Writing rules tend to make newbies break out in hives. New writers, as I once did, believe that the word ‘rules’ automatically implies creativity is somehow stymied and worry the art will not flow.

Today, hopefully, I’ll show you not only why writing rules are so important, but why the rules are not necessarily about us. Like all creators, we are building ‘something’ that first and foremost serves a function.

Art is function’s partner.

One can, for instance, build a glorious bridge that is, in effect, a work of art. But, if people cannot use the bridge to cross over a body of water or canyon without risk of falling to their deaths, the art is a failure.

Take the Hyatt Regency Walkway collapse. Two overhead walkways made of concrete and glass, filled with partygoers, crashed onto a tea dance in the lobby, killing 114 and injuring 216. Catastrophic design failure.

The rush to complete the project, skip protocols, and ignore certain guidelines led to one of the nation’s deadliest structural failures.

Whether it is a house, a building, a roadway, a car, creators design all these things with intent and function in mind. Designers have to anticipate HOW the user will engage with their creation to anticipate design.

Design, function and art all go together.

Granted, a story isn’t a building or bridge or a road, or is it? If we fail to appreciate certain guidelines, that could mean story death, as in readers give up.

Story is a house for the imagination, a bridge from the author’s creation to the mind of the reader, a road audiences follow to meet people and explore worlds never before conceived.

Rules Create the Experience

I’m pretty sure the least fun part of designing a beautiful bridge or skyway is doing all that math to test load-bearing capacities and tensile strength. Then, triple checking contractors to make sure they’re following along with guidelines.

Why not just do the FUN things? Think of a one of those future cars. As space age as they might look, do they not all need seats? Seatbelts? A steering wheel (or something comparable)?

Brakes? Would really suck to drive 180 mph and not be able to stop. Wait, how can one drive 180 mph with no way to accelerate? Need an engine or some form of propulsion.

And, no matter how ‘out there’ car designers get, they have to be somewhat careful. Make the design too weird, change too many standard functions at one time, and drivers won’t care how it looks.

It’s too bizarre to be any fun.

Rules are for the USER, not the DESIGNER.

This is why, if we look at buildings today, they all have a foundation, walls, ceiling, etc. Same with cars and airplanes and bridges. Even if we look at their earliest forms, the modern person (or toddler) would recognize a Model-T as a car, a biplane as an airplane and a fancy suspension bridge as a bridge. We would also ALL know their purpose, no matter how ugly or lovely.

But y’all might be thinking, “These examples aren’t art! Art is subjective!“

Okay, fair point.

I played clarinet for almost five years and my favorite was jazz. A lot of improvisation goes into jazz. But, have y’all ever heard a kid learning to PLAY a clarinet?

It sounds like someone is waterboarding a goose. No joke.

I had to learn how to position my mouth (embouchure) which is different for every type of instrument. Then, I needed to learn how to read music, learn to make the notes, the proper fingering to get the right key, how and when to breathe, on and on.

Granted, I did NOT have to learn how to read music (especially for jazz). Many musicians don’t, but they STILL follow the RULES.

I could improvise all day but if, beneath my ‘jazz’, there wasn’t at least some loose sense of musical structure, how well would I fare? What if I honked like an injured water fowl? If I was constantly off key?

Who would listen to my ‘jazz’? Better still, who would think it was ‘art’?

Writing Rules are for the Reader

In my post On Writing: Why Mastery Should Matter to Authors, commenter Sonja Tyson had an excellent question.

And Sonja, don’t be embarrassed because this is an EXCELLENT question, one so good I am devoting the next posts to answer it. In the interest of time, we’ll parse out my answers.

I remember asking the same exact question when I was new. Unfortunately, I was also VERY rebellious and a know-it-all, which was bad. It made me (for far too long) an unteachable a$$hat.

It was only after years of half-finished manuscripts and shredded pages from critique groups (who, back then actually had real honest to God published authors), that I finally humbled up.

What I failed to understand in my writing youth was…say it again?

The rules were not for ME, they were for the reader.

The rules, like the component parts of what we call a ‘car’, assisted in the experience.

I—me, personally—knew every character in my story. I’d created them, knew their backstories, their secrets, their issues. I had cried when they suffered, laughed at their witty dialogue, glowed with pride when they finally found true love or whatever.

The problem was, while I knew and understood ALL these things, the reader didn’t.

I’d been playing what I’ve dubbed as Literary Barbies (or Literary G.I. Joe for those who prefer). I had envisioned a world as rich as stepping on a holodeck—only for a party of one.

While my ‘novel’ made sense in MY head, everyone else was lost. No matter how much wordsmithery I put into that manuscript, it didn’t matter because I confused my audience.

The point of a novel is to take the reader on a journey, and if the reader falls out of our method of conveyance on page 10, they won’t BE THERE for our AWESOME ending on page 300.

So today, we will focus on POV, since most newbies have no clue what it is, how to use it or even that POV is the core way readers ‘follow’ our story. We need to understand what makes sense to them on an intuitive level (as in BRAIN STRUCTURE stuff).

Writing Rules about Perspective

Some of you have heard this story but it bears repeating. When I finished my first ‘novel’ it was—I am NOT kidding—187,000 words. I literally remember thinking, “Well, this seems long enough. The End.” Two massive red flags there we’ll talk about in a different post.

I finally decided to join a writing group so they could, you know, clean up the scant few typos I might have had, or any punctuation errors *hair flip* .

Aaand…they slaughtered me.

One of the main notes that critiquers kept scribbling across my pages was ‘POV.’ All I ever saw was POV, POV, POV, POV.

Me: What IS THAT? Like Prisoners of Vietnam?

Finally, after weeks of getting POV scrawled across my pages, I rallied the courage to ask one of the senior writers what the heck POV was.

Point of View.

Through which character’s perspective is the reader experiencing the story? I have an oldie but goodie post of Point of View and why POV Prostitution (a.k.a. head-hopping) is bad for those who want further explication beyond I’m giving here.

POV is the most fundamental ‘writing rule’ we must understand if we want readers to not only want to set out on a journey, but finish it and love the experience. We must ‘follow the reader’ in that we need to think through their perspective not just ours.

How is the reader being fed information? What details are important? Who’s story is it? Why is this a story worth money, time, and attention?

The Basic P.O.V. Choices

POV offers a way that readers can follow our story. We (as the writers) choose the method of conveyance (POV). All POVs operate differently, but, if we don’t understand how they work or why we might choose one POV over another, then we run into problems.

Writing Rules for First-Person

Uses the pronouns ‘I/me/mine/my’ and is the most psychologically intimate of the perspectives. Which is why it’s been a super popular choice for the social media generation who’s used to being all up in someone’s biz.

First-Person breaks into two camps: The I Remember When and the Come Along with Me. Other than beating the hell out of the pronoun, ‘I’, this is where most writers will run into trouble.

***Nods to my earliest mentor, Saint Bob Mayer who taught me this and a lot of other stuff. He also managed not to murder Newbie Me.

In the I Remember When version, the verbs are all past-tense. Story is a recollection. The reader can relax, somewhat, because the narrator had to have survived whatever happened in order to be able to relay the story back to an audience.

Conversely, in the Come Along with Me, the reader doesn’t know what is going to happen because even the narrator doesn’t know what is going to happen.

These are SUPER EASY to accidentally jumble together. Verb tense is critical. The reader wants to know if they are in the past or in present.

I walked up the old gravel path that led to the family graveyard where more than bodies were buried.

I walk up to the family graveyard where more than bodies are buried.

Writing Rules for Third-Person

Third-Person Locked: This is where POV is through one character through the entire book and will use proper names or pronouns he, she, they, etc.

Rachel walked up the old gravel path that led to the old family graveyard where more than bodies were buried. She couldn’t believe it had come to this.

In this example, the entire story will be through the perspective of the MC, Rachel. If she cannot see or experience it through one of the five senses, then you’ve broken POV.

Third-Person Shifting: This is when we have more than one POV character who gets to hold the camera, but only in THAT POV CHARACTER’S scene.

There must be a clean break, then hand over the camera. Otherwise, readers can get confused. Same rules apply to each POV character as third-person locked.

Writing Rules for Omniscient POV

This is when GOD gets to hold the camera. Omniscient POV is very useful in epic battle scenes when a POV down on the ground or in the fray of space would become too confusing.

It makes it easier for, say, a reader to know which battle forces are surging or retreating. You (the author) can also sprinkle in information a character has no way of knowing.

NYTBSA Bob Mayer does this brilliantly in his Area-51 series. He’ll dip briefly into omniscient when explaining facts the reader needs to know about ancient Egypt (but that a character is unlikely to know). It’s efficient and seamless and the reader doesn’t notice.

Which takes mad skills to do well. It is imperative we understand the writing rules of how, why, and when to use this POV. We can’t just do a bunch of head-hopping and claim it’s omniscient.

Ken Follet is another master at wielding omniscient POV. Check out his epic historical drama Pillars of the Earth.

There are, however, problems with omniscient. First, it is a bugger to write without devolving into head-hopping. Secondly, while it used to be very fashionable before the 20th century, it comes across as cold and emotionally distant to the modern reader. Thus, it can be subconsciously off-putting.

Thirdly, did I mention it’s a bugger to write?

***For the record, I am teaching a never-before-taught class on WORLD-BUILDING and we’ll parse omniscient in that class.

The Odd Duck…Second Person

This POV is the rarest of all. This is why knowing the rules helps us break the rules and create art. In 2nd person POV, the pronoun is you. It’s very…creepy. The audience feels either lectured, attacked, or invaded.

Caroline Kepnes harnessed this bizarre POV to write the mega successful book-and-now-Netflix-series, You which is about a Joe, a bookstore clerk who fixates on a NYC writing student to the point of deadly obsession. Here is the second sentence in the opening…

You gotta admit, second-person WORKS. It is seriously unsettling, which is perfect for the genre/story.

Head-Hopping

Quick example:

Rachel walked up the old gravel path, her sky blue eyes unfocused, red from crying. Walter was waiting in the family crypt, garrote in hand. His stomach roiled at the thought of killing her. She was a part of him. But there were larger things at stake. She couldn’t uncover his secret. Rachel needed to know, to understand why her sister’s funeral had been so rushed. Had someone paid off the M.E.? Wouldn’t be the first time her father pulled political strings to get away with murder.

