While recently going through a box of old pictures, I found this wonderful photo of my grandparents, taken on their wedding day in 1926, in the small village of Szakadat, Hungary. It immediately filled me with a sense of joy to see my grandparents when they were young and just starting their lives together, rather than the elderly couple I had only known. For me, it was an entirely different perspective of them as individuals and as a couple.
So much of writing is about perspective – and continually shifting it. We want readers to experience our characters from varying viewpoints as those characters struggle with both internal and external events. Was it a childhood trauma that motivated a particular character to use their words like a sword, or was it because they were exhausted from dealing with a narcissistic boss? Did that person run away to find themselves or because the pressure of life was too great? In either situation, it could be one or both depending on your perspective of the character revealed by the words of the writer. Perspective is essential for readers in order for them to understand the ultimate whole of a character and the motivations that drive their life stories.
Kind of like seeing your grandparents for the whole of who they were – both the young, adventurous newlyweds as well as the elderly, Lawrence Welk-watching couple you loved so dearly. They were one and the same – but it depended on your perspective. 😉
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