Voice And Viewpoint

Your characters are often little more than a roving crowd of strangers until you discover your story’s voice and choose your point of view. Voice and viewpoint determine the tone of characters’ movements and thoughts, the tenor of their dialogue. They ultimately drive the storyteller’s every word choice, including the details of setting, the descriptions of characters, the conversations heard, and—sometimes more important—what is left unsaid.

Course Level:  Beginner / Intermediate

Required Book:  Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank and Dorthy Wall

Workshop length:  6 Weeks

Tuition:  $250.00 ($225 for VIP)

Start Date: View Voice And Viewpoint Course Schedule

Course Structure
This workshop will consist of six one-week sessions. Each session will include online lectures (text based) and associated textbook reading assignments, along with a writing assignment that will be submitted to the instructor for private review. Student work will also be posted for group review and feedback. Throughout the workshop you will be able to participate in asynchronous lecture discussion and encouraged to take advantage of ongoing informal discussions and posted self-directed writing exercises. (1.2 CEUs)

In this course you will learn:

  • How and why certain point of view choices alter a reader’s experience
  • The four approaches to third person viewpoint, and which will work best for your story
  • The reliability and pitfalls of a first person protagonist
  • How to use unconventional viewpoints and voice including omniscient, unsympathetic and untrustworthy voices

Who should take this course:

  • Fiction writers of any genre who want to discover their story’s voice and identify the best point of view to bring it to life
  • Individuals looking to improve the consistency of their story with the advice and guidance of a Published Author
  • Graduates of other beginner level classes who wants to gain a thorough understanding of these two key writing elements

Because point of view is directly linked to characterization and dialogue, you may also be interested in our Creating Dynamic Characters and Write Great Fiction: Dialogue workshops. These three workshops complement each other.

Register for Voice And Viewpoint Writing Workshop

Course Outline

Session One: Exploring Voice and Viewpoint for your Story

  • Introduction
  • Finding your voice for your story
  • Focusing your viewpoint
  • Are there rules?

Writing Assignment: Write a 500-word scene in a voice and point of view that you’re comfortable with and use most often.

Session Two: Finding Your Voice—It’s a Journey

  • The search for your story’s most effective voice is a process: Searching for voice
  • Cultivating your voice
  • Doubting your voice

Writing Assignment: Rewrite the 500-word scene from our first session, this time in a voice and from a viewpoint that’s very different from the one you would normally use

Session Three: Third Person Viewpoint—Finding the Most Effective Approach

  • The four approaches to third person viewpoint; singular, multiple, up close and personal, and from a distance. Which one will work best for your story?

Writing Assignment: Choose one of the four approaches to the third-person viewpoint character and write a conflict scene of 750 words, using that perspective.

Session Four: First Person Viewpoint—Is it Trustworthy?

  • Know your character
  • The reliability of the first person protagonist
  • Some pitfalls

Writing Assignment: In 750 words or less, write a scene of action and dialogue in the first person point of view of either a reliable or unreliable character’s voice.

Session Five: The Unconventional Viewpoint/Voice

  • The omniscient viewpoint
  • The unseen narrator
  • The minor character viewpoint
  • The unsympathetic voice
  • The untrustworthy voice
  • The second person voice

Writing Assignment: Write a 750-word scene in an unconventional point of view, one that’s not often used.

Session Six: Getting Going with Voice and Viewpoint—How Smooth is the Ride?

  • Once you’ve written into the story a ways, you’ll want to ask yourself some questions: Is the Viewpoint Working? Is the Voice Working? Does the Story’s Voice fit the Genre?

Writing Assignment: Using the point of view that is rising organically within a story you’ve been working on, write up to 1,500 words. When choosing this point of view, consider your story’s genre, whose story you’re telling, and just how close in you want to bring your reader to your characters.