First of all, according to writing rules, unless Rachel is holding a mirror, she can’t see her own eyes. Then, she doesn’t know about Walter hiding in the crypt, so we are suddenly in his head. Then we are suddenly back in Rachel’s head. While the story is intriguing, this is where a reader would start to get confused.

Who’s head are we in? Is Walter her father or someone else? If we do this long enough, it can very easily frustrate the reader. If story is mental conveyance, a journey into an imaginary world, then this can be a miserable ride. The reader will get motion sickness and quit.

Then, all the art in the world doesn’t matter if no one finishes the book.

See, the AUTHOR knows who is whom and what is what, but POV is designed to deliver the author’s world into the reader’s imagination.

If we fail to follow the reader (what their experience will be) we can unwittingly strap them into Hell’s Tilt-A-Whirl.

Writing Rules for POV & Art of POV

Earlier, I mentioned Caroline Kepnes, and how, because she understood the strengths and weaknesses of second-person POV, she could use that for art.

Though this next technique was almost unheard of before 2000, it has become very common in the past ten years. When we understand each POV and what it offers, we can blend different POVs.

Author GENIUS T. Jefferson Parker used a mixture of third-person and first-person in his novel, and Book 3 of his Charlie Hood series, Iron River.

WHY? His MC is in third-person, but the antagonist is in first-person. Jeff wanted the reader to feel deep and profound empathy for a good person doing the wrong things for what he believed to be the right reasons.

By using first-person, the reader connects more intimately with the antagonist because we (the reader) are the antagonist for a good portion of the book (I, me, I, me).

You might also want to mix POVs to hide the identity of a killer, terrorist, bad guy. Helps in a mystery. It is also great for creating an unreliable narrator.

I hope I have demonstrated here how rules beget the art. And, maybe some of you might play around with different POVs and combinations. Just remember, the more POVs you have, the longer your book will be.

It takes time for the reading audience to care about a character, so they will need enough ‘story’ to get to know and give a fig what happens.

What Are Your Thoughts on Writing Rules?

Do you feel a little better about the ‘writing rules’? Can you see how deviating too far would confuse the reader? I love hearing your thoughts, ideas and questions!

See, Sonja! Ask and you shall have!

I am all for you guys being creative. Break writing rules! It is how we get new and amazing forms of expression. Just bear in mind that you have to ‘follow the reader’ and envision HOW they’ll experience your world.

I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!

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).

May’s Winner and thank you for your patience. Winner is michaelbillington9 so please send your pages to kristen at wana intl dot com. A page is 250 words a page. You can go a little over just don’t get crazy, LOL. Double spaced, Times New Roman and one-inch margins. Please put CONTEST WINNER in all caps so I SEE it!

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The post Writing Rules: How & Why We Play ‘Follow the Reader’ appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Original image via Flickr Creative Commons courtesy of Sodanie Chea

Kristen has foolishly graciously handed her blog over to me today while she is recovering from the flu and is locked up in her NaNoWriMo cave.

But Marcy! I don’t want to go on the cart! 

*swats Kristen*

If she hits her word count, we can slide a gluten-free brownie to her through the bars later to get rid of the taste of that horrible Mucinex.

But I feel HAPPY! I think I can go for a walk!

Um, one minute. *hushed voice* Fine, you don’t have to go on the cart but get off Facebook and back to writing and let me do the blog for you so you can rest and write. Okay?

But I just—

Cart? *stern face*

Yes ma’am. But could you please get Jami Gold to stop tweeting BRING OUT YOUR DEAD! It’s freaking me out. I think she has it automated with my name in it.

If you would get off Twitter and write, Jami wouldn’t be bothering you, would she?

*sticks out tongue and slinks off with blankie* I WANT BROWNIES! *slams door*

Oh, sorry about that. She’ll be fine. Where were we?

Since Kristen is in captivity, that means no one is around to stop us, so I think it’s time to pull back the wizard’s curtain and reveal a secret to POV. For those who may not know, POV stands for point of view and almost always should be limited to one character at a time or things get very confusing.

Why POV is vital for your story is this is how you are going to slip your reader ever so subtly into the skin of your characters. Get your readers so comfortable they never want to leave. When we make POV errors? It shatters the fictive dream. That is why getting really good at POV is vital. We must maintain the magic.

Here’s the secret that a lot of writers don’t realize about POV.

Many point-of-view errors are simply the flip side of telling rather than showing.

What is telling when we’re writing about our viewpoint character becomes a POV error when we’re writing about a non-viewpoint character. So if we understand the difference between telling and showing, we’ll be better prepared to also spot point-of-view errors.

It’s almost as cool as being able to juggle plates while circling a hula hoop. (Actually, I’d settle for being able to do either of those alone. Tips anyone?)

Let me give you a little refresher on showing and telling first before I explain how telling and POV errors are dopplegangers.

Showing vs. Telling

Showing happens when we let the reader experience things for themselves, through the perspective of the characters. It presents evidence to the reader and allows them to draw their own conclusions, while telling dictates a conclusion to the reader, telling them what to believe. Telling states a fact.

Bob was angry dictates a conclusion. It’s telling.

But what was the evidence?

Bob punched his fist into the wall. (This is showing.)

The Black Plague ravaged the country dictates a conclusion. It’s telling.

But what was the evidence?

We could describe men loading dead bodies covered in oozing sores onto a wagon. Our protagonist could press a handkerchief filled with posies to her nose and mouth as she passes someone who’s drawing in ragged, labored breaths. Either of those details, or many others, would show the Black Death ravaging the country.

(If you want to learn more about showing and telling, you might want to take a look at another post I wrote for Kristen about How Star Trek Helps Us with Showing Rather than Telling.)

So How Does This Help Us Catch POV Errors Again?

POV errors happen any time we’re in a limited point of view where we’re supposed to stay inside one viewpoint character at a time and we write something that our viewpoint character couldn’t know, wouldn’t have experienced, or wouldn’t be thinking about.

At first this doesn’t sound like it has much of anything to do with showing vs. telling. Which means it’s time for some examples so we can see it in action. I’ll put the POV error/telling parts of our examples in bold.

Eric was too angry to listen to any more.

When Eric is our viewpoint character, this is telling. We’ve told the reader that he’s angry. We haven’t shown his anger.

When Eric isn’t our viewpoint character, this is a point-of-view error. Our viewpoint character can’t know that Eric is too angry to continue to listen.

Let’s look at another one.

Kate realized she’d locked her keys in the car.

When Kate is our viewpoint character, this is telling. We’re dictating a conclusion to the reader. What do you experience? We can’t see “realized.” We don’t know how she knows her keys are locked in the car. There’s no picture here.

If Kate isn’t our viewpoint character, this is a point-of-view error. How does our viewpoint character know what Kate is realizing?

A version of this that I see all the time in my editing work is something like:

He thought about that for a minute.

If he’s our viewpoint character, we’ve told the reader he’s thinking, but we’re not showing them the content of his thoughts.

If he’s not our viewpoint character, there’s no way the viewpoint character can know what he’s thinking about or even that he’s thinking at all.

Final one.

Elizabeth went to the woodshed to get the axe.

When Elizabeth is our viewpoint character, this is telling. We’re told why she planned to go to the woodshed, but we don’t see her actually get the axe.

When Elizabeth isn’t our viewpoint character, this is a point-of-view error. Our viewpoint character can’t know for sure why Elizabeth went to the woodshed. Maybe she was going in there to cry. Or maybe she planned to crawl out the back window and run away.

One of the things I love most about writing is how everything we learn works together. When we get better at one part of writing, other parts start to slide into place as well.

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

Yes, it’s Kristen. Just give me a sec before Marcy boots me out. As an editor POV is a HUGE deal. So many new writers screw this up and if you mess up POV your reader will be left feeling like she’s been strapped to Hell’s Tilt-A-Whirl. What is REALLY insidious about POV is, unless you get some training? You won’t see it because you are the creator.

So what often happens is we end up with a bunch of bored or ticked off readers who couldn’t keep in the story but even they can’t articulate WHY. Guarantee you very often the problem was POV. It one of THE most COMMON blunders even I see when I edit.

So please check out Marcy’s book and class because she is a ROCKSTAR at teaching this stuff. And now I am going back in my hole.

I WANT BROWNIES! *slams door*

Need More Help With Point of View?

Check out my book Point of View in Fiction. Point of view isn’t merely another writing craft technique. Point of view is the foundation upon which all other elements of the writing craft stand or fall.

In Point of View in Fiction, you’ll learn how to choose the right POV for your story, how to avoid POV errors, how to choose the right viewpoint character for each scene, how to know how many viewpoint characters to use, and much more.

Itís available in print and ebook format and most places (so you can grab it from Amazon, Kobo, Apple iBooks, or Barnes & Noble).

Add some LIVE teaching to go WITH that book. I’m running a W.A.N.A. International Webinar How to Master Point of View on Friday, November 20 so sign up and learn how to make story MAGIC!

The webinar will be recorded and made available to registrants, so even if you can’t make it at the scheduled time, you can sign up and listen later at your convenience.

Click here to sign up for How to Master Point of View.

Thank you Marcy!

I LOVE hearing from you, especially when I have guests which is why all comments on guest posts get double-suck-up points. Hey, Marcy is doing me a solid because yes, I am on the mend from the flu, but I still had/have the flu and Hubby is lucky he is cute for getting me sick.

To prove it and show my love, for the month of NOVEMBER, 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.

The post The Secret Ingredient for POV Magic—Capture Your Reader & Never Let Go appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

This is my Upside-Down-Face

P.O.V. is a word that throws many new authors into panic. What is THAT? Prisoners of Vietnam? Pets of Vegans? Pals of Viagra? P.O.V. stands for Point of View. Traditionally, I’ve not included this lesson in my teachings on structure, but I am amending that since P.O.V. will affect structure.

The structure of a novel written in first person is very different than a novel using multiple third-person P.O.V. characters. Scenes will need a different kind of balancing, so choosing a P.O.V. should not be taken lightly. Yes, often choice of P.O.V. will come from author voice, but not always. Sometimes genre might influence our decisions as well.

Thus, today, we are going to whiz through Kristen’s P.O.V. Spark Notes.

