19.42: A Close Reading on Structure: Whose Perspective is it Anyways?
Structure and POV (point of view) are often intertwined. In N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, we see this in the myriad perspective shifts. In this episode, we talk about the importance of these shifts on the structure of the book. How does the narrator talk directly to us, and what purpose does this second-person perspective serve? DongWon shares one of their theories with us on the relationship between author, reader, and POV.
P.S. Do you want a signed special edition copy of The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin? Preorder The Orbit Gold Edition set before November 19th to get 20% off! Visit orbitgoldeditions.com to order.
Thing of the Week: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Homework: Think about the main character of your story, and carve their life up into three different pieces. Have one of those pieces/ perspectives write to another piece, using second perspective.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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Transcript
Key Points: Structure and perspective or POV. Three POVs, one person? A sad book, but you know it up front. Were the POV shifts needed? Which POV is loadbearing? Second person removes the distance and forces you into the story? That feeling when… and much more!
[Season 19, Episode 42]
[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.
[Season 19, Episode 42]
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A Close Reading on Structure: Whose Perspective is it Anyways?
[Erin] 15 minutes long, because you’re in a hurry.
[Howard] And we’re not that smart.
[DongWon] I’m DongWon.
[Erin] I’m Erin.
[Howard] And I’m Howard, and I’m definitely not that smart, after having read this book. We talked a little bit about it last week and this book is on my list of things that make me wish I was a much, much better writer. Erin, you pitched this to us.
[Erin] Yes.
[Howard] Take us away.
[Erin] Speaking of things we talked about last week, we say this for every book. We’re going to spoiler it. If you’re going to read the book, go read the book and then come back. But I think for this one, we’re going to get deeper into spoilers, just because we’re talking about structure. Structure means talking about the entire thing. So that means that if you, one more time, this is your final chance to run off and read the book and come back, before we get into it, because the first question I have is, wow, when did you… You asked me this earlier… Realize that all the perspectives basically in this book are the same person? Spoiled.
[DongWon] It took me a long time to realize all three were connected. I don’t remember when the exact moment was. I read this book when it came out years and years ago. So going into this reread that I did last week, I kind of already had that in my head. That Syonite, Damaya, and are all the same person. Which is just one of these absolute masterful reveals. Like, once you start to grok it, once you start to understand the structure of it, and we’re going to talk a little bit more about this next week, when we get into parallelism, but just be… Going back to our attention segment, the contextual tension that arises from understanding this structural thing completely was just like a 90 degree shift on my own perspective as a reader of what was happening in this book.
[Howard] The horrible things that happened to Damaya, once you realize that the horrible things that are happening to Essun, that’s one continuous line of trauma and tragedy, just is absolutely devastating to me.
[Erin] Yeah.
[Howard] Boy. The moment when Damaya takes the name Syonite was the moment when I realized, oh, then obviously Syonite becomes Essun, and this whole storyline that I’m so invested in of Syonite building a life is not going to end well. And now I have sadness.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Which is interesting because the book ends… Sorry, the book begins with this is how the world ends. And so you think when we’re told we’re rolling the clock back a little bit, I would already have accepted it’s all going to end in sadness. Just chill out and go with it. No. No. [Garbled] better writer than that.
[DongWon] One of my favorite things that she does is, once Syonite goes to the island. Right? After she pulls on this obelisk and destroys the city and ends up on the island, there’s this passage in the middle where N. K. Jemison is just like I’m not going to tell you about this part. Because this was nice. You had a good life here. You felt happiness here. You were raising your son, you had these two lovers. You were in this beautiful [policool?] that is, like, so idealized.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] It’s… You get a sense of how beautiful her life is for these few months here, or a couple of years here. The jump in that perspective and her saying that is so that’s not what this book is. The narrative trick of doing that, of using the POV of the book, just to be like, uh uh, I’m going to hurt you more.
[chuckles]
[DongWon] And I’m going to tell you how good this was just to hurt you more, but I’m also not going to let you linger in the luxury of that moment.
[Erin]Yes. I absolutely… It is a sad book. But I think it’s one of those things… Howard, we were talking not while being recorded about looking at spoilers for episodes of television and still enjoying, because…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] You should be able to see it unfold. I think one of the things that’s nice about that realization is that you know the bad thing is coming…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] But in some ways, it only heightens, to get back to tension…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] The structure is there to build the tension. You know what I mean? Like… And one question I have, thinking about it is would this story have worked as well without all those perspective shifts? Like, if it was just told start to finish, all in first person? Or if it was told… Were those POV shifts needed in order to tell the story, do you think, that was being told?
