What I'm Pretty Sure I Can't Do

I'm up for just about any challenge with writing. I've written a few novels, some short stories, a couple flash pieces, even tried my hand at structural poetry like an English sonnet and a villanelle. But there are some things I'm pretty sure I can't do.

I can't see myself writing historical fiction. You really have to have a passion for this kind of thing, and I don't really. I'm not opposed to the genre. Some extra special historicals have really resonated with me actually, like the Mark of the Lion Series by Francine Rivers. I believe those three books are the best novels I've ever read because they introduced me to well-rounded characters, put me right into Roman times, made me cry, challenged me spiritually and entirely gripped me.

That's some amazing writing if a book, a series of books really, can do all that.

But as much as I loved those books, the amount of research you'd have to do just seems so daunting to me, in just making sure every single prop is correct. I'd be so afraid of ruining credibility with some stupid bumble, it would kill my drive.
Although, now that I've said that, I'll probably get an idea for a book and I'll have to scratch my 'can't', to 'well, maybe', then, 'okay, yes I can'.

I also could not write a First person novel with a narrator who is not the protagonist. All but four of the Sherlock Holmes books are this way, with Watson as the narrator. He is the every man, sidekicking Sherlock around, providing some distance from the brilliant, analytical mind of the hero as he solves the crimes.

But for me, part of the fun of writing First Person is discovering voice and revealing character. It is almost too difficult for me to wrap my mind around this concept. I think my narrator would soon outshine the protag. I don't know.

What are some things you're pretty sure you can't do with your writing?

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Why Is Bipolar Disorder So Popular?

Every writer wants to be fresh and different to stand out from the pack in this competitive industry, but using an unhinged narrator or waffling narrative style is NOT the way to go right out of the gate. You need to have a very good grasp of Narratives and adeptness in each before you can use First and Third in one work. With First Person, voice is the most important thing. It's not just transferring He and She to an I perspective; it's about delving in deep and exposing an engaging character, giving readers a more intimate look. To avoid having flat and lifeless drones, you must become a master of voice.

I've read some unpublished works that have a few chapters in First present, then chapters in Third past inserted wherever. Or 95% of the book is Limited and a few sneak peeks go all Omni. Wait. Settle that crazy pen down, Buckaroos. This is jarring to readers. Aim for seamless, easy, functional, entertaining, readable work. If your narration jumps all over the place, it won't be any of those things.

Everything you do as a writer needs to be deliberate and focused. Using fluctuating Narrators is not unheard of but you need to pull back the reigns a bit. Instead of looking unique, you are at risk for coming across as inept and scatterbrained, like you have no clue about perspective. That's not the impression you want to give.

This is an example of a focused, deliberate switch: using a Third Person Frame that connects First Person Vignettes. Say you're writing a book like The Green Mile and want to delve into the head of each character right before execution. With proper transitions, readers will know, okay, each time "Dead man walking!" is called, the story's going to shift into First. Or you could have characters around a campfire sharing freaky real-life stories or alcoholics at an AA meeting or a couple at counselling. The Third Person Narration keeps everything tied together. It works. But just having this chapter Third, the next two First, the next three Third, plus, tense changes is very confusing and jarring. Don't do this, please.

And then there's the head-hopping Narrator that breaks out of its Limited shell suddenly in chapter 5, sneaking in something that's outside the knowledge of the POV character. What? No. You can use a tightly reigned Omniscient Narrator that sticks with one character per scene and interjects commentary here and there that the focus character doesn't know, but this type of Narrator must make its presence known in the first sentence or paragraph of the work.

I just finished Needful Things. Stephen King used an Omniscient Narrator, made it known in chapter 1, but 95 % of the time kept the focus on one scene character. You can vary the degree of intensity into heads or the focus, staying more so with one character or roving constantly. As long as you provide clear transitions and separate new perspectives with new paragraphs, you can generally keep it from being jarring. But you'll need to go fleshy and get extremely deep and with character development so readers will care about the outcome and enage in the story.

With Needful Things, which had dozens of POVs, I struggled to finish those 800 pages because the characters were cardboard and I didn't care. I wanted to see how it resolved, but I didn't care about any of the characters, I didn't care if the villain won in the end. So make the extra effort to make your characters pop off the page with engaging personalities and perspectives.

