Are we too “domesticated” to write truly great stories? This might seem like an odd question, but bear with me. I’ve been incredibly blessed over the course of my life to travel all over the world. While I did get to check out some of the resorts, my favorite travel stories seem to always involve places no one in their right mind would go…on purpose.

Note I DID qualify with “in their right mind.”

Like the time I lived in Syria, went out into the desert to look at ruins but failed to pack enough water *face palm*. This ancient Bedouin shuffled past me wearing a huge glass bottle full of water…that he was selling by the sip.

I have no shame.

I bought the WHOLE BOTTLE.

Or when I was on the Mexican border and had to go to the ladies’ room. As I am sitting there…a chicken just walks in and decides to be my friend. Still funny.

In the jungles of Belize, I spent all day wielding a sledgehammer to pull up a sidewalk at a school (humanitarian mission). The entire day it rained on me. I spent seven hours slogging through mud in the rain carrying buckets of cement, ripping up rebar, and patrolling—machete in hand—for snakes.

End of the day? All I wanted was a shower. I strip down to everything but my seriously stupid lime green flip flips with big goofy flowers on the toes, turn on the water…and SCORPIONS RAIN DOWN OUT OF THE SHOWER CURTAIN.

Apparently goofy flower flip flops make an excellent weapon.

Why are these some of my favorite stories? Especially since none of them cast me in a particularly good light. Whether it is me being too dumb to pack WATER in the SYRIAN DESERT or naive enough to not watch for SCORPIONS in a JUNGLE, there is a common thread.

I was far too domesticated.

Domesticated Writers

There is a strange cognitive distortion we can all experience being a part of First World living. We really don’t know what it is like to worry about most of that really important stuff at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

I mean FOOD? Me? Hunt? *hair flip* I don’t even know how to track tacos. Are burritos migratory? Do pizzas travel in packs?

***If you know, please answer in the comments.

Please understand. I am seriously grateful that I am an American, that I live in a wonderful country and enjoy incredible blessings. Yet, how often do we take these blessings for granted? How much can modern life lull us into a form of sensory sleepwalking that make our writing come across as dull, colorless or inauthentic?

Case in point.

One of my favorite classes to teach was Beyond Bulletproof Barbie. This class covered combatives (various forms of martial arts), guns (everything from pistols to long arms), and bladed weapons. I enjoy teaching it because, while I “get” we write fiction and can’t be 100% accurate, a handful of really great details truly enhances authenticity.

When reading any fight scene, I can almost instantly tell a writer who has a) never been punched or b) has never thrown a punch.

How?

Easy.

Punching suuuucks. I know! News flash. Either way. Honestly. Sucks to be puncher or punch-ee. And I get that it is easy to believe the person doing the punching gets the better of it but no. FUN FACT! Unless one is a professional fighter, odds are pretty good you will break or dislocate something in your hand.

Am I suggesting we start Writer Fight Club? No…because I can’t talk about Writer Fight Club. Also, pain sucks. But, I do believe the answer is simpler.

Domesticated Distortion

Sometimes, just recognizing we have a blind spot is a great start. This is where, first of all, being a prolific reader will be seriously helpful. We can only do and experience so much, so why not rely on the experiences of others? The more we read, the deeper creative well we draw from.

I have no idea what it is like to live in the aftermath of a war (and pray I never do). But I can read works from people who have. I’m not a man, a child, a space alien, a battle hardened Marine, or a geriatric, but I can be all those things because I can use empathy and imagination. That said, empathy and imagination, like other writing muscles, need strength training.

If we believe we might be too domesticated, then how might we ratchet up the story intensity? I recommend practicing deep empathy. Try writing in Deep POV.

Refer to: Deep POV: What IS It & Why Do Readers LOVE It So Much?

Deep POV is not only a fantastic way to hook readers into the story experience at a whole other—visceral—level, but it will also help us be aware of our domesticated blind spots.

Try doing some short writing pieces on the same topic. Same story prompt but from as many different POVs as you can think of. Maybe change the setting, too.

Most of us tend to—at least in the beginning—write as ourselves. Hey, I did it! Still do. When they say “write what you know” then this is kind of a “no duh” thing right?

But can you take a story prompt then write from the perspective of someone who is NOT you? Empathy is a fantastic skill in life and in writing.

Experience Informs Perspective

We can take a simple scenario and do a fun thought experiment/writing exercise. Take our domesticated brains into a domesticated situation that suddenly is anything BUT.

There is a bodega on the corner of a major city. It’s late at night. There is an Uber driver, an elderly person, a young mother, and a juvenile delinquent. Someone decides to rob the bodega.

Who is it? How do the others react? Who “saves” the day? Should it have been “saved” at all? Are things not as they might appear? Do we end up with an unlikely hero? An unintended tragedy?

Could you write the story where each person is the robber and make us empathize with their motives? Note I said we had to empathize not agree. That is an important distinction. In life, we are all good, law-abiding citizens so cognitive dissonance like this stretches our brain muscles.

The key to having a reader empathize is to show who the character is and relay their why (motive).

Under normal circumstances, robbing a bodega is unacceptable. But great stories leave normal in the dust. Additionally, those around react correspondingly using their frame of reference and life experiences. They can help ratchet the tension in the story.

Say our would-be robber is the Uber driver. A half hour earlier, he picked up the Ride from Hell. Unfortunately for him, his fare took a page out of the noir classic Collateral and our poor Uber driver is actually a hostage, himself.

He has to hit a certain number of bodegas before midnight or his family will die.

That’s already a bad night, but what if the senior citizen is an ex-Green Beret and decides to be a hero? What if the teenager is actually a twenty-eight-year-old Vice officer? Or the young mother is actually part of the cartel and was there to collect extortion money from the owner?

What if the cashier just found out his wife was leaving him for his brother and they’d emptied all his savings. All he has left is this crappy job and he just can’t be pushed one…more…step.

We can make these people as benign or interesting as we want. There are plenty of everyday people who do extraordinary things—good and bad—with the right lever. Conversely, there are plenty of folks walking around who seem ordinary at first glance but are anything BUT.

Eg. Spies never look like spies unless it’s the movies.

Psst, neither do aliens.

This is where fiction becomes FUN.

Domesticated Imaginations

I know what it is like to get caught up in the humdrum of life. Whether it is the day job, the WIP that we have been working on for months, life, family, health issues. We can forget how important it is to shove ourselves out of our comfort zone to knock the dust off our imaginations.

