Go Deep! Deeper! YES! Deep POV Rules in Fiction.

I'm in the final stages of preparing my next manuscript, Rebel Obsession, to be released on January 15th. I've edited, given the book to my beta readers, edited, edited some more, and now I'm proofreading.

So, what's wrong? Nothing really, except that I went and read a new writing book called "Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View," by Jill Elizabeth Nelson. Excuse me while I hang my head and plant my palm over my face.

Why, why oh why did I go and read a writing book at this stage of finishing my manuscript? I'll admit that I was researching POV for a series of blog posts I want to write, but don't I know myself well enough by now to know that I'd be so motivated and inspired by the words of wisdom in this book, especially, that I'd want to go back to my manuscript and tear it to pieces as I thought of new and better ways to convey the scenes in the story? Apparently not, because silly me, I read said book, and now I'm in a mad dash to liven up areas of my manuscript using the new arsenal of knowledge this book taught me.

Not that the manuscript was flat. My beta readers loved it, and my editor said that Rebel Obsession is her favorite story in the series so far, but now that my mind has been stretched with this new knowledge of Deep POV, I can see where my story can be even better. Granted, I do have a tendency to write in Deep POV anyway, but this book taught me how I can go even deeper. And in this case, deeper is definitely better.

This small book—a handbook really, at the length of only sixty pages—teaches you all you need to know about this somewhat-elusive POV and writing skill. And, yes, most definitely, writing in Deep POV takes skill. I thought I was doing well before, but even I'm struggling to fully grasp how to change my shallow POV areas to deeper ones.

Okay, so what's the big deal about Deep POV and why should every fiction writer know about it and strive to utilize it in their manuscripts?


Here are the highlights:

By its very nature, Deep POV takes your narrative to "showing" rather than "telling," and as writers we all should know how important showing the story over telling it is.

Deep POV is more respectful of your readers' intelligence than Omniscient POV, where every little thing is explained to the reader from a distance, and which by its nature is "telling" rather than "showing."

Deep POV creates first-person intimacy when writing in the third-person, so hooray hurrah!

"Author intrusion," where the author consciously or unconsciously inserts an invisible narrator between the character and the readers, is removed by use of Deep POV.

What is Deep POV?

As quoted on page 17 of the handbook, this is one way to look at Deep POV: "The narrative should read like the thoughts going through the character's mind but without the need to italicize as in direct thought quotations."

Sounds simple enough, right? That's what I thought. I was wrong. There is an art to writing Deep POV, as I've found, and the skill has to be acquired through lots and lots of practice, as I'm also finding.

Another way to think of Deep POV is that it keeps the story/character/reader firmly rooted in the now. It's great for high action scenes and for taking a trip into a character's psyche during a contemplative moment; however, Deep POV is not where a character goes on "nattering" to himself endlessly about things that don't propel the story forward or that have nothing to do with the action taking place.

Okay, let's get to the nitty gritty. Maybe the following four sections will break Deep POV down in a more understandable way.

Phrases and Words that Scream "Shallow POV" as Opposed To Deep

Following is a list of phrases and words to avoid and/or rewrite if you want to pursue Deep POV. These words create narrative distance, putting a reader at arm's length as opposed to planting them squarely inside the character's head. Reader at arm's length = bad. Inside the character's head = good.

He/She thought...
He/She felt...
He/She knew...
...wondered...
...realized...
...speculated...
...decided...
...wished...
...etc.

In all the above examples, as Nelson points out in the book, a narrator is required in order to say that a character knew/felt/thought/wondered/etc. something. In our own minds, we don't think like that. We don't say to ourselves, "I think the wall looks dirty." We think, "The wall is covered with dirt. Who did that?"

More examples, borrowed from the book:

Shallow: "She wondered how she would get through the next day."
Deep: "How could she possibly survive the next day?"

Shallow: "I wished I hadn't said that."
Deep: "If only I hadn't said that."

Shallow: "He thought a good bath wouldn't hurt the dog."
Deep: "Whew! A good bath would do this dog a world of good."

See how we transport more fully into the character's head with the deep examples? Don't you feel more involved? Maybe even more emotionally vested? Because you can identify with the Deep portrayal better than the Shallow one, because Deep is how we, ourselves, think.

I'd like to add a couple of other phrases to the above list:

...in the air
...filled the air
...couldn't help but to...

Shallow: "Noxious fumes filled the air."
Deep: "Was that sulfur? Her nose scrunched and she pinched her nostrils closed with her thumb and index finger as she held her breath." [it's pretty clear the fumes are indeed "in the air." There's no need to tell us that.]