Random switches whenever you please is unfair. You make a contract with readers in chapter 1 that you're going to tell one kind of story, and any departures from that established mode breach it.

If you're going to do anything unusual, then you need to set patterns and keep a very rigid structure. Alternate every other chapter, for instance, or use First in chapter 1, the next two in Third. First in chapter 4, the next two in Third. Keep yourself locked in to a definite method to avoid confusing your readers. Use good transitions. Give cues that you're about to change gears. This will demonstrate that you know what you're doing and you're not just flying with the wind or riding on a pogo stick, doing whatever you please.

If you really want to be weird and original, then aim for a unique concept instead. Have quirky characters. Take your plot in unexpected directions. Build in some twists. This will get far more attention and recognition than skipping around with haphazard zest ever will. If you're all over the place, you won't look original, you won't look creative, you won't look fresh-faced...just crazy and stupid. And FYI crazy people get much smaller checks. Make sure your Narration is focused and that you're telling the story in the best way possible.


~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Novels Aren't Like Coffee, Pools & Cigarettes

One of the best ways to engage your readers is to make your POV characters identifiable, feared or intriguing. And you do that by making motivations and desires clear, including various types of sensory impressions and giving your characters multiple facets like quirky interests or occupations, different proclivities or issues that can affect how he or she reacts like phobias, skeletons buried deep in the closet, job tension or fatigue from insomnia. Okay. Check. You've done that. Good.

After all this great character building, does your work contain some unwanted distance? Are critters saying your work is pretty good but not engaging? Does your prose feel a bit clumsy? Filtering may be the cause.
Filtering is good for coffee, pools and cigarettes, but not novels. Yet it's something writers do too frequently because they don't know they shouldn't. But it's something you should watch for and avoid in your work. When you use combos like she saw, she felt, she heard etc., instead of just naming the stimulus, and sometimes the reaction, it zaps a reader's connection with the scene character. Saying what’s observed or detected with a filter creates distance and makes readers feel like they’ve been ushered outside the POV just a little bit instead of right there with it. Plus, it mucks up work with superfluous words.

Whether you’re using First, Subjective Third or Omniscience, filtering should be kept at a minimum. Here are some examples that show the difference:

She smelled burgers and bacon from Yesterday’s, which incited hunger pangs. (filtered)
The aroma of burgers and bacon from Yesterday’s incited hunger pangs. (direct)

She noticed the dogwood blossoms that settled on his black Corvette sail off and flutter to the pavement. (filtered)

Dogwood blossoms that settled on his black Corvette sailed off and fluttered to the pavement. (direct)

When she heard a window pane shatter and clink on the wood floor like crystal rainfall, she scampered for a place to hide. (filtered)

When a window pane shattered and clinked on the wood floor like crystal rainfall, she scampered for a place to hide. (direct)

To find the filtering in your work, look for noun-verb combinations like: she felt, she knew, she saw, she smelled, she heard, she tasted, etc. and could-forms like: she could feel, she could sense, etc. and rewrite them so they're non-filtered.

In some instances, it’s effective to use a filter like this:

By the time she caught wind of his black cherry-leather cologne, her neck was in the stranglehold of a muscular arm.

She heard somewhere that filters can kill an otherwise good novel.
You can also use a filter to help set up POV. In Omniscience, filters tend to be used more often, but once POV is established, they can be omitted. If your chosen narrator remains at a distance from all POV characters, not quite as far-removed as Objective/Dramatic nor as close as Subjective, then filtering can be used to maintain this distance throughout.

Filtering is a beginner's mistake so it comes off as amateurish and that's not the kind of impression you want to make. Rock on. Write on. Be direct.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Being Safe at Third

I find the most engaging and revealing stories are those with a focused perspective, whether they be in First Person—told from the perspective of I—or in Third Person—told from the perspective of he or she. This means that only one character owns a scene, a predetermined block of narrative.

You can write an entire story through one set of eyes, which is Third Person Limited in its most limited sense. It holds one character's perspective for the journey, and that's it. You can only narrate what he or she experiences and knows. Meaning, if your character wouldn't know the name of some anatomical feature, the kind of gun that's being aimed at him or a song from 1950, even though you do, it shouldn't be in the narrative.