[Howard] I think that the lesson there is… The general lesson of in media res. Which is that you typically do in media res when a strictly chronological linear telling won’t align emotional arcs in ways that give the book one beginning, one middle, and one end. In order for this book to have one beginning, one middle, and one end, we had to carve the timeline into three pieces, so we get three beginnings, three middles, and three ends for maximum impact. And…
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, the narrative trick of this book is the central question of it is why did Alibaster break the world? Why does Alibaster do this? Right? By the end of the book, we’re kind of on his side. Right? Like, the trick of this book is to get us from the point of the world is ending, let’s resist it as a bad thing, to, the world is ending, and by God, it needed to end. I don’t think you get that without constantly asking yourself the question of why did Alibaster do this thing, especially once you start to realize that it was Alibaster that did it. All the things that you see along the way from Schaffa breaking Timay’s hand to the Guardian showing up to the island, all of those things are just this this world is so broken already. Alibaster’s just manifesting in reality what metaphorically has been happening this whole time.
[Erin] Yeah. It almost makes me think… I was thinking, like, which… They’re all loadbearing, but I was thinking, like, which of the POVs do I think is, like, the most loadbearing? Somehow, I sometimes think that it’s Damaya, because I think that’s the, like, breakdown of the…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Like, the way that we think people should treat each other is the most broken down in the worst way.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] We were talking earlier about the hand scene [Nobyano]…
[DongWon] Yeah. Oh, boy.
[Laughter]
[DongWon] I… Especially on rereading, knowing it was coming, I was just like clawing my face off, just like no. I don’t want this to happen again. I just don’t want this to happen in the first nice relationship Damaya’s ever had in her life, but you know Schaffa is bad. Like, you can just feel the ways in which he is off and menacing and you can see the abusive patterns he is putting into place as he makes her wholly dependent on him, emotionally and physically. So when it gets to that moment of exerting that control in the calm, cold, cheerful way he breaks her hand… The fact that he tells her it’s coming. Right? It is metaphorically kind of what N. K. Jemison is doing to us. She is telling us, hey, I’m going to break your hand over the course of this book. Then she does it. Because once we realize that all three POVs are the same POV, it’s like, where’s Piranda? What happened to the kid that she had before? At the end, we also know that the book opens with the child dying. Right? So, like we’ve already started in such a bad place. How was this going to get worse? And yet it does. Right?
[Erin] Yeah. I think each… It’s like each of the POVs like three beginnings, three middles, three ends, like. And each one sets up in some ways for a different version of the same, like, traumatic journey…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] In a lot of ways.
[DongWon] Which is why I can’t pick one that’s loadbearing. All three are loadbearing. Right? The broken grief of Essun, but also the most together and healthy version…
[Erin] Yeah.
[DongWon] Is sort of Essun in a lot of ways. Seeing Damaya as a child, what this world does to children. Seeing how Syonite is treated as she’s like trying to be in the world and realizing she can’t be. Right? Like, I think all three of these are such important perspectives, it would make sense to have those as separate characters. Which is why I was convinced for so long that they were the same person. I was like, it’s too obvious for them to just… I…
[Laughter]
[DongWon] I tricked myself.
[Erin] You obviously out meta-d yourself.
[DongWon] I was like, nah, not the same person. That’s… Maybe we’re supposed to think that, but it’s a double bluff or whatever. And then I was like, nope. It… That was just what it is. Yeah. So…
[Erin] I think this would be a perfect time for us to go to our break.
[Mary Robinette] Hi, friends. I want to tell you about this very cool special edition of one of our close read books for this season. It’s the Orbit Gold Edition of The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemison. This is so beautiful. The set includes, get this, an exclusive box illustrated by Justin Cherry nephelomancer, a signed copy of The Fifth Season, fabric bound hardcover editions of the trilogy, gilded silver edges, color endpaper art, oh, my God. Brand-new foil stamped covers, a ribbon bookmark, and an exclusive bonus scene from The Fifth Season. The bonus scene… I wants it. Just preorder before November nineteenth to get 20 percent off and you can lock in your signed copy, again, I say, your signed copy of The Fifth Season. Visit orbitgoldeditions.com to order.
