The Number One Rule of Writing

Trust yourself to put that first word on the page.

Trust yourself.

That is all.

What, were you expecting it to be something far more elaborate and detailed? Perhaps something rigid and defined?

Well, there certainly are a lot of rules for writing, and they are all very useful rules to keep in mind. Things like: use proper grammar; avoid contractions in formal writing; avoid redundant adverbs and eliminate weak verb-adverb pairs; use 'said' as your default for speech tags; do not have your characters constantly say each other's names; have a defined beginning, middle, and end; raise the stakes for your characters and put them in jeopardy...

The list goes on and on and on. Rules about POV, rules about style, rules, rules, rules, rules.

The only hard and fast rule of writing is that there are as many rules as there are writers.

What do I mean by that? I mean that every writer out there is going to have their own idea of what makes writing good. Writing rules are subjective. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a sucker for the rules. I believe there is such a thing as good writing and bad writing. However, which is which really depends on who you ask. There is a sort of 'canon' idea of what makes for good writing, but people work outside of that all the time and still have success.  Bad writing exists, but not everyone agrees on what makes writing bad.

The commonly agreed upon reasons for bad writing are: weak plot, weak and flat characters, inconsistent style, poor grammar, and similar things. But again, people still disagree as to what is what.

So, here you are, trying to navigate the waters of being a writer. You will be given conflicting advice. How do you know which is right, which is the way to go?

This is where trusting yourself comes in. If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? Even if you follow all the supposed rules that you have read about, if you don't trust yourself, your writing will be weak and shaky. Do you really need to do something that breaks a rule, because you think it will make your story more powerful? Break that sucker.

Trust yourself.

Because you will never be as good at being your favorite author as that author is. But you can most definitely be the best at being yourself. And to do that, you will have to trust yourself.

It is not easy. I still struggle with it every day. It is especially difficult when you are editing something, and when a self-imposed deadline looms over your head like a Sword of Damocles, threatening a sense of failure.

I try to remind myself that there is no failure as long as I keep plugging away at my work, as long as I do not give up, as long as I do my best...

...as long as I trust myself.

So keep the rules in mind--because rules are useful and will make your writing stronger--but remember to trust yourself, even if that means stepping outside of the rules.

That is the number one rule of writing.

Moor Word Usage Errors

There are a lot of word usage errors out there, largely due to the fact that many English words look/sound similar to each other. (If you haven't seen my other post on usage/spelling mistakes, check it out.) I thought I would do another post on these tricksy little fellows. Be sure to watch out for these mistakes in your own writing!

Materiel / Material:

Materiel with an ‘e’ is pronounced with the same inflection as personnel.  It’s a military term, and it refers to physical things such as rations and ammunition and the like. So, what do you need in warfare? You need both personnel and materiel.  Materiel is a non-quantitative noun like corn or wheat – so you can’t pluralize it. 

Material with an ‘a,’ on the other hand, is the word you’re most familiar with. It can mean fabric or whatever something is made out of. You’ve probably heard the expression “raw materials,” meaning the basic components of something before it’s made or assembled.

To remember the difference, link materiel with an ‘e’ to the word personnel, and link material with an ‘a’ to ‘raw,’ which also has an ‘a.’

Lightning / lightening

Lightning is that stuff that strikes down from the sky and causes thunder.

Lightening, with an ‘e’ in there, is the participle (or the gerund, depending on context) of ‘to lighten.’ When something lightens, it gets lighter – so hair lightener makes you hair lighter.  What are you doing when you’re using lightener to make your hair lighter? You are lightening your hair. Or, if something is heavy and you want lighten the load to make it lighter, you are lightening the load.

To remember the difference, link the ‘e’ in ‘lighten’ with the ‘e’ in ‘lighter.’  If there isn’t an ‘e’ in the word, get ready for the thunderclaps.  For example: after the dark clouds of a lightning storm, you can see the sky lightening.

Site / sight

Site refers to a location. A construction site is a place where construction happens. Somebody might say, “This is the site of the battle of Gettysburg.”

Sight can mean many things, but it all has to do with seeing.  Somebody who is sighted is not blind.  If something is within sight, you can see it. If you are looking at something through crosshairs, you are using a sight. This is what people mean when they say, “target sighted.”  Since sights are something that is common on guns, you can link the ‘g’ in sight with the ‘g’ in gun.  Just remember that sight can mean all those other things that have to do with seeing as well.

The expression “shot on sight” has to do with shooting somebody the minute you see them. I once mistakenly believed that the expression was “shot on site,” thinking that it meant you shot them right there on the spot.  If you have trouble remembering which, try to think of the phrase “If somebody is shot on sight, they die right there on the site.” This should help you remember that ‘site’ has to do with location, whereas the expression has to do with seeing.

Pore / pour
Pore has two meanings.  One is a noun, meaning a tiny little hole.  You’re probably already familiar with this meaning. You’ll see skin products that promise to clarify your pores, and when your pores get clogged, you get a blackhead or pimple. Something full of holes, like a sponge or pumice, is porous. The second meaning is a verb, and it means to examine something very closely.  If you ever hear somebody say, “I was poring over the dictionary,” it means they were looking very closely at the dictionary.  To remember this, link the ‘e’ in pore with the ‘e’ in examine.  Then, remember that you can also examine the pores on your face.

Pour, on the other hand, is when you transfer something between containers. If you pour something out, you are emptying the container of whatever substance was in there.  Of course, if has to be a substance that can flow, so usually this is liquid. When you pour a glass of water, you pour water from the pitcher into the glass. To remember this, imagine that the ‘u’ in pour is a little glass of water.

Awe / Aw

Awe is an experience of wonder, generally with an implication of speechlessness or the inability to put it into words.  It is the root of words like awestruck and awesome. Awesome has lost a little of its original meaning – we just use it to mean ‘cool’ or ‘neat,’ but it once meant that something’s substance was awe-inspiring. There are a couple of ways to remember this, most of which include linking ‘awe’ with a word you’re familiar with, such as awesome. Or, if you like, you can link the ‘e’ at the end of awe with the ‘e’ at the beginning of experience, since awe is a feeling or experience.

Aw is an interjection used to express delight or dismay. “Aw, that’s so cool!” “Aw, that’s sad.” “Aw, that’s adorable!” “Aw, that’s terrible!” And so on. The correct spelling is with one ‘w,’ but we frequently append more ‘w’s to indicate how drawn out the interjection is: “Awwww, do I have to?”  It does not have an ‘e.’ To remember this, imagine that it’s one of the drawn out ‘aw’s, with lots of ‘w’s. Just remember that the ‘correct’ spelling only has one.

