: How do I write from a non-person point of view? I am writing a novel with an ensemble cast. Each chapter is told from a different person's point of view. Some of the chapters are about a
I am writing a novel with an ensemble cast. Each chapter is told from a different person's point of view. Some of the chapters are about a non-sentient machine that communicates with the human characters. It's not a sentient android like R2D2 from Star Wars or the killer machine from the Terminator movies or Data from Star Trek. It's no more self-aware than a very sophisticated machine, but many of its actions and communications drive the plot and decisions of the other characters.
This character will never become sentient during the story. It will never have feelings the way your laptop never has feelings.
How would I write from its point of view?
Edit to Add:
This character only seems intelligent and sentient.
It does not comprehend human motives.
It considers human requests baffling even when it understands the requests.
It seems extremely intelligent in that it has access to extraordinary amounts of knowledge and can even put that knowledge together in unpredictable ways.
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What is your story purpose for giving the machine POV? Why does the reader need to get inside the machine's "head?"
If you want to show the machine's limitations, it can be done with a POV human struggling to get the machine to understand.
Now if you intend for the machine to make an important mistake at some point, then I can see using the machine's POV.
You don't need to overthink this. Readers will accept whatever reality you present to them so long as it is consistent.
Just create a set of rules for the robot's AI then write the character as you would for a human. For example:
It can only use 100 basic words and key phrases.
It will only process the world as raw data. It doesn't see colors or humans; it just sees shapes and movement.
It doesn't ever make a personal judgement about the world. It only comes to logical conclusions based on its programmed parameters.
The fact you're expressing its thoughts in English and not binary code doesn't really matter. Readers won't question its sentience as long as you follow the rules of its AI.
What you need to keep in mind is that a machine really doesn't have sentience. So you can't truly express its thoughts in words without giving it a veneer of human consciousness. But just as we see things on a computer screen translated from code, so too will readers assume the English words they read are translations of code.
Write it as data inputs and responses.
INPUT: USER 1 enters room
RESPOND Y/N? Y
OUTPUT_$content: {greeting}; {Salutation: 'Good'} {TOD: 1415, 'afteroon'};
INPUT: USER 1 response {"Good afternoon yourself. Did you finish compiling that report?"}
SEARCH_DB6b.46: report {SMITH, CHARLES: activities prior 72 hours};
LOCATED
COMPLETE Y/N? N
ET COMPLETION: 4.7 hours
OUTPUT_$content: {apology}; {report SMITH, CHARLES} {STATUS};
and so on.
A few possibile viewpoints:
An omniscient narrator who describes what the machine does and says.
One of the nearby sentient beings, when any are available to observe the machine's important actions or communications.
Reports from someone who pieces together the machine's communications and actions from available evidence after the fact.
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