Maybe you can do this in your own WIP. If you are stuck, pull out a supporting character and write an experience from their POV. When in a scene, think from all angles. Sight is the weakest of all the senses yet writers (in my experience) rely on it too much. Can we see if we can put ourselves even deeper into the scene? FEEL the cold, TASTE the heat, SENSE the danger?

What Are Your Thoughts?

I know I was suffering from being too domesticated. After working from home for almost twenty years, I took a temporary job in November to get out of the house. You know you’ve been working at home too many years when you eat your lunch like you just served a dime in the pen.

It’s been a lot of fun and has gotten me out of my comfort zone, but the schedule has been a mess trying to fit it with homeschooling and other work. FINALLY it seems to be leveling off. I’ve been working in fashion marketing and the holidays was just BONKERS crazy and January is the start of a whole new year and and and and. LIFE.

BUT it really did show me how many experiences I’d forgotten about working on my own with only my imaginary friends to bug me. VERY different being in a corporate setting.

But I am still here. Still weird. Weirder by the day. So any of y’all have tips on hunting those burritos?

What are our thoughts? Do you think maybe you hold back too much in your work sometimes? Maybe you could push a little harder but have gotten out of the habit?

Also, feel free to drop a try at the bodega story in the comments. I always love seeing y’all show off!

The post Are We Too “Domesticated” to Write Great Stories? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Deep POV. Deep, man. So…um what is it? Maybe you’re bee-bopping along on the inter-webs, clicking on blogs, checking out writing resources when you see the term ‘Deep POV’ drift across your tweet deck.

Or perhaps you’re at a writing conference looking all intellectual and stuff, and in the conversations this phrase Deep POV keeps floating past. Deep POV. Deep POV. You keep hearing it, seeing it…

And, if you are anything like me, you don’t want to look like an idiot so you don’t ask that question burning inside you.

Um, what the heck is Deep POV?

***Note to self. Google Deep POV at home under cover of darkness.

What’s Deep POV & Why Do We Need It?

If you’re a writer who has a goal of selling books, it is wise to remember that audiences are not static. They change.

Their tastes change with the times and we need to understand what is ‘trending’ if we want to connect and entertain.

Many new writers look to the classics for inspiration and there isn’t anything per se wrong with that. But we must reinvent the classics, not regurgitate them.

Even if you look at the fashion trends, sure some styles ‘come back around’ but they are not exact replicas of the past. They’re a modernized version.

But keep in mind that some fashion styles never come back. They’ve outlived their usefulness and belong in the past.

Same with fiction.

Deep POV & Story Trends

Story trends and fashions change along with the audience. For instance, the novel Moby Dick spends an excruciatingly long time talking about whales. Why? Namely because the audience of the time probably had never seen one and never would.

If we did this today?

Sure, feel free to walk around in a literary gold-plated cod piece, but er…

#Awkward.

Epics were once very popular as well. Follow a character from the womb until death. FANTASTIC STUFF!

Why?

Because no one had Netflix.

Books were a rare indulgence usually reserved for a handful of literate folks with the money or connections to get their hands on…a book.

Also, since writers were paid by the word, their works were padded more than a freshman term paper. Their motto?

No modifier left behind. 

These days? We have to write leaner, meaner, faster and cleaner.

We’ve talked about POV before, and which one might be the best for your story. I can’t choose for any of you. Alas, before we talk about Deep POV, I want to mention that POV is affected by audience.

I also believe POV trends—the shift to Deep POV—is a direct reflection of how connected we are as a society.

Deep POV & Culture Shifts

You guys may or may not know that POV has changed along with communication and connectedness.

Waaaaay back in the day, omniscient with a god-like narrator was all the rage. But people didn’t travel at all. Most humans lived and died in the place they were born and in isolation from other communities.

Sort of like West Texas, but with knights and plague.

With the early epics, stories often had a narrator who was separate from the events.

Dear Reader, come with me for a tale of AWESOME…

Later, after the Dark Ages, people got out more, traveled more, etc. We see the narrator merging into just general god-like presence.

Then, after the printing press was invented, more and more people were literate and took up reading. Additionally, a lot of monks were out of a job and went off to start the first microbreweries.

Don’t argue. It’s history .

Closer, Closer, A Little CLOSER…

With pamphlets and papers, people became more engaged and journalism eventually gave birth to a new-fangled invention…first-person.

Third person and third-person shifting only became popular after audiences grew accustomed to radio programs (and later television) and could mentally process the idea of a cut-to scene.

As people became networked closer and closer, we see the psychic distance closing. Now that we’re a culture of reality TV and social media?

Omniscient is a tough sell.

I’m not telling any of you which POV to choose, but I will say that modern readers will shy away from some of these older forms of POV because they can often feel distant and cold.

Modern readers LOVE being as close as possible, ergo my little side-trip through history.

And this is where we get *drum roll* Deep POV.

Taking the Plunge into Deep POV

As I mentioned in the beginning, you might have heard this term—Deep POV—tossed around the writing world.

Everyone wants it. Readers love it. Uh, but what IS it? How does one do it? Can we order some from Amazon? Here’s my simple explanation:

Deep POV is simply a technique that strips the author voice completely out of the prose. There is no author intrusion so we are left only with the characters. The reader is nice and snuggly in the ‘head’ of the character.

Okay, clear as mud. Right? Right.

As an editor, I see the intrusion much more than authors. It is actually shocking how much you guys interrupt. In fact, you’re like my mother chaperoning my first date. That date she would swear to this day she was ‘quiet as a mouse.’

Okay Mama ROUSS (Rodent of Unusual Size)…sure.

I actually like deep POV because I love tight prose. I loathe unnecessary words. Deep POV not only leans up the writing, it digs deeper into the mental state of the character.

We probably aren’t going to stay completely in Deep POV, but it’s a nice place to call ‘home.’

How do we do it? Today, for the sake of brevity, we are just going to talk about simple stylistic changes, not the actual writing.

***This week we have a CLASS—Taking the Plunge: How to Write Deep POV— that teaches all that fancy-schmancy stuff.

Deep POV Step ONE: First, Ditch the Tags

Just using the word said tells the reader we (the author) are there.