[Howard] Kurzgesact – In a Nutshell, is a YouTube program that… Okay, hang on. Yes, my description is short, and in a nutshell-ish, but the title is Kurzgesact – In a Nutshell. See, they take big concepts from multiple scientific disciplines and communicate them to us with delightfully stylized animations, original music, and a soothing British accent. My favorite Kurzgesact videos cover topics like Fermi’s Paradox, super volcanoes, vaccines, and fun questions like what would happen if Earth got kicked out of the solar system. If, like me, you enjoy learning new things, you will definitely enjoy Kurzgesact – In a Nutshell.
[DongWon] This episode of Writing Excuses is sponsored in part by Acorn. Money can be a difficult topic for writers and creative professionals. It’s not like earning a regular paycheck that comes in at reliable intervals. It requires more careful planning to make sure that that advance covers you not just this year, but set you up for the future as well. Learning to invest and be smart with your money takes time and research, and it’s easy to put that off in favor of short-term goals. I encourage all the writers I work with to read up on the options out there and do their homework to figure out what makes sense for them. Acorn makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing in your future. You don’t need a lot of money or expertise to invest with Acorn. In fact, you can get started with just your spare change. Acorn recommends an expert-built portfolio that fits you and your money goals. Then automatically invests your money for you. Head to acorn.com/wx or download the Acorn app to start saving and investing in your future today. [Lots garbled]
[DongWon] Going back to POV a little bit, I said right before the break, that in some ways this whole book is Schaffa breaking Damaya’s hand. Right?
[Erin] Yes.
[DongWon] In some ways, N. K. Jemison’s kind of doing that to us. I want to talk about the use of second person here. Right? I think that’s one of the most interesting things, and one of the most famous things, about this book is that large chunks of it are in the second person. It’s direct address to the audience. I have a personal theory I want to run by y’all and I’m kind of curious what you think. But…
[Howard] I’m excited to hear it.
[DongWon] There’s a moment in science fiction and fantasy publishing right around when this book was coming out. We were seeing a lot of second person works. There was a lot of second person short stories, and, like, novellas, and, very famously, this book. I feel like that was coming from a lot of marginalized authors. Because they were sort of starting to write fiction that was about their experience. And this book is very much… I read it as very much about the experience of being black in America, and I think second person removes the sort of distance the reader has from the text. Because it is grabbing you and forcing you into the subjectivity of an origin here. Right? It’s forcing us into the subjectivity of what it is to be exploited and marginalized in this society, and I think the second person is a thing that a lot of marginalized authors reach for because it doesn’t let the mainstream audience shy away from it.
[Erin] Yeah. I was going to say really quickly that I agree… I have had a similar theory which is that it is also a way… I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it sort of puts readers who are used to being centered and comfortable and makes them uncomfortable. So, in some ways, it is a marginalizing experience for the reader.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] And so it is… It can be the best way to have the text do the thing to you that the world has done to the author.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] In some ways. I think that is something that people are finding and using really effectively throughout [garbled]
[Howard] That’s the exact point that I want to take a step back from, and maybe a step… A 10,000 foot view above. I had an editor tell me that he just hated the fact that I was trying to tell stories in first person present tense. Because, his response was, if a story is unfolding right now, how is it in the book that I’m holding? There was this need apparently for a literal reason for this book to exist in his hands. Which is kind of silly because a science fiction book about something that’s happening in the future or a fantasy book about something that’s happened on a completely different world, justifying the existence of the book in your hands is a ridiculous exercise. The ability to accept that there is no point in the ridiculous exercise, the book exists as an artifact from an author who wants you to feel a thing. The way the story is told, whether it’s first person, second person, whatever is an exercise in making you feel a thing, and the use of Essun’s point of view as always being you do this, you do that, you did this, you saw that, made me feel much differently about Essun’s events than I felt about Syonite’s or than I felt about Damaya’s. Which means it’s an effective authorial tool, and I just need to accept it, whether or not I actually like it or think I could do it.
[DongWon] It’s funny that you bring up the first person present tense thing, because I see pushback on that all the time. I get very frustrated by it personally because I think it can be a really wonderful tool to tell a story. But what’s interesting to me is it harkens back to the origins of the novel. Right? Early novels all were epistolary in some way. It was we found this journal, there are somebody is telling the story. It was always had to be framed in the context of this document exists for a reason, or we are going to explain to you why it exists. Which, again, is very funny because epistolary is actually second person. Right? It is written in the form of direct address, either as a letter or a document or a narrator orating to you what the story is. Right? So, it’s almost like we’ve kind of gone full circle in a way, and we’ve come to the modern idea of the novel as a more abstract thing that we could have in fundamental suspension of disbelief as we read it and the more… just we are in the mind of a character who’s experiencing something in the moment without needing to understand how we got there is a little bit of a suspension of disbelief. But somehow in this novel, returning to the second person is harkening back to an older mode of writing that I think really sort of busts through the suspension of disbelief and sort of grabs you by the collar and says pay attention to me.