Third Person Limited can be extended to multiple viewpoints, changing per chapter or scene, but the same limited focus applies. You can use as many POVs as you want, but the more you have, the less readers will be able to identify with characters and experience the story. An example of this is Sinner by Sharon Carter Rogers, which was a fascinating concept to me with interesting characters, but I felt put off with its many perspectives. I couldn't keep them straight or give an accurate guess now at the quantity she used, but I'm gonna go with fifteen.

Now, with Third Person, you can use various degrees of penetration. Your narrator might give a glimpse of what's going on inside but never reveal direct thoughts like in this excerpt from the novel School Age by my friend Leslie DuBois.

* * *

Immediately after the break-up, Delia moved in with Donna Lee and her two roommates, Shannon and Sharon. She didn't leave the couch for weeks as she wallowed in her failures. The longer she moped, the more she failed. She lost her job as a research analyst for the National Science Institute. The only thing she succeeded in was annoying and imposing upon her sister and her two roommates.

"Delia, I love you, but this has got to end," Donna Lee said one evening as she came home from work.

Trying to block out the forthcoming nagging session, Delia rolled over on the couch and placed a pillow over her head.

“You've got to get yourself together. Jason was a no good creep. He's not worth all this. You've gotta get over him."

She didn't reply. Her sister just didn't understand. She had never been married. In fact, Delia couldn't think of a single relationship she had ever had that lasted longer than two months. Donna Lee was a chronic dater and never got too attached to any man.

"You know what your problem is? You've let Jason define you for so long you can't see yourself without him. I told you when you met him that you were too good for him and you didn't believe me. You think because your parents didn't want you that no one could ever want you. One charismatic grin from that trouser troll and he had you thinking that you were the most beautiful you had ever been. Well, you know what, Delia? You are beautiful. With or without him."

She kept her head under the pillow to hide the tears that had developed from the all-too-true words of her adoptive sister. Deep down she knew Donna Lee was right. She knew she couldn't carry on sleeping on a couch and dwelling on her pathetic life. She had to find a way to get on with her life.

* * *

Or you can use a more subjective method, also called Close Third, which filters the narration through the character's head, not only exposing thoughts, but using the character's attitude, personality and vocabulary to express the scene like in this excerpt from my novel Rotten Apples.

* * *

No one could have known, that in this sea of people, a stranger lurked, or at least, he preferred to be thought of as a stranger, a drifter of sorts, the kind of thug nobody'd wanna mess with. Detached...dark...mysterious...but suave when he needed or wanted to be. He loved to send a child fleeing in fright with just a beady-eyed glance. What a kick!

Westwood had been his home for little more than a month now. Just in some dive, not that he couldn't afford nicer. He simply preferred to dwell in shadows, be somewhat inconspicuous, since he was wanted under one of his aliases and everything. He did like to step out in spiffy duds, and luckily in this crowd of Lala Land snobs, Marco DeFranco blended in.

He clapped and smiled and reacted like everyone else, but he couldn't contain a snort when two girls stumbled in line. He'd come to this lame graduation to see his blond vixen, Jenna McCloud. The program noted she'd be giving a speech. On stage sat two blonds, a smokin' red-head with ample hooters trying to poke through curtains of hair and a dark-haired, four-eyed nerd, the valedick-whatever.

From this distance, Marco couldn't tell which chick was Jenna until her introduction. The second one to speak, she stepped to the podium. He groaned. Her speech resembled the first. Why didn't they just write one speech and take a section instead of killing us with the same frickin' blah-blah over and over again?

He squinted and studied her closely. She looked different somehow. That night at her house he'd only seen her briefly before needing to get away, and it had been over a month, but she just didn't look the way he remembered. She definitely held more fire in his fantasies. Maybe I just need to put fear back in her eyes. Hot thing.

After the ceremony, he leaned against a palm tree, smoking a cigarette and watching her as she fluttered about at the outdoor reception. Marco yanked in a drag to pull that menthol note down to his gut.

Jenna went and took the hand of another blond. They smiled at each other. Some dude took a picture of them, their arms wrapped around each other. Marco scrutinized each one. He cursed with a wisp of smoke seeping out of his mouth. What a fool he'd been! He questioned the wrong stinking girl. He'd seen them together before, but she had been at the right house, driving the right car, but she was most definitely not Calli Rosenthal a.k.a. Jenna McCloud. How? Too many frickin' blonds in this state, that's why!