Kristen’s Made-Up Example (don’t judge me, just roll with it):

“No, I always love it when you drop by,” she said. Fifi felt her hands start to shake. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder and saw that the street was deserted. She knew all of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. She thought, ‘He is going to kill me.‘

Okay, so we get that Fifi is in a bad spot. But just that little word said tells us the author is present. So, in the next layer we are going to remove the said.

Deep POV Step TWO: Ditch Thought & Sense Words

If we really pause and think about it, thought and sense words are frequently redundant. If we are IN the character’s head? We KNOW she is thinking.

Who else would be thinking?

Readers aren’t dumb (…okay , mostly).

Yes, it is my personal opinion, but I feel sensing and thinking words often qualify as holding the reader’s brain. We don’t need to give that additional ‘help.’

Let’s look at my made-up example:

“No, I always love it when you drop by.” Fifi felt her hands start to shake. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder and saw that the street was deserted. She knew all of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. She thought, ‘He is going to kill me.‘

So we ditched the said and that tightened it up. Did you notice how losing the tag tightened the psychic distance? Now let’s remove these stubborn stains  unnecessary sensing and thinking words.

***Also, try to ditch any ‘starting to.’  Do or do not, there is no try ‘starting to.’

“No, I always love it when you drop by.” Fifi’s hands shook. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder to the deserted street. All her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas, and no one would hear her scream.

‘He is going to kill me.’

Do you see how just getting rid of those excess words upped the tension of this piece? We (the reader) go from being a distant observer to actually being in the potentially deadly situation.

We don’t need to tell the reader Fifi is thinking or feeling or ‘about to do’ something. The reader gets that and us putting in glowing directional arrows is a distraction.

Fifi felt Tom’s hands clamp around her throat.

Just get to it already!

Tom’s hands clamped around her throat.

Better. Sorry, Fifi.

I hope this helps clear up some of your ‘Deep POV’ questions you had or never knew you had. Remember that we live in a culture that is spoiled with intimacy. Readers can fall in love with a book and not consciously be able to articulate WHY.

Deep POV is one is those subtle ‘tricks’ we writers have in our magic bag. Want to sell more books? Give readers what they LOVE. What do they LOVE? Being IN the story.

As a REMINDER, there is way more to Deep POV. I barely scratched the surface here.

That’s why I strongly recommend our upcoming class, because we’ll train you how to use Deep POV to trap the reader and not let GO.

What ELSE Do Readers LOVE?

Since Deep POV is all about the writing to a trend, I want to mention one ‘trend’ that never really went away, and now is only gaining increasing momentum.

Readers can’t get enough of series.

This has been one fashion that’s never gone out of style. If anything, series are more the rage now than ever before.

Series not only help readers fall in love with our world, storyline, characters (and us, the author), but these days? Producers are ON THE HUNT for series with strong followings to convert to the screen.

HBO anyone?

This said…

It’s ‘Fashion Week’!

Bad Lamb Academy: Refuse to Behave

Want to write books that are ALL THE RAGE?

As I mentioned earlier, Maria Grace will be teaching Taking the Plunge: How to Write Deep POV. This is TWO HOURS of professional instruction about how to ROCK Deep POV.

I will be teaching Bring on the BINGE: How to Plot & Write Series. Series are a fabulous way to build a fan following AND make really excellent money (when done well). This class is 2.5 to 3 hours long (and YES, all classes come with a FREE recording).

We’re going to cover all aspects of how to write a series, the different types of series, and so much more.

Treat yourself! Feel free to wear this to class .

The post Deep POV: What IS It & Why Do Readers LOVE It So Much? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image courtesy of Rune E.’s generosity via Flickr Creative Commons

Ah personal vows. I’m big on those and one core vow I made several years ago was to seek out the best of the best. Locate talent, nurture it, then share it with you guys. I’m passionate about mastery. Mastery however requires sacrifice, and that sacrifice is we cannot do all things. We need to let go. Knowing that, I made it my personal mission (and my company W.A.N.A. International’s mission) to recruit those who were masters of THEIR realms.

My motto? If I am the smartest person in the room, I’ve done something horribly wrong.

Many of you have already had the pleasure of taking a class with USA Today Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds. If not? She has a whole list of classes coming up (listed below). Today, however, another master is here to share her gifts with us today.

Lisa Hall-Wilson is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had the honor to work with. She taught me Facebook . But she’s also an unbelievable craft teacher so I’m handing today’s post over to her for an amazing lesson about the power of vows….

***

The beautiful image courtesy of the generous Candida.Performa via Flickr Creative Commons

Want to raise the stakes for your character through internal conflict? Deep POV is a great technique to bring out this tension because it allows the reader deep into the character’s psyche and allows for an intense examination of their motivations and morals.

Drawing a line in the sand, giving your character a personal vow, can create the kind of inner turmoil that drives a character to outrageous page-turning decisions and mistakes. Vows also give insight into backstory and help define character voice.

I love that scene from the Fellowship Of The Ring where Gandalf screams at the Balrog: “You shall not pass!” Awesome. That was a game changer scene, it ratcheted up the conflict several notches. Gandalf went to the ultimate extreme to make sure that Balrog did not pursue the rest of the Fellowship.

Does your main character have a line in the sand, a personal boundary past which they will not cross? Great!

Now go shove them off the cliff.

*Note: Not every character does or should have a personal vow. It adds a layer of complexity that requires skill with characterization to pull off well because a vow should influence a character’s motivations and morals, but it’s rarely their main story goal.*

Ever whispered a vow in the dark of the night, tears streaming down your cheeks? Maybe you were caught in the middle of a messy divorce. Maybe you experienced a trauma of some sort, the kind that haunts you – and down deep inside you made yourself a promise so that hurt never happens again:

I will never…

Image via Ryan Vaarsi’s generosity courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Everyone has a line in the sand, a secret vow. No matter what else happens, this is one inviolable line they will not cross. Most people, at some point, make several of these vows, some innocuous, some more serious.

Some people make these vows consciously and others are completely unaware of these personal vows. We are more committed to some vows than others. Some vows are made to prevent a past hurt or harm from being repeated (I’ll never date a drug lord again), and some vows are harmful and need to go (I will never weigh over 100 pounds).

Pushed Beyond All Limits

Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel Blue Moon uses a really great personal vow as a story element. Anita Blake has several rules or lines in the sand which have been firmly established in previous books in the series, but she is forced to violate one rule after another. It started off innocently enough, Blake is uncomfortable, she’s not happy, but she can shake it off.

