them) we know something else, too. We know that a sense of tension filled the space.

What we don’t know is this: who was the experiencer of the fact that tension filled the space?

Narrative focalization is what allows us this even more subtle differentiation. I won’t go into technical details, in order to keep this article accessible. If you’re truly interested in the topic of narrative focalization, you should look at Gérard Genette’s Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method – available here. For our purposes, it is more productive to go straight into the practical details of how all this can help your writing.

Narrative Strategies: How to Use Focalization in Your Writing

I had mentioned in my article on narrative progression that one of the greatest secrets of writing compelling fiction is not what you show, but what you don’t. Narrative focalization – or, to be precise, knowing how to manipulate it – is an essential such tool for the writer.

Knowing how to manipulate narrative focalization gives you, the author, great control of exposition. In other words, it allows you to control the flow of information that reaches the reader, both in terms of quantity (how much the reader gets to know) and quality (what kind of information reaches the reader). A good writer separates between plot and narrative, and a great writer has a feel for what the balance between the two must be.

Ambiguity is Your Friend…

Let’s see our example sentence once more:

Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John. A sense of tension filled the space.

Compare this sentence with the following three variations:

• Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John, who felt a sense of tension filling the space.
• Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John, and felt a sense of tension filling the space.
• Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John, “there is a sense of tension filling the space.”

Looking at the original sentence as well as the three variations above, you should be able to see that the former is significantly more ambiguous. The reader doesn’t know who the experiencer of tension filling the space really is – which of course precisely augments the sense of tension. In other words, manipulating narrative focalization allows the writer to increase the affective power of her/his scene.

…if You Know how to Play with Her

Notice how much better this works compared to variations where the author would’ve perhaps attempted to explicitly portray an unknown experiencer:

• Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John. Someone felt a sense of tension filling the space.
• Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John. You could feel a sense of tension filling the space.
• Mary opened the door and took a peek. “I feel cold,” she told John. One of them felt a sense of tension filling the space.

See how ineffective this becomes? It’s not enough to withhold information, you must also know how to withhold it. This is something that comes with experience.