A way with worlds: 33 - Yin and Yang: Subjectivity and Objectivity

Easily slotting characters into "objectively knowledgeable" and "subjective" has all the same impact of slotting them into "good" and "evil" - namely it becomes shallow, boring, and makes your world unbelievable. It's especially bad when a story has objective-good people, versus the subjective-bad people - evil is hardly threatening when it's completely deluded, and the conflict feels as staged as a bad wrestling match.

At it's worst, you end up with heroes who Really Know What's Going On, and villains who Aren't Aware Of The Real World, and your story drowns in pretentious tripe. People will already know how it'll turn out, and that they probably won't be surprised in the least – but they may be quite bored.

Viewpoint is not a single thing for any person, and thus any character. We have our moments of knowledge and moments of delusion - so should any good character.

GETTING BEYOND THE VIEWPOINT TRAP:
Obviously, you can end up feeling a bit trapped here - you know your world yet you don't, your characters are best as mixtures of subjective and objective. How do you "get out" how do you "know what to write?"

Writing is not about subjectivity and objectivity - it's about communicating experiences and being aware of them. So, realize that you have your biases in your world and don't make them part of the world as best you can - but use those feelings to understand how your characters may experience the world. Write your characters from their experiences, not from the pinnacle of Total Objectivity or the swamp of Total Subjectivity because you have your own perspective.

One thing I learned in my own writing is to work within perspectives, not supposed objective statements. A city street is not grimy, a city street "felt grimy to Detective Harrison, in a way that made him feel unclean." Same statement, but now we have a perspective to go with it. We know the street is dirty - and we also know that Detective Harrison has read way too much Mickey Spillaine and probably needs to take a vacation.

You have perspective. Admit it and use it.

SUMMARY:
Subjectivity and Objectivity are not easily assigned to characters, and you as a writer bring your own biases to your supposedly objective knowledge of your world. Be aware of these limitations, and try to work within perspectives, not objective statements, for richer and more believable stories.

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