Shallow: "He couldn't help but to wonder how Jessie was coping."
Deep: "How was Jessie coping?" [Notice that "couldn't help but to" naturally wants to precede one of our to-be-avoided terms, such as feel, wonder, think, realize, wish. So, by removing the offending phrase, you also remove teh offending term and make the sentence fall into deep POV. Additionally, the deep example automatically implies that he is wondering and that he couldn't help himself from doing so. There's no need to tell the reader those things.]

When you see these phrases, you're telling, not showing. You can go deep to remove most, if not all, occurrences of these phrases and more effectively engage your reader.

The Five Senses...If You Tell Us the Senses, You're Not Deep Enough

Here's another list of phrases/words to remove from your manuscripts if you want to go deep:

He/She saw
He/She tasted
He/She heard
He/She smelled
He/She could see, taste, hear, smell

These are called sensory tells. Key word: tells. Guess what you're doing when you use them. That's right, you're telling. When you use these in your story, you're inflicting narrative distance again, pushing your reader away from the action and the character. Think of it like this, when you drink spoiled milk, do you think, "I'm tasting spoiled milk."? No, you probably think, "Ew! Yuck! How old is this milk?" That's how you want to think when you're writing Deep POV.

Shallow: "He heard a car pull into the driveway and froze."
Deep: "A car pulled into the driveway. He froze."

You don't need to tell us (tell) that the character tasted the milk or heard the car. Just show us the character tasting the milk and hearing the car. By going into Deep POV, you naturally do this. Does that make sense?

Avoid Naming Feelings and Emotions If You Want to Go Deep

Much like in the phrases above, naming emotions and feelings for your characters also puts readers at a distance and interjects a narrator's voice.

Shallow: "Tony closed his phone, frustration and fury surging through him."
Deep: "Tony slapped the phone shut. If steam could escape his pores, he'd be a toxic cloud."

See the difference? Nelson does a good job showing us in this example from her book exactly how we can portray frustration and fury by taking us inside the character instead of just telling us the character is frustrated and furious. Did you catch that? Telling. A narrator tells us that Tony is frustrated in the shallow example, but Tony himself shows us how he feels, which conveys his frustration naturally, in the deep example.

Another example from the book:

Shallow: "Hot jealousy flashed through me."
Deep: "Heat boiled my insides. If that wimp could win a trophy, where was mine?"
Any and all emotions and feelings can be inserted for "hot jealousy." Joy, happiness, sadness, anger, despair, terror, fear, aggravation, boredom. Happiness flashed through me, sadness flashed through me, terror flashed through me. *YAWN-boring* But when we go deep, each Deep POV, showing method will be unique: "The moment I saw Jeff emerge from the burning house, my body relaxed and I looked to the heavens, tears trailing down my cheeks. He was safe. My husband was safe. Thank God." "The air grew heavy and my body wilted as if the act of staying upright was too much work. Someone was talking, but I couldn't hear them. Jeff? Dead? He hadn't survived? Had I heard the officer correctly?" "My skin prickled and I searched the darkness, my breath locked inside my throat. 'Who's there?' Someone was watching me. Someone evil. I could feel it."

The lesson to be learned here? Remove the name of the feeling or emotion and replace it with a description of how, in your mind, your character would experience that feeling or emotion.

Prepositional Tells - Ditch 'em

A derivative of the previous section is the prepositional tell, where a preposition precedes the naming of an emotion, attitude, or thought. Examples: "...of happiness," "...with excitement," "in need."

As with the previous section, remove the prepositional phrase and replace it with a deeper description from within the character's POV.


Is going deep easy? No, but it's not hard, either, and it gets easier the more you do it. Using Deep POV takes work, and my suggestion is to write your first draft without even thinking about it and go deep in the editing process.

The purpose of the draft stage, where you're writing your manuscript from scratch, is to simply dump the story and scenes from your head onto paper (or computer screen) anyway. Writing takes place in the right brain, so when you're writing, you shouldn't be worrying about editing, which takes place in the left brain. Write first, edit later.

Furthermore, a first draft should never, NEVER, ever be what you publish. In fact, the first draft should only marginally resemble the finished product if you're editing correctly. Unless, of course, you're a professional author who's been writing books for the big leagues for twenty years. But then, if that's the case, this blog isn't for you. :)

Once you've brain-dumped your manuscript in the draft, you're ready to edit. Manipulating and correcting your manuscript is what edits are for. This is where you will go through and find all the offending shallow phrases pointed out in this post and correct them to be deep. As you do this more and more, you'll get better at including Deep POV in the draft stage so that it becomes more of a natural way for you to write. But reaching that stage could take years...although it will be worth it.

