point of view

Becoming Your Point-of-View Character

November 6, 2015 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , • 2 Comments

Becoming Your Viewpoint CharacterBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Point of view frustrates a lot of writers–new and old alike. Today I’m over at Writers in the Storm sharing one of my best tricks for how to avoid point-of-view errors. I’ll give you the secret here: You have to become your viewpoint character.

For an explanation of what the means and tips on how to do it, please join me at Writers in the Storm for “Becoming Your Point-of-View Character.

Sneak Peek: I’m blog traveling the next couple of weeks with guest posts on other sites, but I’ll also soon be starting a new series here about handling time and transitions in our writing. I’m really excited about this because I see a lot of writers I work with stumble over how to manage the passage of time. It’s a crucial element for pacing our fiction and writing scenes that work hard in our plot. If you have a specific question that you think would tie in to this topic, please send it to me through my contact page. 

Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Point of View in Fiction is now available! (You might also want to check out Internal Dialogue or Showing and Telling in Fiction.)

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How to Hunt Down Sneaky Point-of-View Errors

November 3, 2015 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , • 2 Comments

Sneaky POV ErrorsBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

One of my favorite writing craft topics is point of view because, when we master point of view, it solves so many other writing problems. Properly executing point of view immediately strengthens our writing, makes it more immersive, and gives lightbulb moments for many other writing elements. (If you want to know about other benefits of a consistent point of view, you might want to take a look at my post on 7 Reasons Understanding Point of View Is Essential to Writing Great Fiction.)   

So I was very excited when Jami Gold asked if I’d write a post for her about clues for catching out-of-POV phrases. These 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. Out-of-POV phrases are sneaky POV errors. They’re less obvious than something like head-hopping, but they’re more damaging to our writing.

Please join me over at Jami Gold’s blog where I’m giving practical tips for hunting down and eliminating sneaky out-of-POV phrases.

Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Point of View in Fiction is now available! (You might also want to check out Internal Dialogue or Showing and Telling in Fiction.)

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7 Reasons Understanding Point of View is Essential to Writing Great Fiction

October 6, 2015 by • Marcy's Blog, Marcy's Books, Writing • Tags: , , , , , • 2 Comments

Point of View in FictionBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

When we talk about point of view, we basically mean the perspective from which the story is told. Who are we listening to when we read the story? Whose head are we in? Whose eyes are we watching the story through?

Point of view isn’t merely another writing craft technique. Point of view is the foundation upon which great fiction rests.

Why do I say point of view is so essential to writing a good book?

Reason #1 – Well executed point of view allows the reader to experience (and participate in) a situation that they could never have been part of, or might never want to be part of, in real life. Consistent and skilled use of POV not only allows us to live vicariously, but also gives us the opportunity to examine ourselves and think about whether we would have made the same choices as the characters. In other words, we become participants in two senses of the word. It engages our emotions and our minds.

Reason #2 – Well executed point of view builds subtext, as we’re able to contrast what’s happening around the character with what they think about it. We can sort through the difference between reality and perception, the difference between the objective and subjective.

Reason #3 – Well executed point of view sets each character apart, as we see how they uniquely interpret the world around them. Put another way, point of view is the tool we use to create three-dimensional characters. When we don’t understand point of view and when we don’t execute it correctly, we’re very likely to end up with flat, uninteresting characters. Beyond this, as novelists and short story writers, we have an advantage in that we can give our audience that filtered perspective. They can’t receive that from television or movies or plays.

Reason #4 – Well executed point of view controls the flow of information to either create suspense or forward the plot. As authors, how we choose to handle POV determines what we must and can’t show to the reader. As readers, it creates the page-turning excitement as we discover things along with the POV character.

Reason #5 – Well executed point of view encourages showing rather than telling. “Showing” in fiction rather than “telling” is one of the most common pieces of writing advice and also one that a majority of writers struggle to execute. Understanding and writing from a close point of view makes this concept easier because we’re experiencing the story through the eyes of a particular character.