***Just a quick reminder though. Comment over at my new Dojo Diva blog and there is a separate contest for comments with better odds of winning my 20 page critique. We are talking about How to Be the Sheepdog. Not a wolf, not a sheep, but a sheepdog. Moving on….

Anyway…

We ALL know writing a novel is FAR from easy. We just make it look that way .

Today, I’m putting on my editor’s hat. Many of you decided to become writers because you love to write. Duh. I’ll even bet most of you, back when you were in school, also made very good grades in English. Thus, you might assume that you naturally know how to write a novel that is fit for successful publication.

Maybe you do. But, if you are anything like me when I started out? You might not know as much as you think you do.

Why?

Our high school English teacher didn’t care that we used 15 metaphors on one page. Why? Her goal was to teach us how to properly use a metaphor…NOT to prepare us for a career in commercial fiction. Same with college.

The single largest mistake I see in new manuscripts is the author does not understand P.O.V. and often this is why agents and people like me only need a page or two to know the manuscript/writer isn’t ready to publish.

This is an easy mistake to make, in that, as I stated earlier, formal education classes aren’t neccessarily there to teach us how to be great novelists. Some writers pick up on P.O.V. intuitively, but most of us need to be taught, lest we leave the reader feeling as if she is being held hostage on Hell’s Tilt-A-Whirl.

P.O.V. Prostitution (A.K.A. Head-Hopping)

Let’s step back in time to the days before we all made the decision to become writers. I would guess (hope) all of us were readers. We loved books, and books were a large part of what prompted our career choice. Ask yourself the following questions:

Have you ever tried to read a book, but eventually had to put it down because it was too confusing? You couldn’t figure out who was doing what, and you needed Dramamine to keep up with the perspectives?

Have you ever read a story that was so good you actually felt as if you had taken on the character’s skin? His success was yours, as was his failure. By the final page, you were sad to say good-bye?

P.O.V. used properly can create entire worlds, and breathe life into characters. Used improperly, it can make your reader feel like she’s been bungee-corded to Satan’s Merry-Go-Round—not good.

First, we have to know what P.O.V. is if we hope to use it to our advantage.

P.O.V. stands for Point of View.

Although this literary device is one of the most vital tools an author possesses, it is probably the number one style problem I encounter as an editor. I cannot count how many new writers (and, sadly, some not-so-new writers) give me a blank stare when I write P.O.V. in big red letters all over their manuscripts (and H.H., but we’ll get to that later).

The best way to describe point of view is to think of your story as viewed through the lens of the video camera. How many people (characters) are going to be permitted to hold that camera?

Image courtesy of Jon Gosier, via Flickr Creative Commons

Is your camera going to travel with one main character through the entire story? Or, do others get a turn? Is “God” holding the camera? These are simple questions you can answer to help you select the point of view perfect for your story.

There is no wrong P.O.V., but we do have to be consistent. P.O.V. is a HUGE factor in determining our writing voice.

What are the types of P.O.V.? What are their inherent weaknesses and strengths? For the record, this is HIGHLY redacted for the sake of time.

A quick overview:

First-Person P.O.V—uses “I” a lot. Only one character (the narrator) has the camera.

There are three disadvantages to this P.O.V.

1. This P.O.V uses a lot of “I” which can become repetitive to the point of distraction.

2. The reader can only see and hear what the narrator knows. This limits the flow of information. Probably good for a mystery, but if you aren’t writing a mystery this may not be the right P.O.V for you.

3. First-Person P.O.V is a bugger when it comes to tense. Why? Because First-Person breaks into two camps.

There is the I Remember When camp and the Come Along with Me camp.

One is in past tense, a recollection. “I remember the day my father and I were attacked by a pack of Mary Kay ladies gone feral….”

The other is in present tense, and the reader is along for the ride. “I walk these streets every morning, but today I am just waiting for something to go wrong….”

Note of Caution: It is extremely easy to mix the two camps together. Tense can be problematic…okay, a nightmare.

The benefit of First-Person? First-person P.O.V. adds an intimacy that no other P.O.V. can, and is useful for stories where we might want to withhold information from the reader.

Third-Person P.O.V—is when you, the writer, permit one or more of the characters to lug the camera through your story.

Third Person Locked allows only one character access to the camera. The entire story is told through what that particular character can experience through the 5 Senses. So, if your character’s eyes are “shining with love,” then she’d best be holding a mirror, or you are guilty of head-hopping.

Third Person Shifting allows more than one character access to the camera. Here’s the rub. Your characters must to play nice and take turns. Only one character with the camera at a time. When the next character wants a turn, there has to be a clear cut.

Think of the director’s clapboard ending one scene before shifting to the next. It is usually a good idea to limit one P.O.V. per scene. When we switch perspectives inside the same scene, that is called head-hopping, and it will confuse and frustrate our readers.

There are advantages to Third-Person Shifting:

1. It can add additional depth and insight to your story.

2. It can allow you (the writer) to hold back information and add to suspense.

3. Third-Person Shifting can allow other characters to take over during emotionally volatile points in the story.

For instance, if your protagonist walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the emotions experienced are realistically too overwhelming to be properly articulated by your protagonist. In this scenario, First-Person P.O.V might not be the best fit. The scene might be more powerful if told from someone watching this protagonist react to discovering a deceased loved one.

Ah, but there are also inherent problems with Third-Person Shifting.

1. Your characters must play nice and take turns. Otherwise, your reader will likely become confused and eventually frustrated.

2. It is best to permit camera access to key characters only. The reader has to stay in one head long enough to feel connected. Too many perspectives can easily become overwhelming and dilute the strength of your characters.

Omniscient P.O.V is when “God” gets to hold the camera.

Oh stop mucking it up and give Me the camera…

This P.O.V is like placing your camera up high over all of the action. The narrator is omnipresent and omniscient. “If Joe had only known who was waiting for him outside, he would have never left for that pack of cigarettes.”

Joe cannot experience anything beyond the 5 Senses (third-person). So, unless Joe is actually Superman and possesses X-Ray vision, it takes an omniscient presence to tell us someone bad is lurking outside waiting to do Joe harm.

There are advantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

1. Omniscient can relay information that would be far too overwhelming to describe if limited to the 5 Senses. Epic battle scenes are a good example.

2. Omniscient can give information critical to the story that the character doesn’t have to personally know. For instance, in NYTBSA Bob Mayer’s Area 51 Series (which I HIGHLY recommend), he relays a lot of factual and historical information that is critical to understanding the plot. But, it would really seem bizarre to the reader if his characters just started spouting off the history of the pyramids like an Egyptologist.

To avoid this jarring scenario, Bob used an omniscient presence to relay the information so the prose would remain remain nice and smooth and the fictive dream could stay in tact.

There are disadvantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

1. Third-Person P.O.V. and Omniscient P.O.V. are VERY easy to tangle together.

2. Omniscient P.O.V. and Head-Hopping are not the same, but are easy to confuse. I’ve edited many writers who believed they were employing Omniscient P.O.V. In reality, they were just letting every character in the book fight over the camera simultaneously, leaving me (the editor) feeling like I was trapped in the Blair Witch Project.

Proper use of P.O.V. takes a lot of practice to master. It is very easy to shift from one type of P.O.V. to another, or what I like to call “P.O.V. Prostitution” or “Head-Hopping.”

Key Points to Remember:

In First-Person—Come Along with Me stories can easily turn into I Remember When stories (or vice versa). Tense is a big red flag. Do you shift from present to past or past to present? Pay close attention to verbs.

In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting)—Characters will only play nice and take turns if you, the writer, force them to. Make sure whatever is happening in a scene is something that could be filtered through ONE character’s 5 Senses.

In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting) —“God” is really bad about grabbing your character’s camera, so keep an eye on Him. If there is suddenly information your character has no way of knowing through the 5 Senses, that is a big clue the Big Guy snagged your camera. Just remind Him nicely of commandment number eight, and ask Him to give the camera back.

In Omniscient—“God” is in charge. Be careful your wide-lens isn’t zooming in and out and making your reader dizzy in the process.

P.O.V. is one more reason it is critical for writers to read if they hope to become great authors. Read, read, read. Read all kinds of books by all kinds of authors using different P.O.V.s to see how it is done well.

EXAMPLES:

Veronica Roth brilliantly employs the first-person Come Along With Me in her Divergent trilogy. Her choice of P.O.V. gives an intimate feel no other P.O.V. can, and, since it isn’t an I Remember When story, Roth is able to maintain reader suspense.

Stephen King does a great job of using first-person in an I Remember When style in The Green Mile. King chose this P.O.V. for a very specific reason, which I will not say so as not to spoil the ending even though y’all have had like, TWENTY YEARS to read it.

Dennis Lehane does an amazing job of employing omniscient in Mystic River. If you think you might want to use omniscient, I’d recommend reading him.

James Rollins uses third-person shifting very well in The Doomsday Key. Third-shifting is generally a great P.O.V. for thrillers in that it helps manage/reveal a lot of information that the protag may or may not know.

I would recommend Jonathan Maberry’s Patient Zero: Joe Ledger Series.  I HIGHLY recommend Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker. Both these authors mixed third-limited and first-person and the effect is impressive.

P.O.V. when used properly can take a story to a whole new level. Read, experiment and practice. I know I just touched on a handful of suggestions, so feel free to add your thoughts, expound, ask questions.

Also, if you want to meet me and author and Hollywood TV/Film Producer Joel Eisenberg, we will be in Boaz, Alabama on June 15th. Joel will be doing a workshop called, “Catching Your Muse: How to Claim Your Artistic Spirit” and I will be there to help any of your social media angsts. We can also plot global domination using a weaponized Bedazzlers and trained hamsters….so REGISTER HERE.

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of JUNE, 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).

Remember, for MORE chances to win and better ODDS, also comment over at Dojo Diva. I am blogging for my home dojo and it will help the blog gain traction.

Both winners will be announced next blog. We just came in from assessing flood damage at our ranch and I haven’t had a chance to tally the winner. So stay tuned!

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 Choosing a P.O.V.—What is BEST for YOUR Story? Structure Part 9 appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Geiko Caveman.