As the novel continues, Blake faces escalating circumstances. Some of her compromises haunt her, change her (and not always for the better) and she has to figure out how to live with that. Blake ends up back-tracking and…well, go read it. I couldn’t put it down.

But the reverse can also work.

I loved the movie Law Abiding Citizen with Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx. At the beginning of the movie, Foxx’s lawyer character comes across as a good guy, but someone willing to cut corners to achieve what he saw as the greater good. Butler’s character creatively, and rather gruesomely, pushes Foxx to the point where he has to dig in and say here and no farther.

By the end of the movie, Foxx sees the problem with cutting certain corners and draws a line in the sand: I will never make a deal with a murderer ever again.

Complexity

Image courtesy of Joana Coccarelli’s generosity via Flickr Creative Commons

Vows are hard to pull off in simple plots. These lines in the sand are often in addition to a character’s main goal in the story. For instance, Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind vows: “As God is my witness, I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over I’ll never be hungry again…” Scarlett’s conscious goal for the story though is to be with Ashley Wilkes. *shakes head – never understood that* That’s what she schemes for, dreams about, etc.

Her unconscious goal is to have the love of a man who can make her feel secure (ahh – see the built-in tension there when what she’s pursuing won’t get her what she really wants). She isn’t even aware of this internal conflict until the end of the book when Ashley finally becomes available and she realizes it’s actually Rhett she wants. Rhett Butler is the one who makes her feel secure (she talks about how he comforts her in the night after a bad dream, etc), but now Rhett’s gone.

However, Scarlett never went hungry again. Her preoccupation with money caused a lot of problems for her, because she confused money with security. It’s easy to see how that vow added tension and conflict for her character.

The Writer’s Dilemma

Image courtesy of the generosity of Benbenben11 via Flckr Creative Commons

The problem with this story element is that a reader might lose respect if a character breaks ALL of their personal vows. For a character to remain worth cheering for, if a line in the sand has been defined, at some point the character has to stand their ground no matter what it costs them.

There may be gray areas of their vow they compromise on, there may be some backtracking. They may make a vow part way through the story as Scarlett does. Maybe the character needs to give up a harmful or unrealistic vow. Regardless, these vows strongly influence the character’s motivations and desires heading into the big main conflict. If they don’t, I’d question whether they need to be there.

Personal vows are one way to add compelling conflict, but it requires an intensely personal POV.

I’m teaching a two-week intensive on Method Acting For Writers: Learn How To Write Deep POV starting August 1^st. This is just one appendix lesson from that class. I’m offering a WANA-only price for this course.

What are some of your favorite literary vows or lines in the sand?

I’m also teaching a class on Facebook, so you can learn what to post so readers respond on July 22 and a new class on September 9 on creating strong female characters. Check out those classes!

***

THANK YOU LISA!

Talk to us! We love hearing from you. Well, I do, namely because I am lonely and y’all are seriously interesting. What vows have you made? Good or bad or dumb?

I’ve done all of the above, and have particularly excelled in bad and dumb vows (but I’m much better now ). Seriously, I think one of my greatest strengths is I am loyal, but sometimes being loyal is just being epically stupid when you’re loyal to the wrong people, ideas, goals etc.

For instance, I vowed I wouldn’t give up on my first novel. Took 5 years to see I actually didn’t even HAVE a novel so that was a seriously stupid vow. Remember what I always tell you guys, Persistence looks a lot like stupid. Sometimes it IS hard to tell.

And MAKE SURE to check out the classes below and sign up! Summer school! YAY!

For the month of JULY, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

NEW CLASSES WITH USA Today Best Selling Author CAIT REYNOLDS!

Obviously, I have my areas of expertise, but I’ve wanted for a long time to fill in some gaps on classes I could offer.

Cait Reynolds was my answer.

She is an unbelievable editor, mentor and teacher and a serious expert in these areas. She consults numerous very successful USA Today and NYTBS authors and I highly, highly recommend her classes.

Gaskets and Gaiters: How to Create a Compelling Steampunk World July 21st $35 w/ Cait Reynolds 

Lasers & Dragons & Swords, Oh MY! World Building for Fantasy & Science Fiction July 28th w/ Cait Reynolds $35/ GOLD $75/ PLATINUM $125

Classes with MOI!

Blogging for Authors July 20th $50 ($150 for GOLD)

Branding for Authors  July 27th $35

Classes with Lisa Hall-Wilson

Growing An Organic Platform On Facebook July 22nd $40

The post Deep POV: Using Personal Vows To Increase Story Tension appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

So maybe you’re bee-bopping along on the interwebs, clicking on blogs, checking out writing resources when you see it float across your tweet deck. Or perhaps you’re at a writing conference looking all intellectual and stuff, and in the conversations this phrase deep POV keeps floating past. Deep POV. Deep POV. You keep hearing it, seeing it…

And, if you are anything like me, you don’t want to look like an idiot so you don’t ask that question burning inside you.

Um, what the heck is deep POV?

***Note to self. Google Deep POV at home under cover of darkness.

So what the heck is it and why do we need some?

If you are a writer who has a goal of selling books it is wise to remember that audiences are not static. They change. Their tastes change with the times and we need to understand what is “trending” if we want to connect and entertain. Many new writers look to the classics for inspiration and there isn’t anything per se wrong with that, but we must reinvent the classics, not regurgitate them.

Even if you look at the fashion trends, sure some styles “come back around” but they are not exact replicas of the past. They are a modernized version. But keep in mind that some fashion styles never come back. They’ve outlived their usefulness and belong in the past. Same with fiction.

Story trends and fashions change along with the audience. For instance, Moby Dick spends an excruciatingly long time talking about whales, namely because the audience of the time probably had never seen one and never would. If we did this today? Sure, feel free to walk around in a literary gold-plated cod piece, but er…

Yes, awkward.

Epics were also very popular. Follow a character from the womb until death. FANTASTIC STUFF! Why? Because no one had HBO, Pinterest or Angry Birds. Books were a rare indulgence usually reserved for a handful of literate folks with the money or connections to get their hands on…a book.

Also, since writers were paid by the word, their works were padded more than a freshman term paper. Their motto? No modifier left behind. These days? We have to write leaner, meaner, faster and cleaner.

We’ve talked about POV before, and which one might be the best for your story. I can’t choose for any of you, but before we talk about deep POV, I want to mention that POV is also affected by audience and I believe is a direct reflection of how connected we are as a society.