Awe-full / awful

This one is similar to awe/aw, and you can pretty much use the same tricks to remember it. Awe-full is hyphenated (this is important) and it means that something is full of awe or awe-inspiring (sort of like awesome). Note that it has the actual word ‘full,’ complete with two ‘l’s.

Awful, on the other hand, means that something is terrible. Remember that ‘aw’ can be used to express dismay? Well, imagine that the ‘aw’ in awful is that kind of dismayed aw, and that the whole thing is so full of dismay that it’s just terrible. It only has one ‘l,’ just like the word ‘beautiful’ or ‘frightful.’ This is because it is a compound word, whereas awe-full is a hyphenated word.

Alright / all right

These basically mean the same thing, and you may use them interchangeably. However, one is considered more formal. According to dictionary.com:

“The form alright as a one-word spelling of the phrase all right in all of its senses probably arose by analogy with such words as already and altogether. Although alright is a common spelling in written dialogue and in other types of informal writing, all right is used in more formal, edited writing.”

I prefer to use ‘all right’ in every situation except for when it’s used as a sentence lead-in. “Alright, is everybody all right?” However, this is a personal preference. Just remember that in polished writing, such as an essay, you should use the full form of all right.

Of course, the most delightful way to use alright is in the phrase, “Alright-y then.”  This phrase is best accompanied by an eye roll or a look of disbelief.

Alot /a lot

Alot is NOT A WORD. For more information about the infamous alot, check out this post from Hyperbole and a Half. (This post is totally SFW, but some of the other posts have quite a bit of language.)

A lot, on the other hand, consists of two words: ‘a’ and ‘lot.’ You know what this means, but I see a lot of people who turn these two words into one compound word. Put a space between these words. To help you remember, go check out the post at Hyperbole and a Half. Not only will it help you get this set in your memory, it’s just plain funny.

What are some usage errors that you catch yourself making? Share any thoughts in the comments. 

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Flashbacks Again

Hello, readers! Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been busy, and it's been hard to make time for blogging.

After my last post on flashbacks, I was asked if I could provide an example of how it's done. Being short on time, I cheated and did a Google search. I found this awesome blog post by Paige Duke that breaks down the anatomy of a flashback in The Hunger Games. 

Here's a teaser for their post. I highly recommend that you read the whole thing. 

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Creating a Strong Framework

Because a flashback halts the forward motion of the narrative, the reader must care about the character before you throw the car in reverse. Collins’ flashback comes in Chapter 2, which might seem early, but we’re already hooked into the action of the story and tied to the fate of the character. Because Katniss has just volunteered to take her sister’s place in the Games—a death sentence for sure. And she’s about to find out who else she’ll have to face in the arena.

Peeta Mellark! Oh, no, I think. Not him … I try to convince myself it doesn’t matter. Peeta Mellark and I are not friends. Not even neighbors. We don’t speak. Our only real interaction happened years ago. He’s probably forgotten it. But I haven’t and I know I never will.…

The First Sentences

There are two things to note about a strong first sentence of a flashback. First, it’s a transition, so it needs to be strategic. Whether it’s smooth or abrupt, seamless or jarring, it should be that way intentionally. Maybe this flashback comes to your character in a natural way when a sense of smell triggers the memory. Or maybe they’re thrust back into a tense and painful moment in time, caught completely off guard. The effect is different, so use this transition point to its full advantage.

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Read more at http://www.standoutbooks.com/writing-flashbacks/

I hope that helps everybody write stronger, more awesome flashbacks! Now get out there and write!

Share any thoughts or questions in the comments. 

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Flashbacks

Photo courtesy of graur razva ionut on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Okay, let’s talk about flashbacks.  Flashbacks are an important part of most narrative storytelling, as we all experience those times when we think about our distant past.  So, it’s really important to learn how to write them well.

A heads-up: while there is some objective advice in today’s post, such as the mechanics of flashbacks, I want you to be aware that there is also a lot of my personal opinion in here. My opinion is not law.  I think it’s good advice, but I’m not conceited enough to think that my way is the only way.

Something that I see a lot from new writers (and occasionally from experienced ones) is that they indicate flashbacks using italics. This can in fact be done.  It’s not a bad method per se – in fact, Jay Kristoff uses it in Stormdancer.  (While Stormdancer is his breakthrough novel, I doubt that he’s a writing rookie.) He also uses another method commonly used – using line, chapter, or page breaks to demarcate (set apart) where the flashback begins and ends. I do think it’s a little ungraceful, but it works and it didn’t ruin the story for me. Even one of my favorite authors uses this in one of his series, but the flashbacks he wrote without this method were far superior.

Another way to write flashbacks, by way of explaining history, is to use the character’s dreams. It’s really easy to do it this way, but easy does not equal awesome. Personally, I really dislike this. It’s overused and a little unrealistic, since most people don't dream exact scenes from their pasts. It can work, such as in cases of PTSD where people really do re-live what happened in their dreams.  If you’ve done this in your writing, don’t feel bad. I’m not saying you are a bad writer or anything like that.  I’m not even saying you have to change it – after all, it’s your story, and only you can make that decision. But it is kind of an easy way out, and the easy way out isn’t generally the best way.

An exception to this is for letting characters relive traumatic events, but it works best if you only give the tiiiiniest little tease. It leaves the reader hungry for more. If you do the whole memory in a dream, in one big clump, it can disrupt the flow.

The preferred way, at least according to academics, is the in-story flashback.  This, instead of being set apart by visual aids or dreams, is set apart by tense changes.  This is the way I was taught to write flashbacks in either my junior or senior year of high school. (The curriculum I used was Writing Strands, which is a great resource if you ever want to look at it over a summer or something like that.) There are a set of pretty rigid rules as far as using the tense changes themselves, but don’t worry – there’s still plenty of room for creativity.

Before we get to the tense rules of writing a flashback, I’d like to put in my two cents about all of this. Every single method I’ve listed can be used to write flashbacks, and every single method can be used well.  However, the first two have disadvantages that the third one doesn’t.

I have written both in-story (without being visually set apart) flashbacks and flashbacks that were set apart physically.  In my PERSONAL OPINION (that means that you should take this with a grain of salt, and decide for yourself what you think), in-story flashbacks are by far superior.  You don’t disrupt the flow of the story, and you don’t practically shout to the reader: “Hey! Lookit! A flaaashbaaack!!” There is a time and a place for visually set apart flashbacks, but they tend to be cumbersome and ungraceful, in my opinion. (Keep in mind that I am including my own work in this category, so don’t feel bad or like I’m putting you down if you have done this.)