Be patient and never stop improving your writing.

Happy Reading and Writing!
-D

Note: Examples and terminology used in whole or part from Jill Elizabeth Nelson's book, Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View.

The Purpose of Scenes - Show vs. Tell - Part 2

In my ongoing series of Show vs. Tell, I'm bringing you a run-down of Chapter One of Showing & Telling, by Laurie Alberts, where we dive in to the most basic component of showing: the purpose of scenes. Until you understand why scenes are used, you can't have a full grasp of the concept of showing your story.

First, we need to understand what readers want. Why do they read fiction? Why do you read fiction? We read fiction "to be transported out of our own skins into the lives of others—we read to expand our emotional awareness," according to Ms. Alberts. Scenes are the means by which authors fulfill this reader objective.

"To be truly engaged in the lives of characters, events must be dramatized rather than simply reported; for dramatic impact we must be grounded in place and experience the illusion of real time passing, which only occurs in scenes. We must live the moment along with the characters, especially moments of change." -Laurie Alberts

Remember from Part I of this series, Scenes vs. Summaries, scenes take place in the moment, whereas summaries refer to something taking place (or that took place) outside the moment. Scenes show; summaries tell.

Okay, so how do you use scenes to show? By understanding the purpose of a scene, which is covered in chapter one of Ms. Alberts' book.

The Purpose of Scenes
Scenes are used to:

• create an emotional connection between character(s) and reader
• dramatize events
• move action/plot forward
• introduce or intensify conflict (and we'll talk more about conflict when we discuss the different types of scenes, but conflict is THE single-most important element to moving your story forward)
• build suspense
• create change over time
• introduce or reveal character
• introduce themes
• establish mood
• provide resolution

Scenes make characters seem real, which naturally leads to an emotional connection with your reader. One of the best compliments I've gotten on my AKM novels is that readers feel so strongly that the characters are real that they fantasize about them, make up stories in their minds about them, and want to go to Chicago just to see if they will bump into them. I've heard this from a few of my readers, and when I receive a comment such as, "I daydreamed all day about Micah and Trace and couldn't even focus on folding my laundry," I know I've created an emotional connection between those characters and the reader. You can't fantasize about someone you don't envision as being real.

And why do my readers feel like Micah and Trace are real? According to Ms. Alberts, "The 'real' feeling comes from the reader going through the experience with the character as it's happening in time, complete with sensory detail." In other words, my scenes are so powerful and evocative, readers feel like they're in the scene with the characters, living it, seeing it, and experiencing it right alongside them. That is what you want to bring to your scenes.

Let's look at the rest of the items on the list after reading an example from Rise of the Fallen, my first AKM novel, since that's easier than trying to find a sample written by someone else, or retyping the one in Ms. Alberts' book.

In this scene, Samantha is tending to an injured Micah, who she isn't aware is a vampire. She just knows he is badly injured, excruciatingly thin, and has seen that he has been self-mutilating his arms by cutting them. She is about to treat a shoulder wound by cleaning it with alcohol, which is the "white heat" Micah refers to in the third paragraph that brings him out of his mostly-unconscious state:

-----

Micah had been in a semi-lucid state, aware of everything going on around him but unable to rouse himself. He had felt the woman cut off his shirt, had felt her sure, confident hands ranging his chest and torso before her gentle fingers caressed his face. She had talked to him, too. Well, not really to him, but sort of. Her voice was smooth and low, sultry. He just wanted her to keep talking. The sound of her voice was a balm, an audible salve to soothe his soul.

But then she had grown quiet and sucked in her breath. Micah touched her mind and realized she had seen his self-mutilation. Shame flooded him as his long-absent conscience reappeared, chastising him for what he had done. For some reason, he didn't want this woman seeing the damage he had done to his own arms.

And then everything shattered into white heat as fire stung his shoulder.

Intense hunger raged like wildfire. Micah couldn't recall ever needing to feed this badly. In an instant, his eyes flashed open and shot to the woman tending him. Terror erupted in her expression, but all he could see, think, feel, smell, and breathe was blood. Glorious, life-giving, hunger-sating, Heaven-sent blood. With graceless impropriety, Micah yanked her wrist to his mouth like it was a sandwich and he had gone way too long without food then bit down with unceremonious impatience.

When was the last time he had truly fed?