You guys may or may not know that POV has changed along with communication and connectedness. Waaaaay back in the day, omniscient with a god-like narrator was all the rage. But people didn’t travel at all. Most humans lived and died in the place they were born and in isolation from other communities.

With the early epics, we often had a narrator who was separate from the events.

Dear Reader, come with me for a tale of AWESOME…

Later, after the Dark Ages, people got out more, traveled more, etc. We see the narrator merging into just general god-like presence. Then, after the printing press was invented, more and more people were reading and a lot of monks were out of a job and went off to start the first microbreweries.

Don’t argue. It’s history .

Image via kcxd courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

With pamphlets and papers, people became more engaged and journalism eventually gives birth to this new-fangled invention…first-person. Third person and third-person shifting only became popular after audiences grew accustomed to radio programs (and later television) and could mentally process the idea of a cut-to scene.

As people became networked closer and closer, we see the psychic distance closing. Now that we are a culture of reality TV and social media? Omniscient is a tough sell. I am not telling any of you what POV to choose, but I will say that modern readers will shy away from these older forms of POV because they “feel cold.” Modern readers LOVE being as close as possible, ergo my little side-trip through history.

And this is where we get *drum roll* deep POV.

You hear this word flung around the writing world. Oooh, deep POV. That is deep POV. Deep, Man.

Everyone wants it. Readers love it. Uh, but what IS it? How do I do it? Can I order some off Amazon?

Deep POV is simply a technique that strips the author voice completely out of the prose. There is no author intrusion so we are left only with the characters. The reader is nice and snuggly in the “head” of the character.

Okay, clear as mud. Right? Right.

As an editor, I see the intrusion much more than authors. It is actually shocking how much you guys interrupt. In fact, you are like my mother chaperoning my first date who would swear she was quiet as a mouse.

NOT.

I actually like deep POV because I love tight prose. I loathe unnecessary words. Deep POV not only leans up the writing, it digs deeper into the mental state of the character. We probably aren’t going to stay completely in deep POV, but it’s a nice place to call “home.”

How do we do it? Today, for the sake of brevity, we are just going to talk about simple stylistic changes, not the actual writing. We will do that next time .

First, Ditch the Tags

Just using the word “said” tells the reader we (the author) are there.

Kristen’s Made-Up Example (don’t judge me, just roll with it)

“No, I always love it when you drop by,” she said. Fifi felt her hands start to shake. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder and saw that the street was deserted. She knew all of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. She thought, He is going to kill me.

Okay, so we get that Fifi is in a bad spot. But just that little word said tells us the author is present. So in the next layer we are going to remove the said.

While We Are Here? Thought and Sense Words—Ditch Those, Too

If we really pause and think about it, thought and sense words are frequently redundant. If we are IN the character’s head? We KNOW she is thinking. Who else would be thinking?

We aren’t dumb. Yes, it is my personal opinion, but I feel sensing and thinking words often qualify as holding the reader’s brain. We don’t need to. Readers are pretty smart.

Let’s look at my made-up example.

“No, I always love it when you drop by.” Fifi felt her hands start to shake. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder and saw that the street was deserted. She knew all of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. She thought, He is going to kill me.

So we ditched the said and that tightened it up. Did you notice how losing the tag tightened the psychic distance? Now let’s remove these stubborn stains  unnecessary sensing and thinking words.

***Also, try to ditch any “starting to”.  Do or do not, there is no try starting to.

“No, I always love it when you drop by.” Fifi’s hands shook. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder. The street was deserted. All of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. He is going to kill me.

Do you see how just getting rid of those excess words upped the tension of this piece? We (the reader) go from being a distant observer to being in the potentially deadly situation. We don’t need to tell the reader Fifi is thinking or feeling or about to do something. The reader gets that and us putting in glowing directional arrows is a distraction.

Fifi felt Tom’s hands clamp around her throat.

Just get to it already!

Tom’s hands clamped around her throat.

So I hope this helps clear up some of your “deep POV” questions. Remember that we live in a culture that is spoiled with intimacy and we can give them what they love. Next time, we will discuss characterization and how to write in deep POV beyond the stylistic choices.

Before we go, I have a SUPER AWESOME DEAL to help you whip that WIP into fighting form! I put together a Book Bootcamp (3 craft classes for the price of two & RECORDINGS included in the purchase price) as well at a Book Bootcamp GOLD (3 craft classes for the price of two PLUS three hours with ME one-on-one plotting your novel OR repairing the plot for your novel). So make sure to check those out below along with all kinds of new classes!

Make sure you check out the newsletter class with Jack Patterson. He’s sold almost a quarter million books, so probably someone to listen to. Just sayin’…

What are your thoughts?

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

****The site is new, and I am sorry you have to enter your information all over again to comment, but I am still working out the kinks. Also your comment won’t appear until I approve it, so don’t fret if it doesn’t appear right away.

Also know I love suggestions! After almost 1,100 blog posts? I dig inspiration. So what would you like me to blog about?

Talk to me!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of APRIL, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

SIGN UP NOW FOR UPCOMING CLASSES!!! 

Remember that ALL CLASSES come with a FREE RECORDING so you can listen over and over. So even if you can’t make it in person? No excuses! All you need is an internet connection!

Be a Better Hooker (How to Write a Compelling Newsletter)

April 29th $45

In this class, learn how to compose a newsletter that is entertaining and compelling—and all without stealing most of your writing time. Learn how to get your hooks in your readers and keep them until the end.

With a mailing list of over 15K subscribers, mystery/thriller author Jack Patterson will share some of his tips that will spice up your newsletter and get your subscribers opening it up every time you send one out.

BUNDLE DEALS!!! 

Book Bootcamp  $99 ($130 VALUE)

Book Bootcamp GOLD $269 ($430 VALUE) This includes the log-line class, antagonist class, the character class AND a three-hour time slot working personally with ME. We will either plot your idea or, if your novel isn’t working? Fix it! Appointments are scheduled by email. Consults done by phone or in virtual classroom.

Individual Classes with MOI!!! 

Pitch Perfect—How to Write a Query Letter and Synopsis that SELLS! $45 April 13th, 2017

Blogging for Authors $50 April 27th, 2017

Your Story in a Sentence—Crafting Your Log-line $35 May 4th, 2017

Bullies & Baddies—Understanding the Antagonist $50/$200 (Gold) May11th, 2017

The Art of Character $45 May 18th, 2017

NEW CLASSES/INSTRUCTORS!!! 