So, how do you use tense changes to write flashbacks?  Perhaps the easiest way to start is with this chart demonstrating what tenses should be used when.

Flashbacks are simply the character thinking back to something that has already happened.  If past tense is your main tense, then you will use the past perfect for this regardless of how long ago in the story arc the flashback happened. However, if you’re using present as your main tense, you’ll want to use the regular past tense for things that happened, say, earlier that day or the day before.  For things that happened a long time ago, you’ll want to use past perfect tense.

Now that we have that established, here are the steps of writing an in-story flashback.

Step 1 – the lead-in

This is how you cue your reader to the fact that they are about to be reading a flashback.  It could be as simple as, “He remembered a time in his life when he had been happy,” or you can use more complex, creative things too.  Either way, you want there to be an obvious indication that we’re about to learn about something that has already happened.

Step 2 – the lead-in tense change

If you’re writing in present tense and are writing about something that happened very recently in the story, you’ll simply switch to past tense for the duration of the flashback. Easy enough, right?

The trick comes when you’re writing in past tense or you’re bringing up the distant past.  Have you ever tried to write an entire paragraph in past perfect? It’s obnoxious to write, and it’s obnoxious to read.  So what you do, after you’ve got your lead-in sentence that cues us to be on the lookout for a flashback, is write two to four sentences in past perfect. How many you write depends on how long the flashback is. The rest of the flashback can then be using the simple past tense.  If the flashback is really, really long, it doesn’t hurt to throw in another sentence in past perfect here and there, just to help the reader remember that this is still a flashback.

Step 3 – the ending tense change

Assuming that you are writing in past tense or the distant past, the last two to four sentences of your flashback should be written in past perfect. This is a solid reminder everything mentioned is in fact in the past and has already come to pass.  Once this has been finished, you switch back to your main tense.

Step 4 – the jolt back to the present

Just like the lead-in tells the reader a flashback is about to happen, this out-tro of sorts lets them know that it is over.  Generally, working the word ‘now’ into the sentence somehow is a really good way to do it, but there are a lot of opportunities for creativity.

So, more or less, that’s how an in-story flashback works. If you want to, you can combine this with the visual separation techniques for a very stark contrast. (This is all about the style you want to achieve. Kristoff did this in Stormdancer and it worked well.) As I said, I’ve discovered that I like the subtlety of in-story flashbacks better than the other method.

If you decide to write a dream flashback, then don’t use the tense change rules. Dreams are something that the character actively experiences, so all you need to do is indicate that the character is dreaming and then relate the events in your main tense. It’s a good idea to avoid not telling the reader that something is a dream, unless it’s a very brief dream.  If you have a big ol’ long dream, it can be annoying for your readers to suddenly discover that what they thought was actually happening happened a long time ago. (At least, this is what the writing books tell me.)

Think carefully about which type of flashback works best for your story. It won’t always be the same, and you may use multiple methods per story.  But when you want a smooth, even flow and readability to story, then the in-story flashback really works the best.


Share any thoughts or questions in the comments!

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Be Tense!

Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

All right, I realize that the title of today’s post is a cheap pun – and I used it a few weeks back – but I just couldn’t resist. I think it’s funny, so it must be, amirite? Huh? Anybody?

Okay, since I can practically hear the eyes rolling, I’ll get to the point.

As you may have surmised, today’s post is about verb tense in narrative. As a quick review, tense is the timeframe in which a verb is being used. There are three basic tenses in English: future, present, and past.  Another one that you need to know about for storytelling is a subcategory of past: pluperfect, or, as it’s more commonly known, past perfect.

“Pluperfect” is a fancy term I learned in my Latin class. It’s what people call past perfect when they want to sound fancy, as if they are wearing top hats and monocles.

Now you too can be fancy. Go impress your English teachers.

So anyway, future tense, indicated with a ‘will’ or ‘shall’ construction (“I shall go” or “you will leave”), is almost never used as a main tense in narrative storytelling. Certainly, your narrator might say, “I will get to that in a minute,” or something similar, but I have yet to see an entire narrative in future tense. It just plain doesn’t work.

Present tense, on the other hand, indicated by an -s suffix or no suffix construction (she walks, I eat), is often used in narrative.  A good example of this is in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. If you haven’t read them, they are a fairly easy read, so check them out for the example. If you have read them, go back and give it a quick glance. You’ll see that most of the verbs are in present tense – unless Katniss is reminiscing (looking back) or planning ahead.

Present tense is a great choice in storytelling because it gives the reader a sense of immediacy.  It gives the impression that what’s going on in the story is happening RIGHT NOW. The reader feels that they are living the story along with the characters, rather than reading about something that happened.  This isn’t to say that past tense, which we’ll get to in a minute, can’t also be exciting, but something about that present tense makes it seem urgent.

Side note: outside of narrative, present tense should always be used in the synopsis (summary) of a story or other writing. This is especially important in writing essays and book reports. Even if the original writing is in the past tense, discuss it using present tense verbs. For example: “Harry tells Hermione that they need to find the invisibility cloak.” If you’re talking about another type of writing, do the same thing: “Vossler says that synopses always use the present tense.”

Now go impress your English teachers.

Anyway, past tense, usually indicated with an -ed suffix (I jumped, he talked), is probably the most common main tense in narrative. Keep in mind that past tense is where the most verb irregularities occur, so keep an eye out for that (ate, went, swam, and hung, just to name a few). Past tense is the most natural-feeling way to tell a story. We typically think of stories as something that have already happened: “Hey, let me tell you this story about my childhood!” This is especially true if the story is set in a past era. In fact, we practically live in the past tense. I don’t mean that we live in the past, I mean that we use and think of things in terms of the past tense. The present happens so briefly that it barely has time to register.  Something that happened mere seconds ago has already become past, so we think of it in those terms.

Even when we think about what we are currently doing, we don’t typically use a simple present tense. You don’t really think “I walk to the post office,” on your way to the post office. You think “I am walking to the post office,” which is the present participle of ‘to walk.’ Now, you might think of generalities in present tense, such as “I don’t drive to the post office, I walk to the post office,” but if you pay much attention to your personal verb use, you’ll notice a surprising amount of past tense.

This is what makes past tense such a natural choice for narrative. It clicks with the way that we typically think of the world, so when we read a story in past tense, it still feels like it’s happening at the moment – albeit without the same urgency that present tense offers.  For this reason, it’s also easier to write in past than in present.  Don’t confuse ‘easier’ with poorer quality, or even better quality.  The story you are telling will determine what the best tense choice is.