[Howard] Yeah. When I said whether or not you like writing it in… Writing things in this way, or think you can, I realized as I was reading this, I actually write in second person quite a bit in social media. That feeling when you discover with your foot that your dog has been sick… That’s a… That… I mean, that style of tweet is there all the time. Does it work as well if I say that feeling when I discovered with my foot that my dog was sick?
[DongWon] Is this book a whole TFW.feeling when I discovered that my entire society is predicated on the exploitation of other people?
[Howard] Okay.
[Erin] We’re all there.
[Howard] That’s…
[Laughter]
[Howard] I’m just going…
[DongWon] [garbled funny baby]
[Howard] I’m going to… I’m here to say that’s a valid question.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Is Essun’s point of view an elongated TFW secondary world fantasy tweet?
[Erin] It’s funny, thinking about, like, where we came from in the novel and first person present tense, made me think… This is a bit of a wild theory, so stick with me. But I think there was a period of time in which the author… The authorial voice was like being… There was like a kind of consistent authorial voice in a lot of works where it was like this sort of like… I don’t know, just… All authors are the same. It wasn’t as much, like, the voice-y work that you see in first person. It would be really voice-y first person, and then third person in other text didn’t have it as much. I was just thinking, there are people who tell stories in real life in first person present tense. There are people who tell pers… Like, in real life, use somebody’s like, ah, okay, I gotta tell you what’s going on. Okay…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] So picture it. She’s in the store…
[DongWon] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[Erin] Like, there are people who speak like that.
[DongWon] Yep.
[Erin] I think what I like about it is that it forces you to think about who is telling the tale. I think that there is… There sometimes is a resistance or a tension where people don’t want to think about’s telling the tale.
[DongWon] Yep.
[Erin] And they actually feel like it distances them from it. But I really like the idea that somebody has decided to put this story in your hands. How did they do it in real time? I don’t know. But they did, and they did it as it an action. I think it’s something that makes stories really active.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] For me, in an interesting way.
[DongWon] Well, again, this is the flip… The other side of why a second person is so exciting, and this is it’s the mystery throughout. As soon as that first second person section dropped, like, just slipped in there, just a little you all of a sudden, I lost my mind because I was like who’s telling this story to who? Right? Like… So, the final, the eventual reveal close to the end when you realize this is Hoa talking to Essun, is him telling the story of her own life back to her from his perspective as a Stone Eater was just this thing that… I’m still not quite sure what it means, I’ve read the whole trilogy. There’s a way in which I don’t fully have my head around why does it have to be him telling her the story. But there’s something in that that was such an exciting reveal that answering the question of who is telling the story and for whom was… I don’t know. It was thrilling. It was a massive structural trick.
[Howard] There’s another question that we don’t have time to answer, but I desperately want to ask, which is, by carving up the timeline of one life into three perspectives, one of the statements that I felt was being made is at any given time in your life, you are a different person…
[DongWon] Yep.
[Howard] Than you were before and why is it three different people instead of five? Or instead of two? How many different people would my life be if I were trying to tell this kind of story? I think about these things a lot, and am I angry that a novel may be think about them again, and still have no answers? Yes. A little. Yes, I am.
[DongWon] But I also love the way in which she’s the same person throughout.
[Howard] Yes.
[DongWon] Like, the headstrongness of Damaya is the same as the headstrongness of Essun. Right? The instinct to action we see in Syonite over and over again that gets her into trouble is the same instinct to action we see in Essun. Right? And the rebelliousness of Damaya. Right? Then we see relationships from Damaya and Syonite affecting Essun’s life in such dynamic ways.
[Erin] This is a perfect time to take us to our homework. Homework for this week is to think about the main character of your story and carve their life up into a couple of pieces. Then, have one of those pieces right a letter to another. Make that a second person story.
[DongWon] I love that.
[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You’re out of excuses. Now go write.
[Howard] Have you ever wanted to ask one of the Writing Excuses hosts for very specific, very you-focused help. There’s an offering on the Writing Excuses Patreon that will let you do exactly that. The Private Instruction tier includes everything from the lower tiers plus a quarterly, one-on-one Zoom meeting with a host of your choice. You might choose, for example, to work with me on your humorous prose, engage DongWon’s expertise on your worldbuilding, or study with Erin to level up your game writing. Visit patreon.com/writingexcuses for more details.