Growing an Organic Platform on Facebook $40 May 6th, 2017 Lisa Hall-Wilson is BACK! She is an expert on Facebook so check out her class!

Method Acting for Writers: How to Write in Deep POV $85 for this TWO WEEK intensive workshop with editor and writing instructor Lisa Hall Wilson.

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post DEEP POV—What is It? Why Do Readers LOVE It? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Take it away, Marcy!

***

In her post Introducing Deep POV—WHAT IS It? Can We Buy Some on Amazon? Kristen explained why deep POV is more popular than the old trends that defined the classics. Those old ways of writing? Probably not coming back unless an EMP pulse permanently fries all our technology.

I think it’s actually a great thing we’ve moved on to deep POV. Deep POV is the magic sauce that can make our books so all-consuming that readers miss their subway stops, consider calling in sick for work, and burn the casserole.

Why? Well, in deep POV, there’s no distance between the reader and the character. The reader experiences the world through the character’s mind, body, and senses. They hear the character’s voice. It’s personal and intimate. This means readers form a stronger connection to the characters and they have to know what happens to them.

It also means that everything is filtered through the character before readers receive it. Nothing is objective. The character is interpreting the story for us in the same way that we interpret what happens in our lives. That means that in deep POV even the “less exciting” parts like description become exciting because they show emotion and personality.

So let’s look at two ways we can develop deep POV in our writing…

Show the Emotion, Don’t Tell It

This works to suck the reader in because we’re feeling an emotion rather than being told about an emotion. If I tell you that I’m sad, or feeling guilty, or scared, you’re not going to feel much. There’s too much distance. It’s too cold and flat.

If you’re brought in so close that my sadness or guilt or fear becomes real to you, maybe even reminds you of when you felt those emotions, now you’re feeling it too.

Let’s take an example.

Telling: Jennifer was sad because of the death of her daughter. She went into the little girl’s room and threw one of her favorite toys against the wall, shattering it.

Even an empath wouldn’t feel anything from the shallow Telling version.

Deep POV (Showing): Jennifer stood face to face with the delicate porcelain doll Ellie idolized too much to even play with. The doll stared back, her face held in an immortal smile, mocking. No doll deserved to live longer than the little girl who owned her. Jennifer snatched the doll from the shelf and heaved her toward the far wall. The doll’s head exploded like a car bomb, fragments flying everywhere.

In the Deep POV version, this is now a specific, nuanced sadness. It’s how Jennifer experiences her sadness. Jennifer isn’t just sad. She’s also angry, maybe even a little bitter. That’s very different from a character who is sad and guilty, or a character who is sad…but also a little bit relieved.

Use Description as a Way to Increase Tension, Heighten Emotion, and Reveal Personality

How many times have you skimmed over a description that read something like this?

Jennifer ducked into the only other room in the apartment—a bedroom. It had a Captain’s bed, an end table butted up to the bedside, and big windows along one wall. Ugly orange and green curtains covered the windows from the top to three inches off the floor. To one side was a tiny, doorless bathroom. She had nowhere to hide, and if he found her here, he’d kill her.

Yawn. I almost fell asleep writing it. I’ve described the room, but it’s a boring description because these are the objective facts. There aren’t any opinions to go along with it. There’s no personality.

Let’s try this again in deep POV. This time I’m going to weave the description in among the action (when Jennifer would naturally pay attention to each item) and let Jennifer tell it in her voice.

Jennifer careened into the only other room in the apartment—a bedroom. The unmade bed was one of those Captain styles with drawers underneath that she’d always associated with kids, not adults. No place to hide there.

Out in the main room, the rattle of a chain marked him locking the door behind him.

She spun in a circle. The only door other than the one she came in led to a tiny bathroom. Without a door. What kind of a person didn’t at least hang up a curtain? She glanced inside. Or a shower curtain for crying out loud.

A clatter on the kitchen countertop. Probably keys and a cell phone being emptied from a pocket. If he was like most people, his next stop would be the bathroom. And he’d catch her. And she’d be dead.

She skittered back to the orange-and-green pinstriped curtains that looked like rejects from the second-hand store her Aunt Bertie owned in the 80s. She ducked behind. Her feet stuck out the bottom. If he didn’t look down…please God let him not look down.

We now have a description of the bedroom that not only shows us the facts but also adds to the tension and hints at the personalities of both Jennifer and the man who owns this bedroom.

That’s the way deep POV makes description—and everything else—interesting.

***Thank you, Marcy. And, as a correction…

I was wrong, you CAN buy Deep POV on Amazon…well at least a good book about it.

Please check out Marcy’s book Deep Point of View on Amazon (and on Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks, and Kobo too). It’s available in print and ebook, and it’ll help you learn how to rock deep POV!

The post Want a Page-Turner? You Need Deep POV appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image courtesy of Jules Morgan via Flickr Creative Commons

Yes today is odd. Posting on a Sunday. We are headed into Spring Break and yeah…hard to maintain my usual schedule. Today we’re going to dive deeper into deep POV and then, later in the week, I am going to bring you guys an expert on deep POV .

Will be fun.

To accomplish “deep POV” yes, there are style changes we can make, like removing as many tags as we can and ditching extraneous sensing and thinking words. But deep POV is more than just tight writing, it’s also strongly tethered to characterization. Good characterization.

It is essential to know our cast if we hope to successfully write “deep POV.”

KNOW Your Cast

There are all kinds of ways to get to know our characters. I often write detailed character backgrounds before starting a story so it doesn’t become a fish head.

Why we need to know our characters is that deep POV is a reflection of the inner self, how that character sees the world, responds, evades, processes, etc. It is also a reflection of personal history and relationship dynamics.

*cue brain cramp* *hands paper bag*

It’s okay. Breathe. We’re going to unpack this.

Reflection of the Character

Image via Flickr Creative Commons. Bansky’s “Peaceful hearts Doctor” courtesy of Eva Blue.

Back when I used to run a weekly workshop, I had writers do a little exercise to help them learn POV and also strengthen character-building skills. I gave this scenario:

We have a family of four—Mom, Dad, a grandparent (either gender) and a teen (either gender) who has spent a year saving for a family vacation. On the way to their destination, the vehicle breaks down. What happens and tell it from the perspective of EACH family member.

Every week, writers showed with the perspective of one of the four. We had ASTONISHING creativity.