Present tense and past tense are your two choices for a main tense in storytelling.  One of these will be your reference point, and all of your other verb tenses will be chosen with one of these in mind.

So, if past and present are you choices for storytelling, what’s up with that pluperfect thingy I was talking about?

Pluperfect (I love sounding fancy, since I don’t have a top hat or monocle) is indicated by a ‘had’ construction (I had danced, he had cried). It is a really important thing in storytelling, particularly if your main tense is past, because it is what you will use for flashbacks and references to things that have happened already. 

So let’s kind of break down what past perfect really is. Why ‘perfect’?

You’re probably thinking, “Oh, no...she’s going to pull out the Latin again, isn’t she?”

Why yes, yes I am.

The root of ‘perfect’ is fect, which comes from the Latin verb facere. Facere means ‘to make,’ and you’ll see it in a ton of our words: manufacture (originally meaning to make with your hands), deface (to ruin or ‘unmake’ something).  In English, we typically think that perfect means “without flaw.”  But in Latin, it means completely made, or finished.  The ‘making’ part of it has already taken place. So, when you see ‘perfect’ as part of a verb tense, it is referring the fact that the verb is already completed.

Think of ‘past perfect’ as ‘past completed’ or ‘past something that has already happened.’  The past tense of present tense verbs is the past tense. The past tense of past tense verbs is the past perfect tense.

Are you confused yet?

Think of it this way. When you’re writing in the present tense and you want to talk about something that already happened, you just switch to the past tense. Imagine your narrative goes something like this:

I walk to the store, thinking about how I walked to the store last week, too.

But, if you’re writing in the past tense as your main tense, you switch to past perfect when you’re talking about something that already happened.

I walked to the store, thinking about how I had walked to the store last week, too.

Hopefully that makes a little more sense. Next week, I’ll delve into the nitty-gritty of how to write flashbacks.

So, to recap: past and present are your two choices for the main tense in storytelling. You’ll still use a lot of them in your overall piece, but which ones you choose at any given moment depends on whether past or present is your main tense.

Share any thoughts or questions in the comments!

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Third-Person POV

Photo courtesy of graur razva ionut on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Woo-hoo! It’s Word-Craft Wednesday on a Friday! Since I totally didn’t get my third-person POV piece written in time for Wednesday, I decided to post it today instead. Don’t worry, though – just because it’s Word-Craft Wednesday on a Friday doesn’t mean that your weekend is delayed. (Thank goodness!)

By the way, if you find any typos in here, I am blaming them on my cat, who decided that my lap belongs to her, not my laptop. I am typing with the cat pretty much on my hands, and she is purring quite contentedly.

So, let’s talk a little about third-person POV. You already know the basics – you use third-person pronouns. But let’s break it down a little further. There are three types of third-person narrative: omniscient, objective, and subjective.  Since subjective is a lot like first-person, and we just talked about that last Wednesday, let’s do a quick comparison and contrast between the two.

Third-Person Subjective (Limited)

I will just straight up admit that this is my favorite narrative POV to use and to read. For whatever reason, writing first person doesn’t come naturally to me, and I tend to have a harder time getting into books written in first person. This isn’t to say that I dislike first-person narrative, it’s just not my natural inclination.

A lot of the ‘rules’ of first-person narrative apply to third-person limited as well. A lot of the reading that I have done, however, seems to indicate that third-person limited allows for a little more leeway when describing your character. It’s easier to slip that kind of stuff in there without disrupting the narration – the reader is already in a mindset of observing this character rather than seeing through his/her eyes, so it won’t seem jarring.

HOWEVER.

It won’t seem as jarring, but it is way, waaay to easy to abuse this. You only get a tiny bit more leeway than you do in first person. Character description is like an energy drink: it’s awesome in just the right amount, but too much will make people want to steer clear of you (yes, I speak from experience here).

If you want your narrative to be rich in description (and why wouldn’t you?), the key is not to focus on the POV character. Focus on landscapes and rooms, focus on the other characters, focus on the sounds and sights and smells and sensations your POV character is experiencing. This is what will make your narrative seem more real to the reader.

The benefit of third-person limited, as I have said before, is that you immediately give the reader a person to latch onto – sort of a companion that they can follow through the story. The drawback? It’s…well, limited.

Third-Person Objective

This is the narrative point of view that almost all theatre and film is told from. It’s sometimes called “camera lens” or “fly-on-the-wall” narrative. I say ‘almost,’ because any film where you ‘hear’ the thoughts inside the character’s head is not strictly fly-on-the-wall. Plus, some movies and shows have the main character narrating them (such as the excellent show Burn Notice).

Basically, when you write from this POV, you have to write the narrative like it’s a movie. No peeking into people’s heads. You don’t get to know how the character feels. All you get from your character, in order to indicate that, are facial expressions. Think of how actors portray characters. That is what your narrative voice needs to do. This mode of storytelling, more than any other, relies on showing, not telling. You can’t say, “She was sad.” You have to say, “She frowned,” or “She wept.” So, it’s definitely one of the more challenging ways to tell a story. Now, “show, don’t tell” is really important no matter what, but it’s crucial for third-person objective.

The benefit of third-person objective is that you really allow your reader to draw their own conclusions. Books intended to be very thought-provoking work well with this type of narration. It’s an artful form of storytelling. The drawback? It’s hard to write.

Third-Person Omniscient

Have you ever taken an open-book test and discovered that it was almost harder than taking a multiple choice test?

That’s kind of what third-person omniscient is like. You have so much freedom, and so many things to cover, that sometimes you have to pick and choose what to relate. This can be really challenging, sort of the way that when you take an open book test, there are a couple of things that might answer the question, but you’re not sure which one your teacher is looking for.

On the other hand, because you get to choose what to tell or what not to tell, you have to ability to make your reader think one thing when something else is the way things actually are.(This is known as the untrustworthy narrator.) It’s actually pretty fun, but it requires a lot of planning to pull it off.

One of the most important things to remember is that your narrator still is, in a way, a character of the story. This means that your narrator needs to have a consistent voice. Just the way that in first-person or third-person limited POVs you need to use a consistent vocabulary and style of telling things, this applies for an omniscient POV. This means that if you do explore people’s feelings and thoughts, you need to do it in a way that sounds like the unique voice of the narrator, not the voice of the character whose mind you are exploring. (Unless you have the thoughts in italics or quotation marks. Current style favors italics, but both are acceptable.) If you just slip into something like third-person limited anytime you jump inside somebody’s thoughts, you are no longer following an omniscient POV. You are doing something called ‘head-hopping,’ and it’s considered a rather egregious error by the writing industry.