The woman struggled as he locked his hands around her arm and lurched upright with her wrist clenched in his mouth. Her blood flowed like a river of life into his belly, and he moaned in ecstasy even as he fought to restrain her. He had been too wrapped up in his need to feed to compel her into submission, and she grappled, squirmed, and struggled against him, gasping and protesting for him to stop.

Blood. All he could think about was drinking her blood. She swung at him with her free arm, kicking and trying to pull away, but he stayed with her, using one hand to deflect her haphazard punches, turning his body to avoid her kicks. All the while, his fangs kept her wrist locked in his mouth and her blood spilling down his throat.

He finally overpowered her and bent her back and down to the floor. Crouched like a man kneeling in prayer, his gaze ranged up her arm that stretched between them, linking her to him like an umbilical cord as she continued to struggle. His feral gaze locked onto the pools of clover green in her eyes as his chest and abdomen heaved lustfully. Blood lust. Strong and pure and all-consuming, it gnawed at him like a jackal on a bone.

The woman tried to cry out, but he slapped his hand over her mouth, stifling her scream, taking his fill of her blood as her body finally stilled beneath his.

It was only then that Micah realized she was crying. Tears streamed her cheeks as horrific sobs convulsed her chest. As his senses ebbed back into him, he gently lifted his hand from her mouth, keeping it close in case she tried to scream again.

"Please, please stop. Don't kill me."

Her fear smelled like sulfur as the words clubbed him. Kill her? He didn't want to kill her.

Where was he, anyway?

Micah's eyes flitted around the room and suddenly it was clear he wasn't in Kansas, anymore. What was this place? He had never been here before. Nothing was familiar. How had he gotten here? His eyes darted back to hers.

After releasing her wrist with a gasp, Micah fell back like he had just seen Jesus wagging a judgmental finger at him, and he ass-planted on her generic beige carpeting.

"Where am I?" he said.

-----

We start the excerpt with a brief summary that transitions us from Samantha's POV to Micah's, but once we get past the summary and into the scene, you emotionally connect with Micah's pain and humiliation, his hunger, and eventually, his dismay over his whereabouts. You can connect emotionally because the scene is rendered dramatically. I didn't just tell you what was happening. I showed you. The action moves the story forward by bringing Micah into awareness and introducing him to who will ultimately be his reason for living, Samantha. Suspense is built because now Samantha knows there is something very different about Micah. Hell, he bit her, for crying out loud. And drank her blood! What normal dude does that? And how will she react when everything comes out about who and what Micah really is? How will these two embark on a relationship when she's human and he's a vampire? I can't say this scene creates change over time, but it is the beginning of a changing point for Micah as he progresses from a suicidal state of mind to one where his survival becomes of the utmost importance. We're not introducing characters in this scene, but we are revealing a bit more about Micah and Samantha. The theme of never give up or lose hope, because hope could be just a step away is introduced in this scene. And, maybe it's just me, but I think mood is clearly established for both Micah and Samantha—one of fascination and intensity. The relationship between these two characters, as well as throughout the book, will be severely intense. No resolution has been provided.

Scenes won't encompass all the bullet points on the earlier list, but they will illustrate at least some of them. If you have a scene that doesn't fulfill any or only one of the above purposes of a scene, you might want to consider removing it, because that's a sign it's probably not necessary and the information can be better included elsewhere.

A word on theme, plot, and action, as defined by Laurie Alberts:

Theme is not plot. Theme is what the story or essay is about on its deepest level. The theme could be as simple as "look before you leap" or more complicated, depending on the story. Ms. Alberts uses the following example in her book: "It took an accident for Sally to discover that she wasn't cut out to be a kindergarten teacher and that she needed to keep searching for her true calling."

Action refers to the events that happen in a scene and in the narrative as a whole—this happened, then that happened.

Plot, however, is action with a cause-and-effect relationship—this happened because that happened.

According to E.M. Forster:

Action = the king died and then the queen died.

Plot = the king died and then the queen died of grief.

Next time I'll talk about the types of scenes, which may take more than one post, since conflict is one type of scene that's so important, it might need its own post just to emphasize just how important it is.