Who These Characters ARE Changes the Story AND Deep POV

When we layer in some background, the characters (and consequently the story, problems and conflict) all change drastically.

What if dad is finally home from his forth tour in Afghanistan and has terrible PTSD?

What if Mom is a closet alcoholic?

What if the teen is recently in remission from Leukemia?

What if Grandma is a tireless flirt who’s antics got her turned into a vampire and the family can’t understand why Granny wants to travel only at night?

What if the teen is an asthmatic and forgot his inhaler?

What if Granddad has early on-set Alzheimer’s?

What if the teen has been recruited for a mandatory deep space mission by the New Earth government and will never see the family again?

What if the teen was adopted and the purpose for the trip was to meet the child’s birth mother? How would this impact the emotions of those in the vehicle?

What if there used to be TWO children and one had died in an accident a year previously?

Do you see how by changing WHO these people are, this cannot HELP but affect everything else?

If Dad has PTSD, he might jump at every lump of roadkill because that’s how insurgents hide IEDs. If the family is stranded and Mom can’t get to a liquor stash, she might start getting belligerent or, left too long, start going through DTs. What would an addict notice? Likely nothing beyond how to get a fix.

While a kid in remission with a new lease on life might enjoy being broken down in the middle of nowhere (appreciating the little things in life) the addict would be hysterical.

All of this will impact Deep POV because we are in the HEAD and EMOTIONS of the character.

Let’s pick on Mom for an illustration. I’m riffing this, so the writing is just an illustration. Just roll with it.

Geiko Caveman.

Kidding! Lighten up. You seem tense.

Example One:

Fifi clutched the baby picture, the one she’d carried everywhere for fifteen years. She hated she was happy the old van had finally given out. Her husband stared, bewildered at the smoking engine. Other than car trouble, he seemed fine. Fine. How can he be fine?

She glanced back at her daughter, the living reflection her of all her dreams and failures. She’d wanted a baby more than life. Every night on a freezing floor. One miscarriage after another and then came a tiny bundle of everything she’d ever longed for.

That woman hadn’t wanted her. That woman had abandoned her. That woman was Gretchen’s real mother and now Gretchen wanted to meet her. Real mother, like hell. And I’m a real astronaut.

How had she failed? If she’d been a good mother, Gretchen would have forgotten that woman and they wouldn’t be here.

“You okay?” Her daughter bent between the seats and kissed her cheek. “You said this was okay, that we could do this. You’re sure, right?” A wary smile revealed new braces, the braces Fifi paid for with money she’d saved for a new van.

“I’m fine, Honey.” She crumpled the baby picture and opened the van door. She needed air.

***

Example Two:

Fifi clutched the baby picture, the one her daughter had given her a week ago for Mother’s Day when they picked her up from rehab. Ninety days clean. At least that was the lie she’d packed along with her swimsuit and the hairspray can with the secret compartment and the only pills they hadn’t found.

The pills that were now gone.

They should have already been at the resort, the one staffed with eager friends willing to help her out. Friends with first names only who took cash and asked no questions.

Fifi scratched at her arms. Millions of insects boiled beneath her skin, invaded her nerve endings and chewed them to bleeding bits. Pain like lightning struck her spine, the section crushed then reconstructed. Pain like lightning spidered her brain, frying her thoughts. She glanced again at the baby picture, then at the fine young woman in back. Her daughter Gretchen.

What am I doing?

Maybe she would be okay. Maybe she hadn’t had enough pills to completely undo her. Maybe she could ride this out. And maybe I’m the Queen of England.

Gretchen bent between the seats and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, Mom. You okay?”

Tears clotted her throat. She nodded. “Yes, I’m fine, Honey.”

“You mean it?”

She hesitated then smiled. “Yes. Yes I do.”

She tucked the baby picture in her shirt pocket, close to her heart and opened the van door. She needed air. She also needed to change their plans. Visit somewhere with no friends. With no one who took cash.

Do you see how changing WHO Fifi is changes everything? Everything she is sensing, feeling, thinking. Being in the emotions of a heartbroken mother who feels betrayed is a very different experience from being in the head of a sympathetic addict who’s struggling to get clean and stay clean.

***

Both women are impacted by the daughter. One Fifi is hurt by the daughter, the other Fifi finds hope in the daughter. Both women are conflicted. One is tormented with feelings of failure and betrayal and the other is tormented by failure, but very real physical problems of addiction that impact the story.

Deep POV has thrust us into the head and emotions of both women. We feel what they feel. The author is invisible because there are no tags. The sensations are raw and visceral because we have gotten rid of the coaching words.

Instead of:

Fifi felt millions of insects boiling beneath her skin….

We get right to it.

Millions of insects boiled beneath her skin…

The sensation is CLOSER. There is no psychic distance. She isn’t thinking she is going to lose it. She isn’t wondering if she can keep it together. She is experiencing everything real-time and up-close.

Instead of:

Fifi thought, What am I doing?

She just does. We KNOW Fifi is thinking because we are camped in her head.

Deep POV is Akin To Method Acting

Couldn’t resist. I LOVE “Tropic Thunder”!

When we know our characters, who they are, how they came to be, the formative experiences, what they want from life, etc. we can then crawl in that skin and become that person. By us becoming that character, we then have the power to transport our reader into the skins we have fashioned.

I hope this helps you guys understand the magical, mystical deep POV and now you’re all excited about writing stronger characters. What are your thoughts?

Before we go, I want to give you a heads up especially if you are thinking on attending a conference.

I’m holding my ever-popular Your Story in a Sentence class. Can you tell what your book is about in ONE sentence? If you can’t? There might be a huge plot problem. This also helps if you are ever going to query or pitch an agent. The first ten signups get their log-line shredded by MOI for FREE.

Also speaking of FREE, I’d like to mention again the new class I am offering!

How and WHY are we using FREE!?

Making Money with FREE! As a bonus for this class, my friend Jack Patterson who’s so far sold over 150,000 books to come and teach us how to ROCK the newsletter. This is in excess of two hours of training and the recording (as always) comes with purchase.

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of MARCH, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel.

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post Getting in Character—Deep POV Part Two appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Mike Licht

If you are a writer who has a goal of selling books it is wise to remember that audiences are not static. They change. Their tastes change with the times and we need to understand what is “trending” if we want to connect and entertain. Many new writers look to the classics for inspiration and there isn’t anything per se wrong with that, but we must reinvent the classics, not regurgitate them.

