On the first page of the Subjective chapter, towards the end of the page, the book says that “we call something subjective when it is relative to a person and his or her opinions,” which is something I very much agree with. I always like to tease friends with the short phrase “perspective is objective,” because I think it’s very much true. The Bedford glossary also says that the term “subjective” can apply to the characters that an author has created. I very much agree with that, being a writer myself.
I prefer to write in third person-limited, which allows me to take my time showing the reader how each of the main characters may feel about anything that has occurred within the story. I like to spice it up by creating diverse characters.
For example, in a fantasy adventure story I wrote a year ago, the main protagonist was a twelve year old boy named Jason whisked away from his home to a strange land that he was told to fear. As he goes on a journey to find his way home, he makes a few new friends that join him with their own goals in mind. All of these new friends are familiar with the land that Jason feels lost in, but all of them grew up in different regions and have different biased opinions when it comes to the ruling monarch, whether natural philosophy is better than magic or not, and many other things present in their world.
As I writer, I love playing around with subjectivity in my work because it allows me to create different perspectives to expose the reader to, showing them who my characters are and why they are the way they are.
I like the way you describe how authors often “play” with notions of truth. In this case, the boy is taught to fear something about his new home, but that perspective is then complicated when viewed through other subjectivities. This is an act of narrative perspective-taking in a way. I’m a bit confused by the phrase “perspective is objective,” though. What do you mean when you say that?