Monday, we talked about the Three Acts of a Writer’s Journey. The first hint we might be tipping into The Apprentice Phase is we hear the word P.O.V. and panic. What is THAT? Prisoners of Vietnam? Pets of Vegans? Pals of Viagra?

We ALL know writing a novel is FAR from easy. We just make it look that way .

Today, I’m putting on my editor’s hat. Many of you decided to become writers because you love to write. Duh. I’ll even bet most of you, back when you were in school, also made very good grades in English. Thus, you might assume that you naturally know how to write a novel that is fit for successful publication.

Maybe you do. But, if you are anything like me when I started out? You might not know as much as you think you do.

Why?

Our high school English teacher didn’t care that we used 15 metaphors on one page. Why? Her goal was to teach us how to properly use a metaphor…NOT to prepare us for a career in commercial fiction. Same with college.

The single largest mistake I see in new manuscripts is the author does not understand P.O.V. and often this is why agents and people like me only need a page or two to know the manuscript/writer isn’t ready to publish.

This is an easy mistake to make, in that, as I stated earlier, formal education classes aren’t neccessarily there to teach us how to be great novelists. Some writers pick up on P.O.V. intuitively, but most of us need to be taught, lest we leave the reader feeling as if she is being held hostage on Hell’s Tilt-A-Whirl.

P.O.V. Prostitution (A.K.A. Head-Hopping)

Let’s step back in time to the days before we all made the decision to become writers. I would guess (hope) all of us were readers. We loved books, and books were a large part of what prompted our career choice. Ask yourself the following questions:

Have you ever tried to read a book, but eventually had to put it down because it was too confusing? You couldn’t figure out who was doing what, and you needed Dramamine to keep up with the perspectives?

Have you ever read a story that was so good you actually felt as if you had taken on the character’s skin? His success was yours, as was his failure. By the final page, you were sad to say good-bye?

P.O.V. used properly can create entire worlds, and breathe life into characters. Used improperly, it can make your reader feel like she’s been bungee-corded to Satan’s Merry-Go-Round—not good.

First, we have to know what P.O.V. is if we hope to use it to our advantage.

P.O.V. stands for Point of View.

Although this literary device is one of the most vital tools an author possesses, it is probably the number one style problem I encounter as an editor. I cannot count how many new writers (and, sadly, some not-so-new writers) give me a blank stare when I write P.O.V. in big red letters all over their manuscripts (and H.H., but we’ll get to that later).

The best way to describe point of view is to think of your story as viewed through the lens of the video camera. How many people (characters) are going to be permitted to hold that camera?

Image courtesy of Jon Gosier, via Flickr Creative Commons

Is your camera going to travel with one main character through the entire story? Or, do others get a turn? Is “God” holding the camera? These are simple questions you can answer to help you select the point of view perfect for your story.

There is no wrong P.O.V., but we do have to be consistent. P.O.V. is a HUGE factor in determining our writing voice.

What are the types of P.O.V.? What are their inherent weaknesses and strengths? For the record, this is HIGHLY redacted for the sake of time.

A quick overview:

First-Person P.O.V—uses “I” a lot. Only one character (the narrator) has the camera.

There are three disadvantages to this P.O.V.

1. This P.O.V uses a lot of “I” which can become repetitive to the point of distraction.

2. The reader can only see and hear what the narrator knows. This limits the flow of information. Probably good for a mystery, but if you aren’t writing a mystery this may not be the right P.O.V for you.

3. First-Person P.O.V is a bugger when it comes to tense. Why? Because First-Person breaks into two camps.

There is the I Remember When camp and the Come Along with Me camp.

One is in past tense, a recollection. “I remember the day my father and I were attacked by a pack of Mary Kay ladies gone feral….”

The other is in present tense, and the reader is along for the ride. “I walk these streets every morning, but today I am just waiting for something to go wrong….”

Note of Caution: It is extremely easy to mix the two camps together. Tense can be problematic…okay, a nightmare.

The benefit of First-Person? First-person P.O.V. adds an intimacy that no other P.O.V. can, and is useful for stories where we might want to withhold information from the reader.

Third-Person P.O.V—is when you, the writer, permit one or more of the characters to lug the camera through your story.

Um…YES.

Third Person Locked allows only one character access to the camera. The entire story is told through what that particular character can experience through the 5 Senses. So, if your character’s eyes are “shining with love,” then she’d best be holding a mirror, or you are guilty of head-hopping.

Third Person Shifting allows more than one character access to the camera. Here’s the rub. Your characters must to play nice and take turns. Only one character with the camera at a time. When the next character wants a turn, there has to be a clear cut.

Think of the director’s clapboard ending one scene before shifting to the next. It is usually a good idea to limit one P.O.V. per scene. When we switch perspectives inside the same scene, that is called head-hopping, and it will confuse and frustrate our readers.

There are advantages to Third-Person Shifting:

1. It can add additional depth and insight to your story.

2. It can allow you (the writer) to hold back information and add to suspense.

3. Third-Person Shifting can allow other characters to take over during emotionally volatile points in the story.

For instance, if your protagonist walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the emotions experienced are realistically too overwhelming to be properly articulated by your protagonist. In this scenario, First-Person P.O.V might not be the best fit. The scene might be more powerful if told from someone watching this protagonist react to discovering a deceased loved one.

Ah, but there are also inherent problems with Third-Person Shifting.

1. Your characters must play nice and take turns. Otherwise, your reader will likely become confused and eventually frustrated.

2. It is best to permit camera access to key characters only. The reader has to stay in one head long enough to feel connected. Too many perspectives can easily become overwhelming and dilute the strength of your characters.

Omniscient P.O.V is when “God” gets to hold the camera.

Oh stop mucking it up and give Me the camera…

This P.O.V is like placing your camera up high over all of the action. The narrator is omnipresent and omniscient. “If Joe had only known who was waiting for him outside, he would have never left for that pack of cigarettes.”

Joe cannot experience anything beyond the 5 Senses (third-person). So, unless Joe is actually Superman and possesses X-Ray vision, it takes an omniscient presence to tell us someone bad is lurking outside waiting to do Joe harm.

There are advantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

1. Omniscient can relay information that would be far too overwhelming to describe if limited to the 5 Senses. Epic battle scenes are a good example.

2. Omniscient can give information critical to the story that the character doesn’t have to personally know. For instance, in NYTBSA Bob Mayer’s Area 51 Series (which I HIGHLY recommend), he relays a lot of factual and historical information that is critical to understanding the plot. But, it would really seem bizarre to the reader if his characters just started spouting off the history of the pyramids like an Egyptologist.

To avoid this jarring scenario, Bob used an omniscient presence to relay the information so the prose would remain remain nice and smooth and the fictive dream could stay in tact.

There are disadvantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

1. Third-Person P.O.V. and Omniscient P.O.V. are VERY easy to tangle together.

2. Omniscient P.O.V. and Head-Hopping are not the same, but are easy to confuse. I’ve edited many writers who believed they were employing Omniscient P.O.V. In reality, they were just letting every character in the book fight over the camera simultaneously, leaving me (the editor) feeling like I was trapped in the Blair Witch Project.

Whose head am I in? I can’t tell. Help meeeee…..

Proper use of P.O.V. takes a lot of practice to master. It is very easy to shift from one type of P.O.V. to another, or what I like to call “P.O.V. Prostitution” or “Head-Hopping.”

Key Points to Remember:

In First-Person—Come Along with Me stories can easily turn into I Remember When stories (or vice versa). Tense is a big red flag. Do you shift from present to past or past to present? Pay close attention to verbs.

In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting)—Characters will only play nice and take turns if you, the writer, force them to. Make sure whatever is happening in a scene is something that could be filtered through ONE character’s 5 Senses.

In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting) —“God” is really bad about grabbing your character’s camera, so keep an eye on Him. If there is suddenly information your character has no way of knowing through the 5 Senses, that is a big clue the Big Guy snagged your camera. Just remind Him nicely of commandment number eight, and ask Him to give the camera back.

In Omniscient—“God” is in charge. Be careful your wide-lens isn’t zooming in and out and making your reader dizzy in the process.

P.O.V. is one more reason it is critical for writers to read if they hope to become great authors. Read, read, read. Read all kinds of books by all kinds of authors using different P.O.V.s to see how it is done well.

EXAMPLES:

Suzanne Collins brilliantly employs First-Person in the Come Along with Me fashion in her Hunger Games Trilogy. Her choice of P.O.V. gives an intimate feel no other P.O.V. can, and, since it isn’t an I Remember When story, Collins is able to maintain reader suspense.

Stephen King does a great job of using first-person in an I Remember When style in The Green Mile. King chose this P.O.V. for a very specific reason, which I will not say so as not to spoil the ending even though y’all have had like, TWENTY YEARS to read it.

Dennis Lehane does an amazing job of employing omniscient in Mystic River. If you think you might want to use omniscient, I’d recommend reading him.

James Rollins uses third-person shifting very well in The Doomsday Key. Third-shifting is generally a great P.O.V. for thrillers in that it helps manage/reveal a lot of information that the protag may or may not know.

I would recommend Jonathan Maberry’s Patient Zero: Joe Ledger Series.  I HIGHLY recommend Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker. Both these authors mixed third-limited and first-person and the effect is impressive.

P.O.V. when used properly can take a story to a whole new level. Read, experiment and practice. I know I just touched on a handful of suggestions, so feel free to add your thoughts, expound, ask questions.

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of NOVEMBER, 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).

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 Point of View—What IS It? How to Find the Perfect Voice for YOUR Story appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

P.O.V. Prostitution is an ugly sight.

Okay, you guys asked for more Deadly Sins of Writing, so here we go. I’m putting on my editor’s hat. Many of you decided to become writers because you love to write. Duh. I’ll even bet most of you, back when you were in school, also made very good grades in English. Thus, you might assume that you naturally know how to write a novel that is fit for NY publication. Maybe you do. But, if you are anything like me when I started out? You might not know as much as you think you do.

Why?

Our high school English teacher didn’t care that we used 15 metaphors on one page. Why? Her goal was to teach us how to properly use a metaphor…NOT to prepare us for agent submission.

As you might be able to tell from my latest posts, I think self-publishing is becoming an increasingly viable option for many writers. Yet, I also want to be forthcoming. Self-publishing is not a panacea, and there are too many writers who rush to self-publish instead of understanding why their story was being rejected. Aside from flashbacks and back-story vomit, today’s sin is probably THE biggest problem I see in most self-published books.