Reason #6 – Well executed point of view helps us decide what description belongs in the story. Many writers buy into the fallacy that description slows a story down. Description doesn’t slow a story down—bad description or description placed where it doesn’t belong slows a story down. When we write with a clear point of view, we’ll know what details are important to include and when is the appropriate time to include them.

Reason #7 – Well executed point of view shows us when to include backstory and when to explain details about our world and setting or about the way something works. How much or how little to explain these elements to readers becomes a stumbling block for many writers. When we have a clear POV, we’ll know to include it only when the POV character would naturally be thinking about it or noticing it.

Point of View in Fiction: A Busy Writer’s Guide Is Now Available!

In Point of View in Fiction: A Busy Writer’s Guide, you’ll learn

  • the strengths and weaknesses of the four different points of view you can choose for your story (first person, second person, limited third person, and omniscient),
  • how to select the right point of view for your story,
  • how to maintain a consistent point of view throughout your story,
  • practical techniques for identifying and fixing head-hopping and other point-of-view errors,
  • the criteria to consider when choosing the viewpoint character for each individual scene or chapter,
  • and much more!

Each book in the Busy Writer’s Guide series is intended to give you enough theory so that you can understand why things work and why they don’t, but also enough examples to see how that theory looks in practice. In addition, they provide tips and exercises to help you take it to the pages of your own story, with an editor’s-eye view. Most importantly, they cut the fluff so that you have more time to write and to live your life.

You can grab a copy of Point of View in Fiction from Amazon, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. It’s also available in print.

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10 Writing Mistakes that Kill Your First Chapter

June 11, 2015 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , , , • 31 Comments

10 Writing Mistakes That KillBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

I’m teaching at a writer’s conference this week, so instead of one of my in-depth posts, I thought I’d create a quick checklist for you.

Here are 10 writing mistakes that kill your first chapter (in no particular order). Get them before they get you!

#1 – A Boring/Generic First Line

Don’t show me the character doing anything completely normal and forgettable. Waking up, getting out of their car, folding their laundry…

Your first line needs to raise questions in the reader’s mind and make them curious or hint at trouble/conflict. Preferably both.

#2 – Point-of-View Shifts

Head-hopping is always a problem, regardless of where it crops up in your manuscript, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I mean a point-of-view shift carried out with a proper transition.

Confused? In your first chapter, one of the things you need to do is convince the reader to invest in your main character. They need to spend time with them to do that, and if you switch POV characters within the first chapter, the reader doesn’t have enough time to make that connection.

#3 – No Clear POV Character

This point is the doppelganger of (2). It’s extremely difficult to be interested in a story when you don’t know who matters, what they care about, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Connect the reader to a character immediately and allow the reader to experience the story through that person.

(If you’re writing in omniscient POV, ignore this point, but make sure you wow the reader with your distinctive voice.)

#4 – Too Many Characters Introduced at Once

How am I supposed to remember all these people, especially if they’re introduced without much to set them apart? Drip feed your characters, and make each important character memorable in some way.

#5 – Clumsy Formatting

This could be internal dialogue that fills the page with so many italics that my eyes start to bleed, dialogue where I’m not sure who’s speaking, or any number of other distracting, confusing formatting glitches. These pull the reader right out of the story and shift their focus onto something they shouldn’t even notice.

#6 – Allowing a Character to Speak or Think Uninterrupted for Paragraphs (or Pages!) at a Time

I could actually expand this to say “allowing your character to do anything uninterrupted for too long,” but giving a speech or musing to themselves are particularly problematic. Since this is a short list, I’ll give you just three reasons why this is an issue. The first is that the reader usually ends up feeling preached to. The second is that you lose all sense of setting. The third is that it stops the action dead.

#7 – Too Much Backstory

Backstory can be hinted at, but it’s normally something you should withhold until later when the reader really wants to know it and it’s pertinent to what’s happening in the present. Why? Backstory, by definition, is over. The reader wants to see your character getting themselves into trouble in the present.