That being said, third-person omniscient really has the benefit of freedom.  While you can’t get away with everything, you don’t have limitations the way you do for the other narrative POVs. The drawback? You need to be careful. Your readers don’t want to know every single detail, and some details will just bog the story down. As with real life, freedom frequently comes with its own set of limitations. The tough part is that you have to set them down.

So, there’s your crash-course in third-person narrative POVs. This is far from comprehensive, but it’s a little bit deeper of a look into the concept. If you’re enjoying this series of Word-Craft Wednesdays (or Friday, as the case may be today), you’ll probably really like Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card. It’s a comprehensive look at this very topic, and he really tackles the nitty-gritty details.

Next week’s Word-Craft Wednesday will touch on tense in storytelling (and yes, it still has to do with POV and narrative). I mentioned this briefly when I talked about first-person POV, but it’s certainly worthy of its own blog post.

What thoughts do you have on third-person narrative forms? Sound off in the comments.

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Mary Sue Who?

Image courtesy of Petr Kratochvil at PublicDomainPictures.net

I know some writers who, more or less, live in fear that their female protagonist is a “Mary Sue.”

Ah, the dreaded, hated Mary Sue. Once you’ve heard what the expression means and have seen the pure contempt and derision that awaits, it’s natural to want to avoid the phenomenon. 

So, what exactly is a Mary Sue?

The term was originally coined in fan fiction circles to describe overly perfect female characters, particularly ones who were also badly written. You know, a female character that is all confidence, can fly, can make time turn back by singing, can make men melt with a single glance, and so on and so on. Oftentimes, the Mary Sue is also incredibly beautiful and is basically talented at everything. She becomes the center of the whole storyline and, to be honest, is more or less living out the author’s dream life. Like Barbie, but in storytelling form.

Don’t worry – there is a male equivalent too: Gary Stu. But to be honest, I frequently see guy characters called Mary Sues anyway.

So, there’s a lot of negativity surrounding the concept. There’s a lot of vitriol (acidic hatred) toward Mary Sues, and particularly towards the ones who write about them. It’s no wonder that many people are terrified of discovering that their protagonist is a Mary Sue.

But here’s the thing: outside the scope of fan fiction, I don’t think that the Mary Sue actually exists. Part of the definition of a Mary Sue is that she usurps the importance of the characters from the show – and since people who read fan fiction want to read about those characters for some weird reason, they’re not overly amused by Mary Sues. 

Without that key part of the Mary Sue definition, I feel like the concept loses a lot.  Yet I still see people grousing about it when it comes to original storytelling.

“Oh, Yukiko from Stormdancer is so overly perfect – what a Mary Sue.”

“Skye is a total Mary Sue. I really expect better from Agents of Shield.”

“Agent Carter is such a Mary Sue. What’s up with that, Marvel?” (Marvel’s Agent Carter)

“I can’t stand Korra. She’s a Mary Sue.” (The Legend of Korra)

“April from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has become nothing more than a stupid Mary Sue.”

“Katniss is a Mary Sue. Why do so many people like her?” (The Hunger Games)

“Twilight Sparkle is a Mary Sue.” (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Okay, seriously – I lost faith in humanity the minute I saw that last one. (Thanks, late night YouTube-ing.) Yes, there are people who literally think that Twilight Sparkle – from a show targeted at people under the age of 7 – is a Mary Sue.  Seriously.

And you know what I see happening in all of this?

There is real contempt for strong female characters. Really. I’m sure that Buffy had similar claims leveled against her. So did River from Firefly. Possibly Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. It’s getting to the point where even little girls are going to have to hear this kind of negativity about their favorite resident alicorn – since Twilight Sparkle is smart and magical and can always save the day. (I know some little girls who idolize that pony, and it is totally adorable.) You know, I kind of made light of the Super Bowl commercial yesterday where they discussed the concept of “like a girl” being an insult (especially since it was sponsored by Always®), but there is something to be said for it.

It doesn’t make it any better that sometimes male characters get called Mary Sues, such as the protagonist from Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind.  I still think there is a kind of latent sexism about it. This idea hinges on the concept that if women aren’t portrayed as prissy, insecure emotional basket-cases, then they are a Mary Sue. And like telling a guy he does something “like a girl” is an insult, calling a male character a Mary Sue is supposed to be even more insulting than calling a female character one.

I don’t identify as feminist, so the fact that I think this ought to tell you something.

And if that’s not what people mean, that girls have to be prissy and not strong, then we seriously need to stop using the term outside of fan fiction circles. We have a whole world of classic descriptors to discuss the problem. Really, the problem is that the character is presented as too perfect. Perfection is uninteresting. It’s flat. If your character is already too perfect, there’s nowhere to go, really. There are great terms for this: one-dimensional character, flat character, uninteresting character, and so on. Yet these aren’t considered insults on the level of Mary Sue, despite the fact that they mean basically the same thing.

So, don’t live in fear of your character being a Mary Sue. Don’t live in fear at all. Just make sure that your character isn’t flat. You can do this by incorporating the old Aristotelian concept of “The Fatal Flaw.” If you haven’t already, you’ll probably be learning about good old Aristotle’s “rules” for writing plays. One of them is that the character needs a fatal flaw. In most cases, the Greek tragedies had hubris (overwhelming pride) as their fatal flaw.

For example: Yukiko’s flaw is that she doesn’t listen. It gets her in trouble. (Granted, I have to agree that Yukiko wasn’t a super-complex character, but she wasn’t perfect.) Skye’s fatal flaw is that she is too trusting at first (and it really is almost fatal). Agent Carter’s fatal flaw is loyalty. Yes, that is a flaw, especially in an espionage, back-stabbing setting. Korra’s fatal flaw is a combination of hubris and self-doubt. April’s flaw is that she constantly overestimates what she is capable of. Katniss’ fatal flaw is her desperation. Twilight Sparkle’s flaw…

Twilight Sparkle doesn’t need to have a flaw, people. She’s a character for a little kid’s show. Kids actually need to have heroes without flaws; they need to have the understanding that there are greater powers out there that can save them, people that they can aspire to be. Flawed characters are for older audiences. I can’t even believe that people get so worked up about My Little Pony. It’s an entertaining show – I’m not arguing about that. But the first rule in storytelling is KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Please, let the little girls have their perfect alicorn princess that they want to grow up to be just like. Seriously.