Until then, happy reading and writing!
-D

Scene vs. Summary - Showing & Telling - Part I

Authors hear a lot of "Show, don't tell," but do they really know what that means? I'll admit that while I do know what it means, I struggle to explain it to others. Well, not anymore. As part of my birthday/Christmas gift to myself, I ordered a batch of writing books, including one called Showing & Telling, by Laurie Alberts:

What I've struggled to put into words, Ms. Alberts makes simple, and this book is so inspiring that I've decided to write a series of blog posts based on the concepts outlined in the book, starting today with the introductory matter. I would highly suggest that if you're serious about your writing, you pick up a copy of Showing & Telling and follow along...or not. I mean, if you buy the book, you'll be golden and won't need my synopses. :)

First, good writing uses both showing and telling. The trick is in knowing when to use which and how to use them (which, as this blog series continues, should become clearer, especially if you buy the book). What an author should strive for in a story is balance between showing and telling, or scenes and summaries, which are the two basic components of writing. That doesn't mean you need equal amounts of both. No. In this case, balance means knowing when to chill on a scene and give us some summary to keep us connected between scenes and to give us a dose of your character's distinct voice.

Scene vs. Summary
This is just another way of saying Show vs. Tell. In fiction and some nonfiction writing, such as memoirs, you have two means of story-telling: scenes and summaries.

Scene: Scenes allow us to enter the action and feel the emotions of the characters. They take place in the moment, within the scene. Scenes are essential for breathing life into your work. This is where you show the action to the reader. Think of a movie, which is built completely out of scenes (unless you have a narrator who pops on once in a while, such as Bella in Twilight or Deckard in Bladerunner). If the actors just sat in chairs and told you about the scene, that would be pretty boring to watch, right? But they "act" out the scene, thus dramatizing it. That is how you need to think when writing a scene in a book. Think about "action" and how actors would show that action on the big screen.

Summary: Summaries are the material between the scenes and contain background exposition, character thoughts, reflection, or even—gasp—an actual summary of events that occurred over time or long ago. In summary, time is compressed. You're not experiencing it in the moment as you do in a scene. Summaries give context to scenes, meaning that scenes can stand on their own without the summary, but the summary enriches the scene by providing more information the scene doesn't offer. Lastly, summaries are often where distinctive character voices are created. By delving into past events and going inside the head of the character, we learn more about that character than what a scene can show on its own.

Example:

Scene: Pinned to the bed, Micah's hands holding her arms down, Samantha gazed up into dark navy pools of heat that stared at her hungrily. Her heart raced, pounding with such force that she could feel the pulse of her carotid at the side of her neck. Micah's gaze darted to the same spot, almost as if he'd read her mind, his eyes narrowing as his tongue barely darted out to wet his lips.

In that scene, we're in the moment. We are living each step as Samantha lives it. Seeing it as she sees it. Now, let's look at a couple of summaries that could shed light on what else might be going on. Remember, summaries add context to scenes and enrich them.

Summary #1: Who was he? All Samantha knew was that his name was Micah. When he had barreled out of that alley and grabbed her, his friend had called him by name. The other man had come after them, shouting in some strange language that sounded Russian but not quite. Romanian, maybe? Micah had turned and snarled—actually snarled at the guy. What the hell was up with that? And why was he now staring at her throat like it was his next meal? 

Okay, so maybe my example isn't the best in the world, but the point is, in the summary, we're no longer in the moment. We're back in time. Maybe only a few minutes or a few hours back in time, but back in time we are. This summary enriches the scene by giving us more information, and we getting a clearer sense of Samantha's "voice," as well. [Note that at the end of the summary, I pulled you back into the moment of the scene by use of the word "now." We'll talk more about transitioning from summary to scene in future posts.]

Summary #2: Earlier, Micah had teased her relentlessly, playfully restraining her arms as she'd made dinner. He'd become more dominant like that lately, holding her hands behind her back as he assaulted her neck with his mouth, pressing her back against the wall as he kissed her. She should have seen this coming. Micah liked being in control in the bedroom, didn't he? And he certainly liked that she liked it, too.

This gives us a whole new idea about what's happening in our scene, doesn't it? Now, we no longer see that Samantha is in danger. Nope. We see that she and Micah have known each other for a while and that things have been building up to this moment...and she likes it. We still get a sense of her "voice," and we obviously are not in the moment in this summary.

And if we're not in the moment, we are not in a scene. We are in a summary.

Pretty easy, huh? I had never heard anyone put showing and telling in such an easy-to-understand context before. Show or tell. Scene or summary. Those are the basic components, and you need both to bring a story to life.

Think of scenes as the muscles and bones of a body, and summaries are the connective tissues. Without muscle and bone, the body is nothing. However, without the connective tissues, which connect the muscles and bones to one another, the body can't move. But there is far less connective tissue than muscle and bone.

In Part II of the series, we'll begin looking at Showing: Making Vibrant Scenes. We'll also look at the purpose of scenes.

Until then, happy reading and writing!
-D

P.S. Yes, I am still working on a short series of posts regarding POV (omniscient, third person, etc.)