Generally, I can see in three pages why a manuscript was rejected by an agent. How?

There are a number of ways, and I recommend you check out one of my posts from last year, Novel Diagnostics for a detailed explanation of some of the most common newbie novelist oopses.

But, beyond that list, the single largest mistake I see in new manuscripts is the author does not understand P.O.V. This is an easy mistake to make, in that, as I stated earlier, our college English classes aren’t there to teach us how to be great novelists.

Some writers pick up on P.O.V. intuitively, but most of us need to be taught, lest we leave the reader feeling as if she is being held hostage on a Tilt-A-Whirl.

P.O.V. Prostitution (Head-Hopping)

Let’s step back in time to the days before we all made the decision to become writers. I would guess all of us were readers. We loved books, and books were a large part of what prompted our career choice. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you ever tried to read a book, but eventually had to put it down because it was too confusing? You couldn’t figure out who was doing what, and you needed Dramamine to keep up with the perspectives?
• Have you ever read a story that was so good you actually felt as if you had taken on the character’s skin? His success was yours, as was his failure. By the final page, you were sad to say good-bye?

P.O.V. used properly can create entire worlds, and breathe life into characters. Used improperly, it can make your reader feel like she’s been strapped to Hell’s Merry-Go-Round—not good.

First, you have to know what P.O.V. is if you hope to use it to your advantage.  “P.O.V. does not stand for ‘Prisoners of Vietnam,’” as author Candy Havens would say. P.O.V. stands for Point of View.

Although this literary device is one of the most vital tools an author possesses, it is probably the number one style problem I encounter as an editor. I cannot count how many new writers (and, sadly, some not-so-new writers) give me a blank stare when I write P.O.V. in big red letters all over their manuscripts (and H.H., but we’ll get to that later).

The best way to describe point of view is to think of your story as viewed through the lens of the video camera. How many people (characters) are going to be permitted to hold that camera?

Is your camera going to travel with one main character through the entire story? Or, do others get a turn? Is “God” holding the camera? These are simple questions you can answer to help you select the point of view perfect for your story.

There is no wrong P.O.V., but we do have to be consistent. P.O.V. is a HUGE factor in determining our writing voice.

What are the types of P.O.V.?

A quick overview:

First-Person P.O.V—uses “I” a lot. Only one character (the narrator) has the camera.

There are four major disadvantages to this P.O.V.

1. This P.O.V uses a lot of “I” which can become repetitive to the point of distraction.

2. The reader can only see and hear what the narrator knows. This limits the flow of information. Probably good for a mystery, but if you aren’t writing a mystery this may not be the right P.O.V for you.

3. EOEs are problematic. An EOE is an emotionally overwhelming event. If our narrator walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the scene can lose power and authenticity.

4. First-Person P.O.V is a bugger when it comes to tense. Why? Because First-Person breaks into two camps.

There is the I remember whencamp and the Come along withmecamp.

One is in past tense, a recollection. “I remember the day my father and I were attacked by a pack of Mary Kay ladies gone feral….”

The other is in present tense, and the reader is along for the ride. “I walk these streets every morning, but today I am just waiting for something to go wrong….”

Note of Caution: It is extremely easy to muddy the two camps together. Tense can be problematic…okay, a nightmare.

The benefit? First-person P.O.V. adds an intimacy that no other P.O.V. can, and is useful for stories where we might want to withhold information from the reader.

Third-Person P.O.V—is when you, the writer, permit one or more of the characters to lug the camera through your story.

Third Person Locked allows only one character access to the camera. The entire story is told through what that particular character can experience through the 5 Senses. So, if your character’s eyes are “shining with love,” then she’d best be holding a mirror, or you are guilty of head-hopping.

Third Person Shifting allows more than one character access to the camera. Here’s the rub. Your characters must to play nice and take turns. Only one character with the camera at a time. When the next character wants a turn, there has to be a clear cut. Think of the director’s clapboard ending one scene before shifting to the next.

It is usually a good idea to limit one P.O.V. per scene. When we switch perspectives inside the same scene, that is called head-hopping, and it will confuse and frustrate our readers.

There are advantages to Third-Person Shifting

1. It can add additional depth and insight to your story.

2. It can allow you (the writer) to hold back information and add to suspense.

3. Third-Person Shifting can allow other characters to take over during emotionally volatile points in the story.

For instance, looking at our earlier example, if your protagonist walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the emotions experienced are realistically too overwhelming to be properly articulated by your protagonist.

In this scenario, First-Person P.O.V is probably not a good fit. The scene could be more powerful if told from someone watching your protagonist react to discovering a deceased loved one.

There are inherent problems with Third-Person Shifting.

1. Your characters must play nice and take turns. Otherwise, your reader will likely become confused and eventually frustrated.

2. It is best to permit camera access to key characters only. The reader has to stay in one head long enough to feel connected. Too many perspectives can easily become overwhelming and dilute the strength of your characters.

Omniscient P.O.V is when “God” gets to hold the camera.

This P.O.V is like placing your camera up high over all of the action. The narrator is omnipresent and omniscient. “If Joe had only known who was waiting for him outside, he would have never left for that pack of cigarettes.” Joe cannot experience anything beyond the 5 Senses (third-person). So, unless Joe is actually Superman and possesses X-Ray vision, it takes an omniscient presence to tell us someone bad is lurking outside waiting to do Joe harm.

There are advantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

1. Omniscient can relay information that would be far too overwhelming to describe if limited to the 5 Senses. Battle scenes are a good example.

2. Omniscient can give information critical to the story that the character doesn’t have to personally know. For instance, in Bob’s Area 51 Series (which I HIGHLY recommend), he relays a lot of factual and historical information that is critical to understanding the plot. But, it would really seem bizarre to the reader if his characters just started spouting off the history of the pyramids like an Egyptologist. To avoid this jarring scenario, Bob uses an omniscient presence to relay the information so the prose remains nice and smooth.

There are disadvantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

1. Third-Person P.O.V. and Omniscient P.O.V. are VERY easy to muddy together.

2. Omniscient P.O.V. and Head-Hopping are not the same, but are easy to confuse. I have edited many writers who believed they were employing Omniscient P.O.V. In reality, they were just letting every character in the book fight over the camera simultaneously, leaving me (the editor) feeling like I was trapped in the Blair Witch Project.

Whose head am I in? I can’t tell. Help meeeee…..

Proper use of P.O.V. takes a lot of practice to master. It is very easy to shift from one type of P.O.V. to another, or what I like to call “P.O.V. Prostitution” or “Head-Hopping.”

Key Points to Remember:

• In First-Person–Come along with me stories can easily turn into I remember when stories (or vice versa). Tense is a big red flag. Do you shift from present to past or past to present? Pay close attention to verbs.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting)–Characters will only play nice and take turns if you, the writer, force them to. Make sure whatever is happening in a scene is something that could be filtered through ONE character’s 5 Senses.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting) –“God” is really bad about grabbing your character’s camera, so keep an eye on Him. If there is suddenly information your character has no way of knowing through the 5 Senses, that is a big clue the Big Guy snagged your camera. Just remind Him nicely of commandment number eight, and ask Him to give the camera back.
• In Omniscient–“God” is in charge. Be careful your wide-lens isn’t zooming in and out and making your reader dizzy in the process.

P.O.V. is one more reason it is critical for writers to read if they hope to become great authors. Read, read, read. Read all kinds of books by all kinds of authors using different P.O.V.s to see how it is done well. Here are some of my recommendations:

Suzanne Collins brilliantly employs First-Person in the Come Along with Me fashion in her Hunger Games Trilogy. Her choice of P.O.V. gives an intimate feel no other P.O.V. can, and, since it isn’t an I Remember When story, Collins is able to maintain reader suspense.

Stephen King does a great job of using first-person in an I Remember When style in The Green Mile. King chose this P.O.V. for a very specific reason, which I will not say so as not to spoil the ending.

Dennis Lehane does an amazing job of employing omniscient in Mystic River. If you think you might want to use omniscient, I’d recommend reading him.

James Rollins uses third-person shifting very well in the Doomsday Key. Third-shifting is generally a great P.O.V. for thrillers in that it helps manage/reveal a lot of information that the protag may or may not know.

I would also recommend reading Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo. She actually mixes third-limited and first-person and the effect is impressive.

P.O.V. when used properly can take a story to a whole new level. Read, experiment and practice. I know I just touched on a handful of suggestions, so feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments .

I highly recommend NY Time Best-Selling author Bob Mayer’s  The Novel Writers Toolkit for more in-depth explanation.

What is your favorite P.O.V. and why? Which ones do you like the least? Why? Have you never heard the term P.O.V. before? Does this post clear up some big questions about why your manuscript might have been having problems? Do you guys have any resources you would recommend? I want to hear from you!

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of August, 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. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

Last Week’s Winner of 5-Page Critique–Marcy Kennedy

Please send your 1250 word Word doc to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of August I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post Deadly Sin of Writing #5–P.O.V. Prostitution appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Okay, today we are going to discuss some of the finer points of writing fiction. I am putting on my editor’s hat. Many of you decided to become writers because you love to write. Duh. I’ll even bet most of you, back when you were in school, also made very good grades in English. Thus, you might assume that you naturally know how to write a novel that is fit for NY publication. Maybe you do. But, if you are anything like me when I started out? You might not know as much as you think you do.

Why?

Our high school English teacher didn’t care that we used 15 metaphors on one page. Why? Her goal was to teach us how to properly use a metaphor…NOT to prepare us for agent submission.

As you might be able to tell from my latest posts, I think self-publishing is becoming an increasingly viable option for many writers. Yet, I also want to be forthcoming. Self-publishing is not a panacea, and there are too many writers who rush to self-publish instead of understanding why their story wasn’t working. Generally, I can see in three pages why a manuscript was rejected by an agent.

How?

There are a number of ways, and I recommend you check out my earlier post, Novel Diagnostics  for a detailed explanation of some of the most common newbie novelist oopses.