Which leads me to…

#8 – No Trouble or Conflict

I suspect that we writers fall into Happy Person Syndrome because we want to make the reader like our character or because we’re trying to follow the advice to “establish their normal world before you disrupt it.”

A calm, happy opening isn’t the way to establish your character’s normal world or make the reader like your character. Show them trying to solve a problem in their normal world. It’s active, it creates reader sympathy, and it shows the normal world.

#9 – Telling Instead of Showing

If you’ve read my book Showing and Telling in Fiction, then you know I’m an advocate for telling having a good and useful place in fiction. Your first chapter usually isn’t that place.

Showing is more entertaining and more interactive, and engages reader emotions—all good things if you want to hook a reader and keep them turning those pages.

#10 – Stilted Dialogue

Is your dialogue too formal? Do you have everyone using direct address? (E.g., “Did I see you at the movies today, Mary?”) Do you have too much filler dialogue? (E.g., hellos, goodbyes, how are yous.)

Dialogue doesn’t automatically make your book feel active. Good dialogue does.

Do you have any other common first chapter problems you’d like to add to the list? Which of these causes you the most headaches in your own writing?

Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Deep Point of View is now available in print and ebook forms.

(You might also be interested in checking out Internal Dialogue, Description, or Showing and Telling in Fiction.)

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Deep POV – Using Your Pain to Become a Better Writer

November 18, 2014 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , • 5 Comments

I have another special guest post for you today. This time my good friend and writing partner Lisa Hall-Wilson is here to talk to you about deep POV and how you can channel your pain into becoming a better writer.

Lisa Hall-WilsonIn case you don’t know Lisa, let me introduce you a little bit. Lisa is a freelance journalist who works for the faith-based market. Here’s how she describes herself and why she writes:

Growing up, I was a small, shadow-of-a-girl who lived with the characters in my books and hid from the world. Life taught me that sometimes bad things happen, sometimes the bully wins, and no one hears you no matter how loud you scream. But through my stories I had a voice – and people listened. As an adult, the faith I discovered in my teens gave me the courage to face my fears, stomp on the pretenses, and use my writing to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,’ to find the authentic, the real, the heart-of-the-matter.

Take it away, Lisa!

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Deep POV – Using Your Pain to Become a Better Writer

By Lisa Hall-Wilson

Deep POV is one of my favorite writing techniques. Also known as a limited or close point of view, your reader experiences the story right alongside the character telling the story.

Deep POV is emotive, creates a sense of immediacy, and can be written in either past or present tense. The reader is only privy to what the point of view character (POVC) knows, sees, senses, understands, and is aware of. The reader experiences the story through that character, including their worldview, opinions, prejudices, past experiences, education, social class, economic class, family status, hopes, and failures.

Actors have a lot to teach us about writing in this style. Method acting is a technique used by actors to recreate in themselves the thoughts and feelings of the characters they are portraying.

Some method actors take it further than others. Heath Ledger locked himself in an apartment for a month to play The Joker. Jack Nicholson reportedly underwent electroshock therapy for his role in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Viggo Mortensen was known to have lived in his Aragorn costume off set, carried around the sword, and personally cared for his character’s horse. Daniel Day-Lewis lived in the woods for six months hunting and shooting and trapping to prepare for his role in The Last of the Mohicans.

Do writers need to be this in-depth? I don’t know – but we can certainly learn a thing or two from the idea of method acting. I want my characters to leap off the page; be so real, you could imagine meeting this person in real life. One way to do that is make each character you.

Our characters are capable of the same kinds of emotional depth we are, so I search for some way to relate to each of my POV characters. What experience do I have in common with them? How did that make me feel?

Focus on that common experience or emotion you have with a character. Dig deep – go there – and let that pain, heartache, loss, resonate inside your character too. Whether or not you’ve personally experienced whatever extreme your character is living through, the base emotions you’re drawing from are the same across the human experience.

