I have a short story swimming around in my head involving a kidnapping and torture of a young woman. Mostly mental anguish and dialogue, but I can't seem to decide whos POV to write it from, the victim or the killer. The killer is cool, unemotional, inquizitive and callous while the victim is scared, unsure and disoriented. Any tips?
Choose one. Or choose a third interested party for the POV. Each possible choice is a different story, even if the events remain the same. Which one is best depends on what you can do with each possibility. Your story, your decision.
Well, I'm not asking people to make the choice for me, per se, only to discuss both options and get different viewpoints on each POV. I will ultimately be making the decision.
It has to be your decision, and largely depends on which you are more comfortable and which will give a better story, but I think it would be interesting to see how the story changes from one to the other. I would recommend writing just one scene from both sides and see how it feels. I think it also depends on which character you want to reveal more slowly. If you do it from the victim's POV than the killer's motivations are hidden, and from the other side, you may want the victim's true feelings to be secret. Whichever you choose, good luck and maybe you'll post it in the workshop for us when it's finished
If it's a short story, why don't you really test yourself and write both? Write the story twice, and see if you can really get into the head of each character and see how the stories differ in the end.
My first reaction is a first person POV from either one will severely limit the story. Sounds like classic third person narrative, but that's IMHO, of coure.
I think you would get more fear across form the girls pov. We would feel her pain, share her fear and have that sense of hopelessness that, if we were in the head of the Superior character in the scene, we might lose. For more shock etc. then the serial killer.