Marco chucked his cigarette to the ground, crushed it with the sole of his dusty Armani shoe and sped off in his latest rental.

* * *

You can narrate with an in-between style, presenting thoughts, but not filtering through personality. Sometimes you may want to withhold thoughts altogether to leave readers in the dark about motive or future plans. You can vary the level of intensity in different scenes, but don't use Intensive for the first half of the book and then pull back for the rest. Switches needs to be less jarring and not so obvious, like an ebb and flow that readers never consciously detect. And beyond Third Person Limited, you can use Omniscience in either a Limited or Broad sense.

Limited Omniscience is a bridge between Limited and Omniscience, still keeping the main focus on one character, but perspective becomes the narrator's, and said speaker can interject things that are not known to the focal point character.

Think of this narrator as a powerless angel, stuck to Mr. MC by assignment, privy to everything he's experiencing and thinking and also knowing and observing things he doesn't. Stephen King often writes with a more focused Omniscience that bridges. In Needful Things for instance, the Narrator sticks to various townies as they deal with the sudden arrival of new store owner Leland Guant, who just happens to have the very thing everyone wants. King almost always had a scene character in those 700 pages.

In this style, anything in the narrative should apply to the focal point character for the given scene. The focus can stay super tight, where the narrator refrains from jumping into the POV of other characters until a scene break, at which point the narrator can then move on.

For instance, the narrator should not refer to MC's facial changes as a witness but rather as they are experienced by the POV character. Heat rushed to his face. Not: He turned red. With any kind of Omniscience make it clear in the very first sentence. Here's an example:

* * *

Kicking stones and muttering under his breath as he strolled down Chestnut Street, Knee-high Johnny needed to be concerned with more than his newest nickname, like the knife-wielding man in the bushes, licking his lips and waiting for him to turn the corner. If only someone would scream in the darkness and tell him to run. If only clouds would shift to conceal the full moon and paint an omen in the sky.

A whiff of cigarette smoke stopped Johnny in his tracks. His eyes ached, stretched wide to scan the deserted street for signs of life. Puddles of light from lampposts warped in the wet pavement. Coyotes howled in the hilly surround. His stomach churned with queasiness and a shiver scurried down his spine, and not from the 1 a.m. October breeze. Come on, fool. Didn't sneak out for nothin.

Determined to master his silly fear, Johnny gulped and took two steps but then he pivoted and dashed toward home. His speedy, little legs threatened to give way beneath him as he ran and ran, and a burn assaulted his lungs almost immediately. He could've sworn he heard huffing, splats, and a corduroy swoosh way behind him and then a stuttering on the pavement. He gulped and glanced over his shoulder, but no one was in pursuit. No one was there. Stupid! Stupid! Pea-brained, chicken turd. Freakin' imagining things.

When he reached his porch, he bowled over, gasping for air and cursing himself. After straightening, he bounced and peeled paint off the wooden railing while waiting for his breathing to even out. Good enough, he slunk into the house, careful not to let the creaky door make too much noise. The snores of his parents had never sounded so pleasant.

He tiptoed all the way back to his bed and wiggled under the covers, snatching them up to his chin. They're right! I'm such a baby, a shrimp and a chicken. Couldn't sleep in the cave for one freakin' night. Maybe tomorrow...Yeah. Definitely tomorrow. He had no idea why, but he couldn't stop trembling or still his chattering teeth.

Johnny never knew that being chicken was what had saved him from the sting of a blade and the coldness of death...the fate that befell poor Sally Mae.

* * *

Click Omniscience to read more about the common pitfalls and avoidances.

Least common is Third Person Objective/Dramatic, which sees everything from a bird's-eye view. It's kind of like a screenplay, only revealing what a character is thinking and feeling through action and dialogue. It can freely move from character to character because it never goes internal. The narrator is a mere camera, having no extrasensory perception or X-ray vision. The danger in using an Objective Narrator is it can come across cold and it's more difficult to make that reader/character connection. If an author has successfully pulled off this style, let me know. I'm curious to read a book in it, since it's the complete opposite of what I do.

