Perceptions and Point(s) of View…

In the past few weeks, I’ve had some interesting conversations with old friends. In one case my personal recollections of being painfully shy and forever in the background turned out to be a bit out of sync with how they remembered me. It was true that I wasn’t as involved as they were in that group of people (job related) because I was still finishing my degree and I was tightly connected with my university friends. But I wasn’t as invisible as I’d imagined. The crowd at work came from far and wide and bonded. I saw myself on the fringes, alternating between craving attention and fearing it. They were a competitive group of talented intelligent people and I thought I walked in their shadows. All these years later, they didn’t recall me that way.

In another conversation with a longtime friend from a different vintage, I noted that in large groups he’s often quiet, while at smaller gatherings he’s open, even voluble. He said he sees his role as stirring the pot and doesn’t feel compelled to speak when the pot is already stirring. It was an interesting dichotomy. What I’d interpreted as a level of shyness in larger groups and self confidence in smaller gatherings, he saw through a completely different lens.

The point of view of a character is critical to the narrative of any story—from news reports to the wildest of fantasy fiction. I just saw a snippet of the coverage of a major court case (Kyle Rittenhouse) in which the gunman is pleading self-defense and crying on the stand. Is it self-defense? A teenager and self-appointed guardian of law & order travels with an illegally obtained weapon to “protect” the property of strangers, shoots three and kills two other strangers when he feels threatened. Who came armed for battle? Who is defending whom? The point(s) of view tell entirely different stories of that fateful and fatal night.

How a character perceives a series of events and how they communicate their observations, color the facts accumulated by the detective in a mystery.

Interview 1

“She looked suspicious.”

“Why do you say she looked suspicious?”

“She arrived late and dropped her big purse on the table with a thud and blushed. I think that was very strange behavior. Don’t you?”

Interview 2

“She looked embarrassed when she came in a few minutes late.”

“Embarrassed? Embarrassed why?”

“Her bag bulged. It landed with a thud on the table. No doubt about it, she was shopping—again! Shopping addict. You know the type—out of control.”

Both interviewees were in the same meeting with the suspect. Both observed her behavior and noted that her bag was heavy and that she arrived late, but that’s where their observations go toward different conclusions. Detective Beware! The unstated agendas of your witnesses may push your investigation down rabbit holes!

This is something storytellers can latch onto and use to craft the red herrings and misdirection that make mystery fiction fun.