A teen being forced to choose between parents in a divorce. My parents are still married so I’ve never lived this, but I know what it’s like to desperately want to avoid hurting or disappointing someone I love. I know what it’s like to feel like I lose no matter what choice I make.

A firefighter who’s discovered his wife is in an adulterous relationship. Obviously, I’m not a man, nor have I faced this kind of situation. However, I understand being blindsided by betrayal. I understand the singular focus of just putting one foot in front of the other because I don’t know what else to do.

A battered mother finally makes a choice to leave an abusive husband. I understand what it’s like to talk yourself into and out of a decision a thousand times. I understand doing something for the sake of someone you love, because you don’t think enough of yourself to do it for your own sake. I understand what giving up on something really important feels like, something you love.

Write what you know. Don’t waste your pain!

Will writing in deep POV, method-writing, change you? It will absolutely make your writing better, and you’ll always learn something new about yourself. Whatever you learn about yourself in the process, you’ll carry with you into your next novel.

Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Deep Point of View is now available! (You might also want to check out Internal Dialogue or Showing and Telling in Fiction.)

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What Is Head Hopping and How Can We Avoid It?

November 12, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , • 24 Comments

head hoppingBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

In my continuing series on point of view, I promised I’d explain the difference between omniscient POV and head hopping. Before I do that, we need to get one thing out of the way.

Head-hopping is never good. Sometimes an author can get away with it, but it’s never ideal and it never makes your story stronger. Never.

Omniscient POV, on the other hand, is a valid point of view for fiction. It might not be the most popular or the most commonly used in 21st century fiction, but there’s nothing wrong with it. And some stories are even best told in it.

Obviously, the tricky part for most writers is telling them apart. I’m going to show you the secret for keeping them straight.

To be head hopping, a passage needs to meet two criteria:

(1)   The viewpoint shifts between characters without a proper transition (e.g. a scene break).
(2)   The thoughts/feelings of the characters are given in their voices rather than in the author’s voice.

Now that you know the definition of head hopping, you’ll be able to run everything through its filter to decide if a passage is head hopping or genuinely omniscient POV.

Omniscient POV will be written in the author’s voice. The characters’ feelings and thoughts will be filtered through the author narrator.

Head hopping will be in the characters’ voices, and you’ll go back and forth without a proper transition.  

Let me give you an example of head hopping so you can see it in action…

Jack rolled down the window half an inch, a smirk spreading across his face. The slut would never find her way back without him, and no one would find her until the coyotes had picked her bones clean.

Anna yanked at the door handle. Her chest felt heavy, her lungs unwilling to suck in a full breath. “Unlock the door, Jake. This isn’t funny anymore.”

Jake’s cold blue eyes stared into hers. After all she’d made him suffer through, he was going to enjoy this moment. Savor it like a medium rare T-bone steak.

Now let’s break it apart.

Jack rolled down the window half an inch, a smirk spreading across his face. Sounds like we’re in someone else’s POV here. Someone who’s watching Jake. If we were in Jake’s POV, this would read Jake rolled down the window half an inch and smirked. The slut would never find her way back without him, and no one would find her until the coyotes had picked her bones clean. We’re hearing Jake’s thoughts in Jake’s voice. It’s him, not the author, thinking of Anna as a “slut.”

Anna yanked at the door handle. Her chest felt heavy, her lungs unwilling to suck in a full breath. Now we’re firmly in Anna’s head. Only she can describe how her chest feels and the dread settling there. “Unlock the door, Jake. This isn’t funny anymore.”

Jake’s cold blue eyes stared into hers. Still in Anna’s POV since she’s the one who can see Jake’s eye color. After all she’d made him suffer through, he was going to enjoy this moment. Savor it like a rare T-bone steak. Jake’s thoughts in Jake’s voice again.