And for the record, if Twilight Sparkle had a flaw, it would be that she is obsessive-compulsive.

Should you aspire to make your characters interesting, and not overly perfect? Yeah, absolutely. But if someone tells you that your character a Mary Sue, ask them what they really mean by that. If they say it’s that the character is too perfect, then it’s a valid complaint (unless you’re writing a children’s book). Ask what they think might make the character more interesting. Ask yourself how you could make the character more interesting.

If the reason is that the character has a bunch of guys vying (competing) over her, then just ignore it. Love triangles have been around for centuries. If people don’t like that, then the issue isn’t that the character is a Mary Sue, it’s that your critique partner doesn’t like love triangles.

So, let’s stop using the Mary Sue moniker outside of fan fiction circles, okay? It actually has validity in fan fiction. Outside of that, it’s just claptrap that allows people to say something negative without expressing why.

Now, I know that some of my readers here do write fan fiction. So, how do you avoid writing a Mary Sue character?

It’s actually pretty easy. Firstly, don’t let the character upstage the main characters from the show. If you’re telling a story from an original character’s perspective, that’s fine, but still keep the overall focus on the main characters. Secondly, make sure your character has a fatal flaw of some kind – some personality hitch that is a constant obstacle to her/him.

The most important thing to remember, in and outside of fan fiction, is that if somebody calls your character a Mary Sue but can’t tell you what they really mean by it, it’s a comment you can safely disregard.

All right. That’s enough ranting. I’d really like to start a discussion on this, so feel free to share your thoughts, especially if you disagree with me. I welcome debate as long as everyone is respectful about it.

Fire away in the comments! 

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Transparent Words

You’ve probably been told not to be repetitive in your writing. You were probably told this back in middle school, when they gave you an assignment to write a brief story, or perhaps when they were explaining how to write a book report. Don’t be repetitive. Don’t be repetitive. Don’t be repetitive…

It reaches the point where you want to tell them to stop being repetitive.

It’s good advice, in general, but not all repetition is bad. In fact, there are some words that are repeated over and over again and we don’t even notice, not even if they are in close proximity to each other.

For example: there are three words that I used five times thus far in this blog post. You may have guessed that one of them is 'repetitive.' You are correct.  But the second and third words might not stick out to you as much.  I can sort of imagine you hunting for the other words. (If you aren’t, allow me a moment of delusion.) There are quite a few words that I use more than once, but not five times.

The other two words are ‘to’ and ‘in.’ ‘Be’ comes in at four times.

You’ll almost always notice larger words – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs – but some will elude your attention altogether. These are what I call “transparent words.” We are so accustomed to seeing them that our brains practically skip over them, much in the way that they skip over punctuation. Now, we’ll notice if they need to be there and aren’t, but we don’t really notice them when they are there.

You know, except for when you are reading a post like this, and then you’ll probably be hyper-aware. Exhausting, isn’t it? Noticing every tiny little word?  It’s probably similar to when you’re learning a foreign language, like Spanish, and you notice that they use la/el way more often than we use ‘the.’ You notice that they use ‘de’ close to every other word in some sentences. Guess what? Native speakers don’t really notice how often they use ‘de.’ It’s as transparent to them as ‘to’ usually is to us. They would probably think it’s ridiculous how often we use ‘to,’ since their infinitives are one word and ours are two words – one of which is ‘to.’

So, the point is that repetition is unavoidable when it comes to these words.  It’s precisely because they are repeated so much that they are transparent. When writing fiction, there are a couple more things that need to be transparent: character names and dialogue tags.

Wait a second…character names?

Yes. This means that even – especially – if you need to identify the same character five times in one paragraph, you need to use only one name for the character. Every time.

Isn’t that super-repetitive? Yes. It is. But what makes the other words transparent? They are repeated so often that your brain notes their meaning, but you’re not really consciously aware of them.

With very few exceptions, character names should also be transparent.  Because you have to name the character so frequently, especially in multi-character dialogue or action scenes, you want that to be as transparent as possible.  Suppose you have a character named Carissa. Carissa is blonde, slender, always wears pink, and is a cashier at a local store. Changing the character’s identification (Carissa, the woman in pink, the cashier, the blonde, the slender woman) actually creates repetitiveness where the same word over and over does not. 

This is because changing how you refer to the character makes it painfully apparent how often you are referring to her. Furthermore, it forces your reader to stop and decipher what he or she is reading. It takes a concept that is best left transparent and makes it opaque, in the same way that my opening paragraph’s use of the word ‘repetitive’ was opaque.

As the writer, you will notice the fact that you’re using the same name constantly; your reader will probably not.  Remember that reading and writing are very different processes. Repetition should be avoided to some degree. Varying your word choice is good, varying your sentence structure and paragraph length is good, but varying things that should be transparent makes them opaque. 

Transparent things should not be opaque. You don’t really want your reader to be aware that he or she is reading. You want them to be so absorbed in the story that they forget they are reading it.

Dialogue tags should also be, for the most part, transparent. ‘Said’ is the best choice in most cases, as it almost functions more as punctuation than as an actual word. Try to use as few tags as necessary; when you have a lot of them characters speaking in sequence, avoid using the same thing over and over again. For example:

“Ready to do this, ladies?” Leigh said.

Rachel grinned. “I was born ready.”

“Yeah, girlfriend!” Michelle cheered.

“I guess I’m in, too.” Shrugging, Danielle followed them.

Be careful of constantly varying things in dialogue; in very intense sequences, repetition can be helpful because your reader will be trying to read things as quickly as possible (he or she will be excited) and the repetition aids in this. In slower parts of the story, however, dialogue tags may be a little more varied.

Now, there are some who think that using anything but ‘said’ for a speech tag is bad. A lot of people in the publishing industry favor this style. So, my use of ‘cheered’ for Michelle instead of ‘said’ would be frowned upon. (But it’s better than “said with excitement.”)

I kind of disagree with that. (Well, obviously.) I think there are other speech verbs that our minds sort of glance over, but only once or twice. For example, if you use ‘cheered’ a lot, your readers will notice that in a way that they won’t notice ‘said.’  Even some of the never-use-anything-but-said camp will admit that ‘asked’ is acceptable when used occasionally.

Remember my post about ways to improve your writing without writing? I recommended reading books on writing, but cautioned against setting too much store by them.  Don’t ignore the suggestions, but don’t swallow them whole. You are your own person. But…you do need to be aware of how often you are using alternate speech tag verbs – because while the occasional switch-up is fine, too much switching is painfully opaque. And I mean painfully.