Even if you look at the fashion trends, sure some styles “come back around” but they are not exact replicas of the past. They are a modernized version. But keep in mind that some fashion styles never come back. They’ve outlived their usefulness and belong in the past. Same with fiction.

Story trends and fashions change along with the audience. For instance, Moby Dick spends an excruciatingly long time talking about whales, namely because the audience of the time probably had never seen one and never would. If we did this today? Sure, feel free to walk around in a literary gold-plated cod piece, but er…

Yes, awkward.

Epics were also very popular. Follow a character from the womb until death. FANTASTIC STUFF! Why? Because no one had HBO, Pinterest or Angry Birds. Books were a rare indulgence usually reserved for a handful of literate folks with the money or connections to get their hands on…a book.

Also, since writers were paid by the word, their works were padded more than a freshman term paper. Their motto? No modifier left behind. These days? We have to write leaner, meaner, faster and cleaner.

We’ve talked about POV before, and which one might be the best for your story. I can’t choose for any of you, but before we talk about deep POV, I want to mention that POV is also affected by audience and I believe is a direct reflection of how connected we are as a society.

You guys may or may not know that POV has changed along with communication and connectedness. Waaaaay back in the day, omniscient with a god-like narrator was all the rage. But people didn’t travel at all. Most humans lived and died in the place they were born and in isolation from other communities.

With the early epics, we often had a narrator who was separate from the events.

Dear Reader, come with me for a tale of AWESOME…

Later, after the Dark Ages, people got out more, traveled more, etc. We see the narrator merging into just general god-like presence. Then, after the printing press was invented, more and more people were reading and a lot of monks were out of a job and went off to start the first microbreweries.

Don’t argue. It’s history .

Image via kcxd courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

With pamphlets and papers, people became more engaged and journalism eventually gives birth to this new-fangled invention…first-person. Third person and third-person shifting only became popular after audiences grew accustomed to radio programs (and later television) and could mentally process the idea of a cut-to scene.

As people became networked closer and closer, we see the psychic distance closing. Now that we are a culture of reality TV and social media? Omniscient is a tough sell. I am not telling any of you what POV to choose, but I will say that modern readers will shy away from these older forms of POV because they “feel cold.” Modern readers LOVE being as close as possible, ergo my little side-trip through history.

And this is where we get *drum roll* deep POV.

You hear this word flung around the writing world. Oooh, deep POV. That is deep POV. Deep, Man.

Um, what is deep POV?

And, if you are like me, you go along and are too embarrassed to ask what the heck deep POV is? Everyone wants it. Readers love it. Uh, but what IS it? How do I do it? Can I order some off Amazon?

Deep POV is simply a technique that strips the author voice completely out of the prose. There is no author intrusion so we are left only with the characters. The reader is nice and snuggly in the “head” of the character.

Okay, clear as mud. Right? Right.

As an editor, I see the intrusion much more than authors. It is actually shocking how much you guys interrupt. In fact, you are like my mother chaperoning my first date who would swear she was quiet as a mouse.

NOT.

I actually like deep POV because I love tight prose. I loathe unnecessary words. Deep POV not only leans up the writing, it digs deeper into the mental state of the character. We probably aren’t going to stay completely in deep POV, but it’s a nice place to call “home.”

How do we do it? Today, for the sake of brevity, we are just going to talk about simple stylistic changes, not the actual writing. We will do that next time .

First, Ditch the Tags

Just using the word “said” tells the reader we (the author) are there.

Kristen’s Made-Up Example (don’t judge me, just roll with it)

“No, I always love it when you drop by,” she said. Fifi felt her hands start to shake. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder and saw that the street was deserted. She knew all of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. She thought, He is going to kill me.

Okay, so we get that Fifi is in a bad spot. But just that little word said tells us the author is present. So in the next layer we are going to remove the said.

While We Are Here? Thought and Sense Words—Ditch Those, Too

If we really pause and think about it, thought and sense words are frequently redundant. If we are IN the character’s head? We KNOW she is thinking. Who else would be thinking?

We aren’t dumb. Yes, it is my personal opinion, but I feel sensing and thinking words often qualify as holding the reader’s brain. We don’t need to. Readers are pretty smart.

Let’s look at my made-up example.

“No, I always love it when you drop by.” Fifi felt her hands start to shake. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder and saw that the street was deserted. She knew all of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. She thought, He is going to kill me.

So we ditched the said and that tightened it up. Did you notice how losing the tag tightened the psychic distance? Now let’s remove these stubborn stains  unnecessary sensing and thinking words.

***Also, try to ditch any “starting to”.  Do or do not, there is no try starting to.

“No, I always love it when you drop by.” Fifi’s hands shook. She glanced over Tom’s shoulder. The street was deserted. All of her neighbors had already gone out of town for Christmas and no one would hear her scream. He is going to kill me.

Do you see how just getting rid of those excess words upped the tension of this piece? We (the reader) go from being a distant observer to being in the potentially deadly situation. We don’t need to tell the reader Fifi is thinking or feeling or about to do something. The reader gets that and us putting in glowing directional arrows is a distraction.

Fifi felt Tom’s hands clamp around her throat.

Just get to it already!

Tom’s hands clamped around her throat.

So I hope this helps clear up some of your “deep POV” questions. Remember that we live in a culture that is spoiled with intimacy and we can give them what they love. Next time, we will discuss characterization and how to write in deep POV beyond the stylistic choices.

Before we go, I want to give you a heads up especially if you are thinking on attending a conference.

I’m holding my ever-popular Your Story in a Sentence class. Can you tell what your book is about in ONE sentence? If you can’t? There might be a huge plot problem. This also helps if you are ever going to query or pitch an agent. The first ten signups get their log-line shredded by MOI for FREE.

Also speaking of FREE, I’d like to mention again the new class I am offering!

How and WHY are we using FREE!?

Making Money with FREE! As a bonus for this class, my friend Jack Patterson who’s so far sold over 150,000 books to come and teach us how to ROCK the newsletter. This is in excess of two hours of training and the recording (as always) comes with purchase.

Were you confused what deep POV was and why people all wanted one? Is it really much easier than you imagined? Do you silently wish the bustle would come back into style?

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of MARCH, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel.

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post Introducing Deep POV—WTH IS It? Can We Buy Some on Amazon? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.