IC as POV character?

questions
#1

Just wondering if there are any written works (short stories or novels) where the Influence Character is a POV character in either first-person or third-person-limited viewpoint? Both of those viewpoints are quite personal, internal to the character – showing their feelings and thoughts and inviting the reader to experience the story as the character. This seems to go against the idea that the IC is the “you” viewpoint, that the IC is supposed to be “looked at” instead of “from”.

I could see that if you focused on other throughlines (esp. OS “they”, maybe RS “we”) during the scenes told from the IC player’s point-of-view, that could work okay. In that case, it’s not really the Influence Character but the “player who fills the IC role” whose point of view you are using.

(This is not just a theoretical question; I’m considering trying to finish an old short story whose beginning I loved but which just fizzled out, and hoping Dramatica can help. I can already say there aren’t easily identifiable throughlines, which might be why it fizzled!)

#2

almost any romance novel you can think of will share POV between the hero/heroine. One is usually the MC and the other the IC.

#3

Oh right! Interesting. Unfortunately I’m not very familiar with romance novels. How do you tell who is the MC and who is the IC? Is there a difference in the portrayal of internal feelings etc.?

I’m racking my brain to think of the books I’ve read which featured romance very significantly – where it wasn’t just a sub-plot but enough of the main story that you might say “hey, this is actually a romance book!” I can think of one for sure (Mordant’s Need by Stephen R. Donaldson). I know who the MC and IC are (at least in the main storyform; there might be more than one), but I’ll have to go back and check how POV is used.

#4

You tell the way you would tell in any other story, by who is doing what job. Although having read a decent amount of romance, I think romance authors often fail at part of the story. If I had to guess which part, oddly, I’d say either the IC or the relationship throughline. It being part of the genre form for the lovers to get their HFN or HEA, authors frequently make the basis for the bond, physical (lust) or flimsy (can’t you see how much the LURVE each other?) rather than a relationship that blossomed out of the story events. I rarely believe the love story because some bit of development is usually missing. On the other hand, if an author gets it right you frequently get best sellers.

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#5

I know this is off topic but…

@jassnip Could you list any best selling romance books (by title/author) you’re pretty confident have complete stories or atleast an strong RS throughline? I agree with what you’re saying. A lot of top 100 amazon romance authors just fill pages of their books with sex and he is so HAWT…200 pages later. HEA.

#6

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon which is currently a Starz series comes to mind. For Sci-Fi you can look at stuff by Linnea Sinclair, Another for Historical: The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne. Suzanne Brockman is decent for military type thrillers. For fluffy romance, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, but make sure the subject matter interests you. I like some of SEPs stuff, but she doesn’t always hit it out of the park story wise. Sadly, my keeper shelf for romance is super tiny.

#7

Would the Twilight series count as romance? I haven’t read them, but they’re certainly popular… I’ve heard the writing isn’t super-great but the popularity may be a sign of good underlying storyform?

#8

Maybe The Sweet Hereafter? Each chapter is written from the POV of a different character:

Dolores Driscoll
Billy Ansel
Mitchel Stephens
Nichole Burnell

#9

The Mistborn Trilogy - by Brandon Sanderson seems to be one where POV changes between the characters quite a bit. Each series seems to focus on a different character yet the MC remains quite constant.

Its a hard one to pin down as across the series the protagonist changes, but Brandon takes you into the personal dilemmas of nearly every character.

Its a tricky one to answer as you have pointed out, as once you start getting into the head of the IC and experiencing their problems they start looking more and more like an MC.

#10

@mlucas, did you ever figure this one out?

I’m having a hard time imagining the first person pov as belonging to the IC. I’d have to watch it again, but Clarence in Its A Wonderful Life feels like an IC rather than MC because it’s George we seem to see the story through, and yet with the way Clarence is speaking to the other angels in the beginning about George, I can almost see a novelized version being written from Clarence’s 1st person POV.

What makes it difficult is that it’s the ICs job to specifically have an impact on the MC and not the MCs job to impact the IC. And yet, if the MC is steadfast, then there must be some impact on the IC for the IC to change and even a changed MC might try to convince the IC that they are already on the right path. So both ic and mc can have a function of attempting to impact the other. If the difference then is not necessarily who is impacting who, but who is the “I” perspective and who is the “you”, then a first person pov simply would make that character the MC.

The only way out of it that I can see is if the 1st person POV switches back and forth and there remains something the audience doesn’t see from the IC character perspective. But I’m interested in what you decided.

Edit: On second thought, it seems like we are seeing some of It’s A Wonderful Life through Clarence, though he does still feel like an IC because he is sent specifically to influence George not to kill himself while George does not seem meant to impact Clarence.