(As an additional caution: don’t use words that aren’t actually speech words for speech tags. You can’t ‘smile’ a sentence, or ‘laugh’ it. You might be able to ‘sigh’ one word like ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but using it for a whole phrase might be stretching it. If your character is laughing or smiling, feel free to make note of it, but don’t use it as the tag. While we’re on the topic, I would like to caution you against using ‘spoke’ for a speech tag. ‘Spoke’ is the same thing as ‘talked,’ not the same thing as ‘said.’)

But yeah. If you’re getting tired of using ‘said’ repeatedly, don’t use speech tags at all. Just use beats, or leave the tags out if you can. For more on dialogue, check out the post I did on it a while back. I don’t really touch on the transparency issue there, since it focuses on the mechanics of dialogue.

I hope that this post has made sense. It also ties in with my current Word-Craft Wednesday series on narrative POV, since the identifier you use for a character depends on the POV character. (More on this will be discussed next Wednesday.)

And as a reminder: I am not the end-all-be-all of writing advice. I really don’t think anyone is. But in my experience, this advice is pretty sound. Just be aware that writers and editors amongst themselves over this type of stuff ad nauseum, and don’t set too much store by any one person’s opinion.

[Addendum: When I say that you need to identify a character, I mean that you are in a situation where you can't use a personal pronoun without confusing people. I posted this and then realized I forgot to say that.]




Share any thoughts or questions in the comments.

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POV: Writing First-Person Narrative

Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

First-person narrative is pretty cool, inasmuch as the story’s narrator is an actual, physical character in the story. It allows readers to insert themselves into the story and pretend to be somebody else for a while – the ultimate form of escape. Writing in first person is fairly self-explanatory, but there are a few other rules that may not be as obvious as one would think.

Be tense about it

This is a rule that I cannot emphasize enough, and it expands across all narrative styles: pick a main tense and stick with it. I have seen a lot of occasions where new writers will use present tense and past tense interchangeably – do not do this.  Your narrator should always use either the past tense or the present tense except for during references to previous events or flashbacks.

Now, interestingly, when we verbally and/or casually relate stories about our days or other goings on, we do switch freely between past and present. For example:

“So I walk (present) over to him – right? – and I said (past), ‘Dude, you need to chew gum with your mouth closed.’ And he just smacks (present) his gum even louder. I was (past) pissed off.

This is so widely accepted in vernacular (common) speech that it is easy for us to decipher. We are aided in our understanding through the assistance of gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice. When we come across it in correspondence, it might be a little harder to read, but since we are used to hearing the person’s voice and are familiar with their mannerisms, it’s still readable.

This won’t fly in narrative. It’s fine in dialogue, if that’s the way your character talks, because the point of dialogue is to mimic the way that people actually speak, but don’t use it in narrative.

Pick a tense. Stick with it. Got it?

The main reason for this is simple: it’s bad grammar (Won’t somebody think of the children!). Also, if you don’t pick a main tense, flashbacks and memories are much harder for the reader to pick out. If you’re not 100% sure on what I’m talking about with tense, don’t worry: I will be devoting an entire post to tense in narrative at a later point in this series of Word-Craft Wednesdays.

You are limited by your character’s perception

When using first-person narrative, you can only write what is inside the character’s brain.  This means that unless your character is telepathic, you can’t write about anyone else’s thoughts. Now, you might switch POV characters every chapter, but while you are in any given character’s head, that’s the only brain you get to explore.

Likewise, you can only write what your character can see, smell, touch, taste, or hear. You can’t actively describe a battle in a city where your character is not currently located.  Your character can hear about the battle or see footage on TV, but if your character can’t observe it, you can’t write it. (If the battle was in the past, and the character was there, then you may certainly write about it in a flashback.) Your character can’t see that somebody is sneaking up behind them (unless they are psychic or something).

Furthermore, your character needs to think like a living, breathing person. Something I see a lot is stuff like this: “As he looked into my beautiful, deep blue eyes…”

When somebody is looking you in the eye, do you tend to think about the color of your own eyes? Not so much.  I can’t tell you the last time I actively thought about my own eye color.

Your character needs to behave similarly. If you’re determined to work in the stuff about eye color, it needs to fit your character’s personality. If your character is vain, they will probably try to use other people as “mirrors” – they might notice the color of their own eyes in a reflection on somebody’s glasses. Or, they might be thinking about how they are affecting the other person: “His gaze faltered; I knew that my deep blue eyes affected most men.” Either way, it comes across as very self-centered – which is fine, but only if your character actually is self-centered.

Character descriptions are limited

If you’re writing in first person, you won’t have a lot of opportunity to describe the POV character’s appearance. People just don’t usually think, “I pushed my brown hair out of my eyes.” We think, “I pushed my hair out of my eyes.” You will be able to squeeze in a description if your character is observing themselves in the mirror, but for the most part, books with first-person narrative are scant on description of the POV character. Think about it. You focus more on what you see than what you look like. It should be the same for your character.

You can leave your POV character’s appearance almost entirely up to the reader (one or two clues might be nice) – unless the character’s appearance is important to the story.  An extremely ugly person might think more about their appearance as they live their life in a judgmental society. Susan Kay’s Phantom, a retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, is partly written in first person from the Phantom’s point of view. And he thinks about his appearance. A lot.

But what if you really, really, really want to give your readers a blow-by-blow description of the POV character? You have two options:

1) Pick a different POV to tell the story.

2) Give your character a moment of self-obsession or hyper-self-awareness, but make it fit with the rest of the story, and especially find a way to make it fit with the character’s personality.

Well, what if you open your story thusly? Doesn’t this work?

My name is Benjamin. My dark hair is speckled with white, and my chin and jaw line are covered by a coarse beard. I have brown eyes, a long nose, and a thin, severe mouth.

Okay…is that an exciting way to open a story? Not terribly. Information dumps like this are seldom a good idea, especially in opening. In fact, most people will be bored and won’t care, unless you immediately give them a reason to care, such as continuing the story this way: 

It’s the long nose that gets most people. Then their eyes rove over my other features. I can feel them looking. I can almost hear their thoughts: Filthy Jews, corrupting our society…those inferior, no good Christ-killers, cheating us, stealing our money…

And here I am. A forty-year-old Jewish man, out of work, trying to find work – any job will do – and most of the people in this town would do anything to see me and my people expunged from the face of the earth. As I walk through the city square, my stomach twists as I see a crowd of bald, blue-eyed men sizing me up. There are bands around their arms. Red. A white circle. A black, x-shaped, twisted cross.