You can also use Omniscience that only focuses on two or three characters. Perhaps you have a YA novel that follows three girls and you want to reveal what each of them is thinking and experiencing or you have a romance and want to show the heat or internal thoughts for hero and the heroine in the same scene. Take care when you do this. Pay special attention to character development and transition. When using a blend of POVs, the key is establishing the pattern early so it doesn't suddenly look like POV slippage in chapter 8 when the girls attend a ball game or the couple's eating out at Olive Garden and you're now bouncing back and forth.

Whatever you choose to use, keep your focus limited to only the characters that matter. Be consistent. I've read some books that switch to a clerk or a bellhop or a crow and they have no weight or importance in the story. If it's not an important perspective to show, don't show it. It'll only cause confusion and frustration for your reader. As a writer, Third Person Limited, Multiple VP is my method of choice right now. I love to write in that. It gives me a lot of leeway and the structure I need.

Choose wisely, my friends, and write on.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Nixing Omniscient Nightmares

I'm going to be talking about the different points of view and narratives writers can use in novels. First, we'll start with Third Person Omniscient because I've noticed a trend in reading and/or critiquing the work of others on various sites, that some writers are using omniscience and using it badly.

Omniscience is where the narrator knows what everyone in the book is thinking and feeling and experiencing in any given scene. The narrator is not hemmed in by one perspective, but can show many or even none.

When you start off writing a novel, please only use this narrative style if you know what you're doing. Many beginners mistakenly use it because they don't understand how perspective works. When I began my first novel, I wrote willy-nilly because I didn't know any better. Luckily, I was reading books on craft at the time and was only a few chapters in. I fixed those slips promptly.In order for readers to identify and be engrossed with your characters, scenes really should be owned by only one character. That means from the beginning to the end of a scene, Bill can't know what Tom is thinking or see that his own face is turning red. Bill can only know what he himself sees, hears, feels, tastes, thinks, experiences. You can break this barrier without giving readers an arm's-length or jarring sensation if and only if you use an all-seeing narrator masterfully.

Although Omniscient Narrative allows for flexibility in it's umbrella-style relaying, keep these objections in mind:

Ø It creates distance between readers and characters because they can't identify with one character per scene. With head popping going on, extra attention to character development and exposure is needed.

Ø It can cause confusion, especially if you don't provide paragraph breaks or good reason for changing perspective.

Ø It went out of style with button-down shoes.

Ø It's unpopular.

Ø It can make you seem amateurish.

Ø It can reveal too much information, robbing readers of suspense.

Ø It can be too telling, a landfill of exposition and backstory.

An Omniscient Narrative can be intriguing and fresh if used properly, not in the head-popping, random manners I keep seeing. However, your work needs to stand out from the sludge written by clueless wannabes. If you decide to use such a way of telling, you can at least avoid having your work read like just another Omniscient nightmare. Here's how:

Ø Make it clear in the first sentence that you're using Omniscience. Having a God-like story-teller emerge in chapter 5 out of nowhere is very jarring and confusing to readers.

Ø Use it effectively, giving smooth transitions, revealing secrets to readers the characters don't know. You can even show a scene where there is no character.

Ø Make good use of knowledge in the past, present and future.

Ø Consider your narrator a character with personality and opinions, even if he or she is never named. If you think of your narrator this way, it will help you to stay focused.

Ø Keep the voice enthralling and consistent throughout the entire novel.

Ø Only shift to viewpoints that are important.

Ø Choose a tone, style and flavor that flows from beginning to end.

Ø Be consistent in the telling. Don't have four chapters in one POV and the rest a mishmash of whomever.

Ø Be creative. You can have great fun with an all-knowing perspective.

Ø Unless you're writing for children or a fantasy piece akin to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, avoid animal perspectives. You can reveal a lot through behavior. No need to jump into Fido's head.

Ø Show, show, show. Avoid lazy telling when story elements can be revealed through dialogue or action. Too much exposition and backstory will create drag.

Ø Have the ease of a steady cam.

If you unintentionally used Omniscience, squash any POV slips you find. Think of Bill. He can only know what he knows. He can't know about the bomb under his chair in the movie theater unless he knew it was there to begin with or about the girl who secretly admires him or that his waitress at Friendly's is addicted to online porn. Pick the most important POV for the scene and write it through that one pair of eyes.

If you're using omniscience with intent, be mindful of readers and make your work as clean and unjarring as possible. Use it with flair and consistency.

I'll talk about Third Person Limited tomorrow.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.