But, beyond that list, the single largest mistake I see in new manuscripts is the author does not understand P.O.V. This is an easy mistake to make, in that, as I stated earlier, our college Literature classes aren’t there to teach us how to be great novelists. Some writers pick up on P.O.V. intuitively, but most of us need to be taught, lest we leave the reader feeling as if she is being held hostage on a Tilt-A-Whirl.

 POV–Prostitution (Head-Hopping)

Let’s step back in time to the days before we all made the decision to become writers. I would guess all of us were readers. We loved books, and books were a large part of what prompted our career choice. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you ever tried to read a book, but eventually had to put it down because it was too confusing? You couldn’t figure out who was doing what, and you needed Dramamine to keep up with the perspectives?
• Have you ever read a story that was so good you actually felt as if you had taken on the character’s skin? His success was yours, as was his failure. By the final page, you were sad to say good-bye?

P.O.V. used properly can create entire worlds, and breathe life into characters. Used improperly, it can make your reader feel like she’s been bungee-corded to Hell’s Merry-Go-Round—not good.

First, you have to know what P.O.V. is if you hope to use it to your advantage.  “P.O.V. does not stand for ‘Prisoners of Vietnam,’” as author Candy Havens would say. P.O.V. stands for Point of View.

Although this literary device is one of the most vital tools an author possesses, it is probably the number one style problem I encounter as an editor. I cannot count how many new writers (and, sadly, some not-so-new writers) give me a blank stare when I write P.O.V. in big red letters all over their manuscripts (and H.H., but we’ll get to that later).

The best way to describe point of view is to think of your story as viewed through the lens of the video camera. How many people (characters) are going to be permitted to hold that camera?

Is your camera going to travel with one main character through the entire story? Or, do others get a turn? Is “God” holding the camera? These are simple questions you can answer to help you select the point of view perfect for your story.

There is no wrong P.O.V., but we do have to be consistent. P.O.V. is a HUGE factor in determining our writing voice.

What are the types of P.O.V.?

A quick overview:

First-Person P.O.V—uses “I” a lot. Only one character (the narrator) has the camera.

There are three major disadvantages to this P.O.V.

1. This P.O.V uses a lot of “I” which can become repetitive to the point of distraction.

2. The reader can only see and hear what the narrator knows. This limits the flow of information. Probably good for a mystery, but if you aren’t writing a mystery this may not be the right P.O.V for you.

3. First-Person P.O.V is a bugger when it comes to tense. Why? Because First-Person breaks into two camps.

There is the I remember when camp and the Come along with me camp.

One is in past tense, a recollection. “I remember the day my father and I were attacked by a pack of Mary Kay ladies gone feral….”

The other is in present tense, and the reader is along for the ride. “I walk these streets every morning, but today I am just waiting for something to go wrong….”

Note of Caution: It is extremely easy to muddy the two camps together. Tense can be problematic…okay, a nightmare.

The benefit? First-person P.O.V. adds an intimacy that no other P.O.V. can, and is useful for stories where we might want to withhold information from the reader.

Third-Person P.O.V—is when you, the writer, permit one or more of the characters to lug the camera through your story.

Third Person Locked allows only one character access to the camera. The entire story is told through what that particular character can experience through the 5 Senses. So, if your character’s eyes are “shining with love,” then she’d best be holding a mirror, or you are guilty of head-hopping.

Third Person Shifting allows more than one character access to the camera. Here’s the rub. Your characters must to play nice and take turns. Only one character with the camera at a time. When the next character wants a turn, there has to be a clear cut. Think of the director’s clapboard ending one scene before shifting to the next. It is usually a good idea to limit one P.O.V. per scene. When we switch perspectives inside the same scene, that is called head-hopping, and it will confuse and frustrate our readers.

There are advantages to Third-Person Shifting

1. It can add additional depth and insight to your story.

2. It can allow you (the writer) to hold back information and add to suspense.

3. Third-Person Shifting can allow other characters to take over during emotionally volatile points in the story.

For instance, if your protagonist walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the emotions experienced are realistically too overwhelming to be properly articulated by your protagonist (what Bob Mayer calls an EOE–emotionally overwhelming event). In this scenario, First-Person P.O.V is probably not a good fit. The scene would be more powerful if told from someone watching your protagonist react to discovering a deceased loved one.

There are inherent problems with Third-Person Shifting.

1. Your characters must play nice and take turns. Otherwise, your reader will likely become confused and eventually frustrated.

2. It is best to permit camera access to key characters only. The reader has to stay in one head long enough to feel connected. Too many perspectives can easily become overwhelming and dilute the strength of your characters.

Omniscient P.O.V is when “God” gets to hold the camera.

Oh stop mucking it up and give Me the camera…

This P.O.V is like placing your camera up high over all of the action. The narrator is omnipresent and omniscient. “If Joe had only known who was waiting for him outside, he would have never left for that pack of cigarettes.” Joe cannot experience anything beyond the 5 Senses (third-person). So, unless Joe is actually Superman and possesses X-Ray vision, it takes an omniscient presence to tell us someone bad is lurking outside waiting to do Joe harm.

There are advantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

 1. Omniscient can relay information that would be far too overwhelming to describe if limited to the 5 Senses. Battle scenes are a good example.

2. Omniscient can give information critical to the story that the character doesn’t have to personally know. For instance, in Bob’s Area 51 Series (which I HIGHLY recommend), he relays a lot of factual and historical information that is critical to understanding the plot. But, it would really seem bizarre to the reader if his characters just started spouting off the history of the pyramids like an Egyptologist. To avoid this jarring scenario, Bob uses an omniscient presence to relay the information so the prose remains nice and smooth.

There are disadvantages to Omniscient P.O.V.

 1. Third-Person P.O.V. and Omniscient P.O.V. are VERY easy to muddy together.

2. Omniscient P.O.V. and Head-Hopping are not the same, but are easy to confuse. I have edited many writers who believed they were employing Omniscient P.O.V. In reality, they were just letting every character in the book fight over the camera simultaneously, leaving me (the editor) feeling like I was trapped in the Blair Witch Project.

Whose head am I in? I can’t tell. Help meeeee…..

Proper use of P.O.V. takes a lot of practice to master. It is very easy to shift from one type of P.O.V. to another, or what I like to call “P.O.V. Prostitution” or “Head-Hopping.”

Key Points to Remember:

• In First-Person–Come along with me stories can easily turn into I remember when stories (or vice versa). Tense is a big red flag. Do you shift from present to past or past to present? Pay close attention to verbs.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting)–Characters will only play nice and take turns if you, the writer, force them to. Make sure whatever is happening in a scene is something that could be filtered through ONE character’s 5 Senses.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting) –“God” is really bad about grabbing your character’s camera, so keep an eye on Him. If there is suddenly information your character has no way of knowing through the 5 Senses, that is a big clue the Big Guy snagged your camera. Just remind Him nicely of commandment number eight, and ask Him to give the camera back.
• In Omniscient–“God” is in charge. Be careful your wide-lens isn’t zooming in and out and making your reader dizzy in the process.

P.O.V. is one more reason it is critical for writers to read if they hope to become great authors. Read, read, read. Read all kinds of books by all kinds of authors using different P.O.V.s to see how it is done well.

Suzanne Collins brilliantly employs First-Person in the Come Along with Me fashion in her Hunger Games Trilogy. Her choice of P.O.V. gives an intimate feel no other P.O.V. can, and, since it isn’t an I Remember When story, Collins is able to maintain reader suspense.

Stephen King does a great job of using first-person in an I Remember When style in The Green Mile. King chose this P.O.V. for a very specific reason, which I will not say so as not to spoil the ending.

Dennis Lehane does an amazing job of employing omniscient in Mystic River. If you think you might want to use omniscient, I’d recommend reading him.

James Rollins uses third-person shifting very well in the Doomsday Key. Third-shifting is generally a great P.O.V. for thrillers in that it helps manage/reveal a lot of information that the protag may or may not know.

I would also recommend reading Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo. She actually mixes third-limited and first-person and the effect is impressive.

P.O.V. when used properly can take a story to a whole new level. Read, experiment and practice. I know I just touched on a handful of suggestions, so feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments .

I highly recommend NY Time Best-Selling author Bob Mayer’s  The Novel Writers Toolkit for more in-depth explanation.

What is your favorite P.O.V. and why? Which ones do you like the least? Why? Have you never heard the term P.O.V. before? Does this post clear up some big questions about why your manuscript might have been having problems? Do you guys have any resources you would recommend? I want to hear from you!

And, to prove it and show my love, for the month of February, 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. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention WANA in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel.

Happy writing!

Until next time….

In the meantime, if you don’t already own a copy, my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writers Guide to Social Media is recommended by literary agents and endorsed by NY Times best-selling authors. My method is free, fast, simple and leaves time to write more books.

Also, I highly recommend the Write It Forward Workshops. Learn all about plotting, how to write great characters, and even how to self-publish successfully…all from the best in the industry. I will be teaching on social media and building a brand in March. For $20 a workshop, you can change your destiny….all from the comfort of home.

The post P.O.V. Prostitution is Strictly Forbidden appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Let’s step back in time to the days before we all made the decision to become writers. I would guess all of us were readers. We loved books, and books were a large part of what prompted our career choice. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you ever tried to read a book, but eventually had to put it down because it was too confusing? You couldn’t figure out who was doing what, and you needed Dramamine to keep up with the perspectives?
• Have you ever read a story that was so good you actually felt as if you had taken on the character’s skin? His success was yours, as was his failure. By the final page, you were sad to say good-bye?

P.O.V. used properly can create entire worlds, and breathe life into characters. Used improperly, it can make your reader feel as if she is being held hostage on a Tilt-a-Whirl—not good.  

First, you have to know what P.O.V. is if you hope to use it to your advantage.  “P.O.V. does not stand for ‘Prisoners of Vietnam,’” as author Candy Havens would say. P.O.V. stands for Point of View.

Although this literary device is one of the most vital tools an author possesses, it is probably the number one style problem I encounter as an editor. I cannot count how many new writers (and, sadly, some not-so-new writers) give me a blank stare when I write P.O.V. in big red letters all over their manuscripts (and H.H., but we’ll get to that later).

***Today, I will highlight the basics, but for a really good explication on point of view, I recommend Bob Mayer’s Novel Writers Toolkit.

