Main Character POV vs. Creator POV

Hi Hero,

Today we’re delving a little deeper into a powerful application of POV switching.

Most people don’t get past thinking of themselves as the main character in their life story. They spend their entire lives living from that point of view, or rather identified with that point of view.

And why not? As a main character, you can have goals, hopes, dreams, hardships and triumph. All the ingredients for a compelling life story are there.

The problem is, when you operate solely as the main character in your life story, you don’t have the benefit of perspective.

You tend to see other parts of the story as real, when in actuality, they’re just reflections of you.

It’s kind of like living in a hall of mirrors.

This can lead to the perception of being “hung up” in narratives of your own design, or narratives designed by others. Which gives rise to what I call “narrative absolutism.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“I’m good at THIS, but not good at THAT.”

“I’d NEVER do that. EVER!”

Sometimes it’s beneficial to think that way— it’s good to be a person who abhors psychopathic murder, for instance… but when you attach a permanent modifier of “never” to “being confident enough to talk to strangers,” or “being good with money,” problems arise… problems that are dispelled with the advent of AUTHORIAL PERSPECTIVE.

Aristotle, in his seminal work on storytelling structure, Poetics, told us that plot and character are the same. What he meant—illustrated by two examples— was that plot drives character:

Johnny grew up tough in Crapville, so he became a pitfighter.

And character drives plot:

As Johnny’s opponent’s legs gave way, Johnny knew that punch would finally get him and his wife out of his parents’ basement and into that two bedroom condo on South Crapville Rd.

Since Johnny doesn’t have the advent of perspective, he can’t get off the merry-go round of who he is feeding what he does, feeding who he is, feeding what he does, etc…

Plot and character are essentially blended into a narrative smoothie, which makes Johnny, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in Crapville, and a prisoner in his own story.

If he only knew there was someone writing the story, he could maybe petition them for a change of venue, or some art supplies, a plane ticket to Cabo… something.

Unlike Johnny, who will forever be a prisoner in his story, because he doesn’t even know the author (me) exists, we don’t have to live this way. We can shift our point of view into the AUTHOR or CREATOR of our story.

All we have to do is switch our POVs to one of distance and dis-passion, to God’s eye view, using the technique we learned here.

Then we can:

• Separate out who we are from what happens to us.

• Watch our choices from a respectful, nonjudgemental distance and ask ourselves “will this choice or series of choices lead to the life I want?”

• Develop mindfulness and start asking ourselves questions like: “When X happens, I usually do Y. Why is that?”

• And most of all, the next time that X moment comes around, we can make a different choice, take a different tack, take the road less travelled…

Try it on yourself. You’ll see a lot of things you do, choices you make, and even “the way you are” is merely a collection of stories molded into systems of “beliefs.”

Keep doing it and you’ll evolve rapidly.

I’ll see you on the path.

Warmest regards,

Patrick Christell

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I was a professional storyteller for 20 years. I’ve synthesized everything I’ve learned into a self-actualization framework wherein anyone can apply the structure of epic storytelling to radically change the arc of their destiny. For more information, check out my website or follow me here: https://twitter.com/actualizedstory. If you have any questions, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out on twitter DMs or via my website.