#11

Actually, I suppose another option would be to have the IC narrating a story to the audience after the events have taken place and telling the story with an emphasis on the main character rather than themselves. Like maybe if in Shawshank Redemption, rather than Andy (the actual IC) impacting Red (the actual MC) by retaining hope, Red could have been telling the story of how Andy was losing hope (as an MC) and Red was impacting him to keep up hope (as an IC).

Edit: On second thought, what I’m describing in this post also sounds a bit like how Clarence feels like a 1st person POV character while impacting George as I described in the previous post.

#12

Hi Greg, I haven’t really figured this out yet. For my current story at least, my gut is telling me not to have the IC as POV character if I can help it.

But I don’t think it’s an absolute no-no. In fact, I just noticed a cool “trick” in a book I’m reading now (City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, actually my daughter’s book but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about). The IC is Jace, and I think there is a very brief section (like 1 page or less) with his narration toward the beginning of the book, then none at all until Chapter 18 (around 2/3 in). There again is a short like 2 page section with his narration, but it accomplishes two things:

  • You get to see the main character (Clary) through his eyes, and it’s almost like a surreal experience, like looking in the mirror I guess. “So that’s how he sees her!” It’s really neat, but short enough not to make you step out of Clary’s perspective.
  • It doesn’t really develop any IC stuff, just kind of reiterates that, but there is a lot of RS-relevant text and subtext which is cool.

Anyway, I think the IC could be a POV character but you would want to be careful not to make any of the IC’s narration too “personal”, there is always an unknowable aspect to the IC. No angsty woe-is-me stuff, no trying to get the reader to feel exactly what/how they feel. Meanwhile, the IC “player” is also an OS character, so if you focus a lot on their OS role during that narration, you should be pretty good.

Regarding your thoughts about MC and IC impacting each other, you’re right the best test is the “I” vs. “you” test. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell, often the best test is if one of them does stuff “off camera” that we don’t find out about until later, that’s a good sign it’s the IC.

But I think in prose fiction the narration POV, even first person, is not necessarily the same as the storymind “I” perspective (though it’s probably easier to write if you do make them the same). So you could have a first person narrator telling the story of someone else who is the main character, just like your idea of a novelized It’s A Wonderful Life. (George is definitely the MC of It’s a Wonderful Life; it’s easy to tell if like me you loved it but haven’t seen it in years – your memory selectively remembers the structure!)

#13

Another book I’ve read that does something similar to what you’re describing is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, though it does it a bit sneakily. The narrator speaks in first-person and has a really dynamic, interesting characterization, but you don’t realize they’re actually a character in the story itself until about two-thirds of the way through. Only then do you begin to see how Oscar rubs off on them and vice-versa; this narrator character does seem to be the IC. (It’s a bit uncertain, though, since the story does jump to other characters’ stories–Oscar’s sister’s and his mother’s.)

Speaking of It’s a Wonderful Life, have we tried analyzing it yet? It’s kind of an odd duck, not the least of which because Clarence, whom you’ve identified as the IC, doesn’t show up until quite late in it. It’s probably a Tale, huh?

#14

The Oscar Wao book sounds neat. One thing that @decastell has mentioned to me is to remember that often novels may have more than one storyform; there is usually plenty of room. So maybe the other character’s stories, if they don’t fit neatly in the OS, could be sub-stories with their own storyforms (partial or full).

Re; It’s a Wonderful Life, I don’t know – a movie of that calibre should be considered GAS until proven not! Maybe a lot of it is backstory? That would be a great film to analyze over Christmas!

#15

Mike, I think you’re probably right that an IC could be a POV character in lots of ways, but I’m also right in that I’m still havin a hard time seeing how to make that work! Haha. I may need to just stick to the dramatica basics for now and save all the fancy tricks for when I’ve mastered it infinity years from now.

Re: It’s A Wonderful Life, it’s definitely set up to be a GAS since the Angels are sending Clarence specifically to make the argument that George shouldn’t kill himself. Clarence remains steadfast, George changes. There’s lots of Memories and Past and a very strong Influence. And if I remember correctly, Clarence actually comes into before George. He and the other angels are represented by flashing stars as the other angels are telling Clarence about George. And I’m pretty sure that most of George’s past is being narrated to Clarence by the other Angels. So I think Clarence comes into it in plenty of time, you just tend to forget about it because it takes so long to explore George’s backstory/problems.

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#16

I think there are two storyforms in it–the wrap around with Clarence and then the inner story with his wife. That’s why it’s so long!

#17

Good point. I never thought about there being a second storyform with his wife because I’ve been so focused on the story with Clarence, but it seems obvious now. Heck, last time I watched it with my wife, we got to the part where they’re throwing rocks at the old house and making wishes. George says he wishes he could go to college and see what they know, and go build bridges and buildings and travel, but Mary won’t say what she wished for when George asks. So I said, “Well, George, she wished that you wouldn’t get to do any of those things.” My wife didn’t appreciate that comment, but that right there should have clued me in that she’s attempting to influence George.

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