The best way to describe point of view is to think of your story as viewed through the lens of the video camera. How many people (characters) are going to be permitted to hold that camera? Is your camera going to travel with one main character through the entire story? Or, do others get a turn? Is “God” holding the camera? These are simple questions you can answer to help you select the point of view perfect for your story. There is no wrong point of view, but you do have to pick one.

What are the types of P.O.V.?

A quick overview:

First-Person P.O.V—uses “I” a lot. Only one character (the narrator) has the camera.

• There are three major disadvantages to this P.O.V.
  • This P.O.V uses a lot of “I” which can become repetitive to the point of distraction.
  • The reader can only see and hear what the narrator knows. This limits the flow of information. Probably good for a mystery, but if you aren’t writing a mystery this may not be the right P.O.V for you.
  • First-Person P.O.V is a bugger when it comes to tense. Why? Because First-Person breaks into two camps.
    • There is the I remember when camp and the Come along with me camp.
      • One is in past tense, a recollection. “I remember the day my father came home from the war….”
      • The other is in present tense, and the reader is along for the ride. “I walk these streets every morning, but today I am just waiting for something to go wrong….”
        •  Note of Caution: It is extremely easy to muddy the two camps together. Tense can be problematic…okay, a nightmare.

First-person, however, also holds some advantages. As stated earlier, it limits flow of information which is great for certain types of stories. First-person also creates an intimacy that no other P.O.V. can. I, frankly, believe that Stephenie Meyer would never have gotten away with Twilight in any other P.O.V. We wouldn’t have permitted page after page of teenage-love-angst. But, because Ms. Stephenie chose to employ first-person, suddenly we, the reader became Bella. We were transported back to our awkward high school years and that first really big crush that made us stupid. I believe if Twilight had been written in third-person, we would have wanted to slap Bella by page ten.

Third-Person P.O.V—is when you, the writer, permit one or more of the characters to lug the camera through your story.

• Third Person Locked allows only one character access to the camera. The entire story is told through what that particular character can experience through the 5 Senses. So, if your character’s eyes are “shining with love,” then she’d best be holding a mirror, or you are guilty of head-hopping.
• Third Person Shifting allows more than one character access to the camera. Here’s the rub. Your characters must to play nice and take turns. Only one character with the camera at a time. When the next character wants a turn, there has to be a clear cut. Think of the director’s clapboard ending one scene before shifting to the next.
  • There are advantages to Third-Person Shifting
    • It can add additional depth and insight to your story.
    • It can allow you (the writer) to hold back information and add to suspense.
    • Third-Person Shifting can allow other characters to take over during emotionally volatile points in the story. For instance, if your protagonist walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the emotions experienced are realistically too overwhelming to be properly articulated by your protagonist. In this scenario, First-Person P.O.V is probably not a good fit. The scene would be more powerful if told from someone watching your protagonist react to discovering a deceased loved one.
  • There are inherent problems with Third-Person Shifting.
    • Your characters must play nice and take turns. Otherwise, your reader will likely become confused and eventually frustrated.
    • It is best to permit camera access to key characters only. The reader has to stay in one head long enough to feel connected. Too many perspectives can easily become overwhelming and dilute the strength of your characters.

Omniscient P.O.V is when “God” gets to hold the camera. This P.O.V is like placing your camera up high over all of the action. The narrator is omnipresent and omniscient. “If Joe had only known who was waiting for him outside, he would have never left for that pack of cigarettes.” Joe cannot experience anything beyond the 5 Senses (third-person). So, unless Joe is actually Superman and possesses X-Ray vision, it takes an omniscient presence to tell us someone bad is lurking outside waiting to do Joe harm.

• There are advantages to Omniscient P.O.V.
  • Omniscient can relay information that would be far too overwhelming to describe if limited to the 5 Senses. Battle scenes are a good example.
  • Omniscient can give information critical to the story that the character doesn’t have to personally know. For instance, in Bob Mayer’s Area 51 Series (written as Robert Doherty), he relays a lot of factual and historical information that is critical to understanding the plot. But, it would really seem bizarre to the reader if his characters just started spouting off the history of the pyramids like an Egyptologist. To avoid this jarring scenario, Bob uses an omniscient presence to relay the information so the prose remains nice and smooth.

• There are disadvantages to Omniscient P.O.V.
  • Third-Person P.O.V. and Omniscient P.O.V. are VERY easy to muddy together.
  • Omniscient P.O.V. and Head-Hopping are not the same, but are easy to confuse. I have edited many writers who believed they were employing Omniscient P.O.V. In reality, they were just letting every character in the book fight over the camera simultaneously, leaving me (the editor) feeling like I was trapped in the Blair Witch Project.

Proper use of P.O.V. takes a lot of practice to master. It is very easy to shift from one type of P.O.V. to another, or what I like to call “P.O.V. Prostitution.”

Key Points to Remember:

• In First-Person–Come along with me stories can easily turn into I remember when stories (or vice versa). Tense is a big red flag. Do you shift from present to past or past to present? Pay close attention to verbs.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting)–Characters will only play nice and take turns if you, the writer, force them to. Make sure whatever is happening in a scene is something that could be filtered through ONE character’s 5 Senses.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting) –“God” is really bad about grabbing your character’s camera, so keep an eye on Him. If there is suddenly information your character has no way of knowing through the 5 Senses, that is a big clue the Big Guy snagged your camera. Just ask Him nicely to give it back.
• In Omniscient–“God” is in charge. Be careful your wide-lens isn’t zooming in and out and making your reader dizzy in the process.

P.O.V. is one more reason it is critical for writers to read if they hope to become great authors. Read, read, read. Read all kinds of books by all kinds of authors using different P.O.V.s to see how it is done well. Stephenie Meyer did a great job of using first-person in a come along with me style of story in Twilight. Why this kind of P.O.V.? Well, because we would have wanted to choke Bella for being annoying, but I already mentioned that. Additionally, Meyer wanted to maintain suspense. An I remember when story, obviously would have ruined the tension in that we would have known Edward didn’t enjoy a Bella munchie while they were traipsing alone in the woods together.

Stephen King does a great job of using first-person in an I remember when style in The Green Mile. King chose this P.O.V. for a very specific reason, which I will not say so as not to spoil the ending.

Dennis Lehane does an amazing job of employing omniscient in Mystic River. If you think you might want to use omniscient, I’d recommend reading him. James Rollins uses third-person shifting very well in the Doomsday Key. Third-shifting is generally a great P.O.V. for thrillers in that it helps manage/reveal a lot of information that the protag may or may not know.

I would also recommend reading Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo. She actually mixes third-limited and first-person and the effect is impressive. 

P.O.V. when used properly can take a story to a whole new level. Read, experiment and practice. I know I just touched on a handful of suggestions, so feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments :D.

Happy writing! 

Until next time…

The post No Soliciting–The Evils of POV Prostitution appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Method acting.

Now this doesn’t mean we have to take up living in a Dumpster for a month if we desire to write about a homeless person (though Daniel Day-Lewis would be proud), but it does mean that we have to use and develop our ability to empathize. Empathy can be defined as the ability to identify and understand somebody else’s feelings and experiences. But, it is also the ability to step into that person’s (character’s) perspective. Unless one is writing in omniscient, it will be critical to keep the POV camera where it belongs in order to gain the most impact from each and every scene.

I’ll give a few examples.

Example #1

PERSPECTIVE PROBLEM

At critique, one of my dear friends and fellow writers brought a selection from his science fiction novel, which happened to be written in first-person. The opening scene is a robbery of sorts and his protagonist, like most sensible folk, dives under a nearby table and hides. The narrative that followed was very clever and engaging, but I happened to notice one HUGE problem. Thus, I raised my hand and asked, “How can your character know all of this detail if he is crouched under a table at the other end of the restaurant? The most he will likely see is legs and shoes.”

The writer had gone to great lengths describing details and events that simply would be impossible to see from the protagonist’s perspective. What my friend should have done (and eventually did do) was to have his character relying on other senses, since his visual sense was handicapped by situation.

It was a simple detail, but one that made all the difference in the eventual quality of the story. The writer, by stepping into an authentic perspective, made the experience visceral and real. Now he was SHOWING and not TELLING. With the right use of description, my friend successfully transported the reader under a table at a Chinese All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. Before we knew it, we were in the head of the protagonist, desperately trying to connect different voices and personalities to their shoes while searching for the nearest escape.

He greeted me the next week, beaming with pride for his reworked scene, bubbling with stories of him lying on his living room floor under a coffee table imagining what his protagonist would likely be able to see—method acting.

Example #2

PHYSIOLOGY PROBLEM

Another author and friend of mine brought a selection from his horror novel. In this scene, the protagonist (who starts out as a misguided petty thief) is with his buddies and they are robbing a convenience store right before a major hurricane hits. The Korean store owner pops out of nowhere, scaring the hell out of this motley group, and they take off toward the front door. Mere steps from freedom, the protagonist slips on rainwater that has spilled inside, and cracks his head on the counter, then floor. All good, but what followed was again a lengthy detailing of events that would be impossible for anyone in this situation to experience in this way.

Physiology would have taken over. That blow. The pain would have taken center stage. Voices would have become indistinct, and thus the sentences should have been shortened to a word or two to give the impression of someone who has been knocked senseless. Perspective would have changed. He (the camera) is now on the floor looking up. This needed to be consistent.

I challenged the author to think back to any time he’d been whacked in the head. Make a list of all things he remembered (or didn’t remember) of the experience. Stars in the peripheral vision. Blackness. Blurriness. Sounds. Were they dull or sharp? Pain. Sharp? Throbbing? Funny smells? What was the first thing he noticed when his head cleared? Voices? Faces? I advised him to then take that list and overlay it with the scene he wished to create.

Example #3

MULTIPLE PROBLEMS

One of the writers on Twitter bravely posted her prologue for public view. Being the nosy editor I am, I just HAD to take a look. This is supposed to be the beginning of a thriller—a young woman running from someone chasing her through a swamp. In this selection, I noted several oopses.

TIME.

There is the weirdest time shift I have ever seen. It goes from being evening at sunset to pitch black in a matter of three sentences. There is no steady progression of losing the light and the desperation that would ensue from that (a missed opportunity to create growing tension).

CONSISTENCY.