I am proud of who I am. Proud of what I believe.

But my pride is not enough to stifle the terror as they approach me.

See? In this case, the character’s appearance is relevant to the story. The main character has reason to be self-conscious: he’s out of work, looks stereotypically Jewish, and lives in an anti-Semitic culture. He’s surrounded by people who hate his heritage and his faith, and they can tell he’s Jewish because he looks like it. Suddenly, the description goes from ho-hum to giving the readers an immediate reason to empathize with him.

(This example also shows that your first person narrator can still speculate on what other people are thinking. They can’t know for a fact, though.)

You are limited by your character’s vocabulary

So, not only should your character relate things in a way that seems like the normal thought processes of a person, you also need to consider that their vocabulary is limited, too. If your viewpoint character is six, he or she probably won’t be using words like ‘obsequious.’ This doesn’t just apply to dialogue, either. The character is narrating, therefore, the narration needs to sound similar to internal dialogue. You know what internal dialogue is like. It’s much like the way you speak.

However, just because there's internal dialogue and I said that main tense changes work in dialogue, this doesn't mean you can ignore the 'pick a tense' rule. Things will get messy quickly if you do this. Tense changes only get to happen inside of quotation marks. 

Have you noticed that almost all of these sub-headings include the word “limited”?

First-person POV is awesome, but it doesn’t allow for a ton of leeway. There are things you can get away with in other POVs that simply won’t work with first person.  On the other hand, first person allows the reader to become intimate with the character in a way that no other POV can. Like I said last week, people latch on to the word “I,” because it’s how they think of themselves. When done right, it creates believable characters that your reader will want to follow through thick and thin.

So, how do you know if first-person narration is right for you? Here are the things you need to consider, in descending order of importance:

1) Do you want to write the story in first person?

2) Can you live with the limitations of first person?

3) In what way do you want the reader to identify with the character: like self, or like other?

If you want to write the story with the limitations and perspective of first person, but want the reader to identify with the character as an ‘other,’ third-person limited will probably fit the bill for you.  It has all the advantages of first person in that it creates an intimate painting of a character, but it is better for the ‘other’ effect. If your character is really, really unlikeable, you’ll probably want to use third-person limited, but this doesn’t always mean that first person is preferable for likeable characters.

Well, there you have it – a crash course in first-person narrative POV. Check back next week for a closer look at third-person POVs.

[Side note: those who are observant may notice that sometimes I hyphenate "first person." This is because first-person is the modifier, first person is the noun. Therefore, first-person POV is written in the first person. Those who are even more observant may notice that I didn't not hyphenate any of them last Wednesday. That was a mistake. Thanks to my husband for catching that.]

Share any thoughts or questions in the comments. 

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POV: A Refresher

Word-crafting is far from an exact science. It’s more of an art.  To craft a work of art like narrative prose, you need to have a good understanding of POV.  So, this is the first in a series of Word-craft Wednesdays that will explore how good use of POV will make your writing better.

But first, a quick refresher.

You’re probably familiar with the term POV. And if you’re not familiar with the acronym, you probably know what it stands for: point of view. You also probably know that in writing, this refers to the point of view from which the story is being told – the narrator’s point of view.  You’re probably even familiar with the types of POVs, but since reviews are always nice, here’s a quick reminder:

First Person

This POV uses the first person pronouns, i.e., ‘I,’ ‘we,’ and ‘us.’ The narrator and the character are one and the same,  so the POV only allows us to see what the character sees. There is very little flexibility in this; the character can’t know what other people are thinking, so any attempts to get inside of other character’s minds must be speculative. The character is the audience’s filter: if the character can’t see it or hear it, neither can we.

Second Person

This POV uses second person pronouns (you) and is almost never used in storytelling. Exceptions include “choose your own mystery” genre. You’ve probably read these as a kid: “You walk into a spooky castle and see a massive staircase in front of you. A dark hallway is to your left, and a sealed door is to your right. What do you do? Go up the stairs. (Page x) Go down the hallway. (Page y) Try to break down the door. (Page Z)” While entertaining for youngsters and the young at heart, these stories are seldom viewed as ‘good’ entertainment.

Maybe it is possible to make a second-person narrative POV  work, but a major problem arises: it is incredibly presumptuous to tell a story from your reader’s perspective.  That’s what using the second person POV does. If the character (“you”) does something that the reader (the supposed narrator of the story) would not do, the reader immediately feels alienated. If you really want your reader to feel like they are ‘living’ the story, then use first person.  People identify with the pronoun ‘I’ much, much faster than they do ‘you.’

Third Person

Can you guess which kind of pronouns this POV uses? Third person pronouns! (Shocker.) However, third person narration has the most variety, and can be broken down into three major categories.

Third Person Subjective

Most often, you’ll hear this referred to as ‘third person limited.’ It is essentially the same thing as first person, but using third person pronouns, the character’s name instead of ‘I,’ and so on.  So why use one over the other?

If you really want your reader to ‘live’ the story, then first person works best.  But if you want them to immediately identify with your character, see them as a companion that they follow through the story, then third person limited works best. This isn’t to say that first person can’t offer that sense of companionship and third person limited can’t offer the sense of living the story, but they do tend to lend themselves better to one way or the other. Sometimes, it can take longer for readers to warm up to first person than it does for third person limited.  Both are very useful, popular types of storytelling, often chosen based on which one the writer prefers.

Third Person Objective

Frequently, this one is called ‘fly-on-the-wall.’ This POV is severely limited, but it still can be used with great effect. Almost every single movie and play out there uses third person objective. The narrator is nothing more than an observer, and any attempts to foray into the character’s minds must be speculative. In most cases, it’s best to let the readers speculate for themselves.  This POV relies heavily upon “show, don’t tell.” It can be extremely difficult to write, but it is also a highly rewarding challenge.  The reader will tend to have less of an emotional investment in the book, but if your story is intriguing enough, they’ll stick around.

Third Person Omniscient

This narrative POV can basically be anywhere or everywhere at once. This is the most versatile. It has a downside, however. Have you ever taken an open book test and found out that it was more difficult than a closed book test? That’s kind of what using this POV is like. You have to choose what you will and won’t reveal, whose thoughts you explore, and so on.

So, those are the basic types of narrative POVs.  Next Wednesday, we’ll launch into ways to use them effectively.

If you have a narrative writing project right now, what POV are you using? Do you have any questions you’d like to have answered over the next few Word-craft Wednesdays? Share any thoughts in the comments.

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