Head hopping damages your story because it makes the writing feel choppy. Readers constantly need to pause, however slightly, and figure out who they’re supposed to identify with. They’re often left feeling disconnected entirely. Even if they don’t know what to call head hopping, they’ll know something is off and that they have a difficult time connecting emotionally with the characters/narrator. Readers need to connect emotionally with either the characters (in first person POV and third person POV) or with the author narrator (in omniscient POV).

Update: Turns out Jami Gold, one of my favorite bloggers and fellow WANA instructors, wrote a post back in February all about using transitions to avoid head hopping. Make sure you check it out!

Do you have any questions about omniscient POV or head hopping before we move on? Any questions on POV in general are also welcome!

Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Deep Point of View is now available! (You might also want to check out Internal Dialogue or Showing and Telling in Fiction.)

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Are You Writing in the POV You Think You’re Writing In?

October 9, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , , , • 16 Comments

Point of ViewBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Point of view problems are the most common problems I see as a freelance editor. And I’m not surprised. Point of view is a difficult concept to master, yet it’s also the most essential. (Check out Janice Hardy’s post on 4 Tips to Solve 99% of Your Writing Problems. It’s all about POV.)

So I’m kicking off a new series that I hope will help you understand your point of view options better, choose the right POV for your story, and get it right when you do.

What Is POV?

When we talk about POV, we basically mean the point of view from which the story is told. Who are you listening to? Whose head are you in? In a practical sense, POV lays the foundation for everything you’ll write in your story, and it comes in four types.

Second Person

Second person POV tells the story using you.

You dig through your purse, but can’t find your keys. They were there yesterday. You’re sure of it. You tip your purse’s contents out onto the table, and receipts, old gum wrappers, and pennies spill everywhere.

The “Choose Your Own Adventure” books that were popular when I was a kid used second person POV.

You’d be able to self-publish a book written in second person, but you probably wouldn’t be able to sell it to a traditional publisher. For an example of one of the few successful second person books, try to find a copy of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City.

Omniscient POV

Omniscient POV is when the story is told by an all-knowing narrator. That all-knowing narrator is the author, and the story is told in his or her voice rather than in any particular character’s voice.

This is easily confused with head-hopping. Head-hopping and omniscient POV are not the same thing. I’ll cover both in more detail in an upcoming post.

For an excellent example of how to write omniscient POV well, check out Rachel Aaron’s The Spirit Thief.

Third Person POV

In third person, a scene, chapter, or sometimes, even the whole book is told from the perspective of a single character, but it uses he/she.

Melanie dug through her purse. No keys. They were here yesterday. She’d dropped them in when she came home from work. Hadn’t she? She tipped her purse’s contents out onto the table, and receipts, old gum wrappers, and pennies spilled everywhere.

Everything is filtered through the eyes of the viewpoint character, and we hear their voice. You can have multiple third person POV characters per book as long as you don’t hop between them in a single scene. If you give the flavor of a particular character’s voice, and switch POVs mid-scene without a proper transition, you’re head-hopping.

Even though you can have multiple POV characters, try to write your book with the smallest possible number. (Few of us are writing something like George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.)

First Person POV

Just like it sounds, in first person, the character is telling us the story directly.

I dug through my purse. No keys. They were here yesterday. I’d dropped them in when I came home from work, didn’t I? I tipped my purse’s contents out onto the table, and receipts, old gum wrappers, and pennies spilled everywhere.

Most of the time, when you use first person POV, you’ll only use that single POV throughout the book (like in The Hunger Games). However, that’s not a rule. Authors have successfully used more than one first person POV in the same book. I just wouldn’t recommend it for new writers because it’s difficult to do well.

For examples of how to write first person POV well, read Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (multiple first person POVs) or Janice Hardy’s The Shifter (a single first person POV).

I’ll dig into each type of POV (except for second person) in future posts, but after this overview, hopefully we’re all working from the same foundation.

What POV are you writing in? What you’re biggest struggle with POV? I’m happy to take requests for future posts!

I hope you’ll check out the newly released mini-books in my Busy Writer’s Guides series–Strong Female Characters and How to Write Faster–both currently available for 99 cents.

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