The author describes it as pitch black, as in can’t see your hand in front of your face black…but then describes the crescent moon. Any moon (even a crescent moon) would offer some light and negate the pitch black—the author really should have chosen one for consistency. It is supposedly pitch dark yet the protagonist sees/describes quite a few objects and critters that she would need light to see. Which is it? Dim light or no light?

PHYSIOLOGY.

This character fears for her life. Yet, a handful of paragraphs down in this prologue, there is a very lovely description of a sunset. Big problem. How many people running for their lives through an unknown swamp filled with snakes and alligators take time to notice the “pastel sky?” When humans are under stress, the brain takes blood from the cortical brain and diverts it to the mammalian and limbic brain (and the large muscle groups). That is part of the adrenalin response. Fight or flight. Out of self-preservation, the body shuts down higher thinking capabilities while kicking primitive senses into hyper-drive. Thus, if one truly steps into the shoes of this character running for her life, it would be physiologically impossible for her to make such flowery observations. Reptilian brain cannot process information beyond the level of the five senses (and possibly a sixth).

PACING.

The greater problem (and this is a style issue) is that this writer actually did a great job of creating tension. Yet, three sentences of poetic description of a sunset RUIN all that effort by pulling the reader out of the conflict.

Remember. Our goal as the author is to transport the reader into the head of our characters. Method acting is a way that we can create a genuine experience. There was nothing, per se, wrong with this writer’s prologue, but she missed great opportunities to create spine-tingling tension. When we step in the head of a character that has time to notice stars and sunsets and butterflies, we are subconsciously cued to not get too stressed.

Example #4

CHARACTER PROBLEM

Perspective is our greatest tool for creating great characters. We have to feel what they feel, notice what they notice so we can craft the world in which they live. This morning I edited a piece that had me banging my head on my keyboard. This author has a fantastic story, but his failure to truly empathize with his characters is KILLING—no, SLAUGHTERING—a great plot.

His female protagonist has just, hours before, witnessed her mother’s murder at the hands of Yankee renegades. Yet, nothing in her actions tells the story of a woman whose life has just collapsed before her eyes. She has romantic feelings for another male character. She is calm. She never gives the situation another thought. It is as if it is just another day of milking cows and saddling horses while making goo-goo eyes at the boy from town. Not only does this make her utterly unlikeable, but the reader doesn’t care about her losses…because SHE doesn’t care about her losses.

This writer, I know, is just excited to get the story rolling, but he is doing so at great expense to his characters. As authors, we have to think like actors (or profilers). We need to get into the heads of our characters and display the emotions properly. If someone is grieving, then we need to see that character going through the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Death and Dying—Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. The event also must fit the character’s psychological profile. Is this character the kind who would stay in denial for years? Is she one to be angry? Would she get through all five stages quickly, or get stuck in depression? The writer needs to understand who this character is in order to slip into the correct head and craft the scene accordingly.

And this applies to the entire spectrum of emotion. Who is your character? I have heard people squeal and scream on the radio because they won free movie rentals from Blockbuster. Other people win ten million in the lottery and barely crack a smile. These are questions that have to be answered in order to craft believable characters and riveting scenes.

Warrior Writer relies heavily on learning from the experts, on drawing from unconventional sources of wisdom. It is a holistic approach that calls on the writer to dig deep inside to the true emotions, into the dark scary places where we are weakest and most vulnerable. Actors, in many ways, do the same. In fact, we could consider them to be the founders of our craft. Actors were the keepers of legends long before the authors. Actors kept stories alive on the stage and passed them on to audiences who would not be literate for centuries. We can learn a lot from their insight into the human condition.

Until next time…

The post Method to the Madness–How Acting Can Make You a Better Writer appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Let’s step back in time to the days before we all made the decision to become writers. I would guess all of us were readers. We loved books, and books were a large part of what prompted our career choice. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you ever tried to read a book, but eventually had to put it down because it was too confusing? You couldn’t figure out who was doing what, and you needed Dramamine to keep up with the perspectives?
• Have you ever read a story that was so good you actually felt as if you had taken on the character’s skin? His success was yours, as was his failure. By the final page, you were sad to say good-bye?

P.O.V. used properly can create entire worlds, and breathe life into characters. Used improperly, it can make your reader feel as if she is being held hostage on a Tilt-a-Whirl—not good.  

First, you have to know what P.O.V. is if you hope to use it to your advantage.  “P.O.V. does not stand for ‘Prisoners of Vietnam,’” as author Candy Havens would say. P.O.V. stands for Point of View.

Although this literary device is one of the most vital tools an author possesses, it is probably the number one style problem I encounter as an editor. I cannot count how many new writers (and, sadly, some not-so-new writers) give me a blank stare when I write P.O.V. in big red letters all over their manuscripts (and H.H., but we’ll get to that later).

***Today, I will highlight the basics, but for a really good explication on point of view, I recommend Bob Mayer’s “Novel Writers Toolkit.”

The best way to describe point of view is to think of your story as viewed through the lens of the video camera. How many people (characters) are going to be permitted to hold that camera? Is your camera going to travel with one main character through the entire story? Or, do others get a turn? Is “God” holding the camera? These are simple questions you can answer to help you select the point of view perfect for your story. There is no wrong point of view, but you do have to pick one.

What are the types of P.O.V.?

A quick overview:

First-Person P.O.V—uses “I” a lot. Only one character (the narrator) has the camera.

• There are three major disadvantages to this P.O.V.
  • This P.O.V uses a lot of “I” which can become repetitive to the point of distraction.
  • The reader can only see and hear what the narrator knows. This limits the flow of information. Probably good for a mystery, but if you aren’t writing a mystery this may not be the right P.O.V for you.
  • First-Person P.O.V is a bugger when it comes to tense. Why? Because First-Person breaks into two camps.
    • There is the I remember when camp and the Come along with me camp.
      • One is in past tense, a recollection. “I remember the day my father came home from the war….”
      • The other is in present tense, and the reader is along for the ride. “I walk these streets every morning, but today I am just waiting for something to go wrong….”
        •  Note of Caution: It is extremely easy to muddy the two camps together. Tense can be problematic…okay, a nightmare.

Third-Person P.O.V—is when you, the writer, permit one or more of the characters to lug the camera through your story.

• Third Person Locked allows only one character access to the camera. The entire story is told through what that particular character can experience through the 5 Senses. So, if your character’s eyes are “shining with love,” then she’d best be holding a mirror, or you are guilty of head-hopping (a topic for another day).
• Third Person Shifting allows more than one character access to the camera. Here’s the rub. Your characters must to play nice and take turns. Only one character with the camera at a time. When the next character wants a turn, there has to be a clear cut. Think of the director’s clapboard ending one scene before shifting to the next.
  • There are advantages to Third-Person Shifting
    • It can add additional depth and insight to your story.
    • It can allow you (the writer) to hold back information and add to suspense.
    • Third-Person Shifting can allow other characters to take over during emotionally volatile points in the story. For instance, if your protagonist walks in on her brother lying dead in a pool of blood, the emotions experienced are realistically too overwhelming to be properly articulated by your protagonist. In this scenario, First-Person P.O.V is probably not a good fit. The scene would be more powerful if told from someone watching your protagonist react to discovering a deceased loved one.
  • There are inherent problems with Third-Person Shifting.
    • Your characters must play nice and take turns. Otherwise, your reader will likely become confused and eventually frustrated.
    • It is best to permit camera access to key characters only. The reader has to stay in one head long enough to feel connected. Too many perspectives can easily become overwhelming and dilute the strength of your characters.

Omniscient P.O.V is when “God” gets to hold the camera. This P.O.V is like placing your camera up high over all of the action. The narrator is omnipresent and omniscient. “If Joe had only known who was waiting for him outside, he would have never left for that pack of cigarettes.” Joe cannot experience anything beyond the 5 Senses (third-person). So, unless Joe is actually Superman and possesses X-Ray vision, it takes an omniscient presence to tell us someone bad is lurking outside waiting to do Joe harm.

• There are advantages to Omniscient P.O.V.
  • Omniscient can relay information that would be far too overwhelming to describe if limited to the 5 Senses. Battle scenes are a good example.
  • Omniscient can give information critical to the story that the character doesn’t have to personally know. For instance, in Bob’s Area 51 Series (written as Robert Doherty), he relays a lot of factual and historical information that is critical to understanding the plot. But, it would really seem bizarre to the reader if his characters just started spouting off the history of the pyramids like an Egyptologist. To avoid this jarring scenario, Bob uses an omniscient presence to relay the information so the prose remains nice and smooth.

• There are disadvantages to Omniscient P.O.V.
  • Third-Person P.O.V. and Omniscient P.O.V. are VERY easy to muddy together.
  • Omniscient P.O.V. and Head-Hopping are not the same, but are easy to confuse. I have edited many writers who believed they were employing Omniscient P.O.V. In reality, they were just letting every character in the book fight over the camera simultaneously, leaving me (the editor) feeling like I was trapped in the Blair Witch Project.

Proper use of P.O.V. takes a lot of practice to master. It is very easy to shift from one type of P.O.V. to another, or what I like to call “P.O.V. Prostitution.”

Key Points to Remember:

• In First-Person–Come along with me stories can easily turn into I remember when stories (or vice versa). Tense is a big red flag. Do you shift from present to past or past to present? Pay close attention to verbs.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting)–Characters will only play nice and take turns if you, the writer, force them to. Make sure whatever is happening in a scene is something that could be filtered through ONE character’s 5 Senses.
• In Third-Person (Locked & Shifting) –“God” is really bad about grabbing your character’s camera, so keep an eye on Him. If there is suddenly information your character has no way of knowing through the 5 Senses, that is a big clue the Big Guy snagged your camera. Just ask Him nicely to give it back.
• In Omniscient–“God” is in charge. Be careful your wide-lens isn’t zooming in and out and making your reader dizzy in the process.

Again, I highly recommend “The Novel Writers Toolkit” for more in-depth explanation. Or, if you are like me and learn by seeing and hearing, I recommend Bob Mayer’s Novel Writers Workshop DVD presentation. P.O.V. is a critical part of developing an author’s “voice,” so I also recommend The Warrior Writers’ Workshop, which is more geared to your personal psychology and how it affects your writing.  For Bob’s books, DVDs and workshops go to www.bobmayer.org.  

Until next time…

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