Story Sensei

When do I use italics in first person POV? The beauty of first person is that it’s immediate. It’s like constantly being in the person’s head, constantly hearing their direct thoughts. In third person POV, direct thoughts are indicated by italics. For example: This is from Only Uni . My heroine, Trish, has just showed up for a New Year’s party. Here’s the original with lots of italics. She glanced down at her dress. Well, at least the cut makes me look curvier and slender at the same time. Ha! I love how well-tailored clothes ensure I don’t have to work as hard to look good. She kicked off her sandals— Oh look, my toes have turned blue from the cold —and they promptly disappeared in the sea of shoes filling the foyer. She swatted away a flimsy paper dragon drooping from the doorframe and smoothed down her skirt. She snatched her hand back and wrung her fingers behind her. Here’s the revised version: At least the expert cut of her dress made her rather average figure curvier and more sl

When you start a book or any new scene, you’re setting your reader down in a completely new place, often in a new time, sometimes with a new character. Make your point of view character, time, and place obvious in the first couple paragraphs. You don’t need long descriptions of the new room the heroine is in, or to tell the reader that we’re now in the hero’s head, or to let the reader know that six months have passed. These things can be conveyed with a well-chosen phrase that immediately triggers a certain picture in the reader’s head. For example, say the previous scene ended at night in the hero’s POV. ### A girl could choke on the cholesterol in the air. She stood in the doorway to the diner, cringing beneath the sticky cloud of bacon grease mingled with the perfume of over-cooked eggs and maple syrup. The reader immediately knows it’s (a) the heroine, (b) a greasy diner, and (c) the next morning. Go through your manuscript and look at scene openings. Can you add a well-chosen sen

DON’T CREATE SCENE BREAKS JUST SO YOU CAN CHANGE POVS BACK AND FORTH. Yes, I’m yelling. I’ve seen this done often in both contest entries and even in published books—the writer will insert a scene break, continue the scene in the second character’s POV for a page or two, then insert another scene break and continue the scene back in the first character’s POV. Here’s an extreme example: Eat and leave. That’s all she had to do. If Grandma didn’t kill her first for being late. Lex Sakai raced through the open doorway to the Chinese restaurant and was immediately immersed in conversation, babies’ wails, clashing perfumes, and stale sesame oil. She tripped over the threshold and almost turned her ankle. Stupid pumps. Man, she hated wearing heels. Her cousin Chester sat behind a small table next to the open doorway. “Hey Chester.” ### “Oooh, you’re late.” As usual , but Chester wasn’t about to actually say that to his cousin. She might bop him in the nose. “Grandma isn’t going to be happy.

Switch character point of views at scene changes, not within a scene. While it’s not technically wrong to do one POV switch in a scene, it is very jarring to the modern-day reader. Readers ten years ago probably wouldn’t care as much, but the trend these days in publishing is one POV per scene. As a reader yourself, notice if there’s a POV change in the middle of a scene. Does it jar you, even just a little? You absolutely don’t want to pull the reader out of the story world even a little. Eat and leave. That’s all she had to do. If Grandma didn’t kill her first for being late. Lex Sakai raced through the open doorway to the Chinese restaurant and was immediately immersed in conversation, babies’ wails, clashing perfumes, and stale sesame oil. She tripped over the threshold and almost turned her ankle. Stupid pumps. Man, she hated wearing heels. Her cousin Chester sat behind a small table next to the open doorway. “Hey Chester.” “Oooh, you’re late.” As usual , but Chester wasn’t about

First person internal thoughts also tend to be a lot of backstory, which slows down the reading flow. It might be fun and quirky narrative, but it’s still a backstory dump however you look at it. Mom ran off years ago with the family lawyer, and while I can’t say Dad was all that great, the lawyer was worse. She finally clued in when she found him groping his admin in his office one day. Mom, being Mom, told him, “I have decided to seek new legal representation.” And then she walked out. Anyway, the entire incident has made her gunshy about hiring any lawyers, which is why she now bothers me to bother my boyfriend, who will give her free legal counsel without the inconvenience of actually paying for it. Gasp! The cure for this is the same as in third person POV: a) Give only snippets of backstory, not a whole bunch at once. b) Mention backstory only when it’s absolutely vital to the current action. c) Make a character absolutely need to know—that way your reader will also absolutely ne

In first person POV, especially, writers have a great deal of narrative and internal thoughts. While that narrative tends to have some conflict in it, too much narrative means less movement in the scene. And you can’t really substitute true conflict (action and dialogue) with the conflict in a long paragraph of internal thought—the scene drags and meanders. I look at the call waiting. It’s my mother. Mom has this annoying habit of calling right when I’m about to watch CSI . Even though I’ve told her again and again that she can’t call on this particular night at this particular time, she blithely ignores me. I might as well be talking to the cat. And at least the cat answers with a polite meow. Mother barely acknowledges I’ve spoken, much less what I’ve said. All this narrative is more “telling” than “showing.” Instead of all this internal thought, why not show the information in action and dialogue? I look at the call waiting. It’s my mother. I stab the TALK button. “Mom, it’s CSI ni

In a lot of the chick lit entries I judge in contests, first person POV is not done very well. Since the reader is reading first person, the reader should actually be in the character’s skin and experiencing the scene through them. People like writing first person POV because it’s easy—but it’s actually rather difficult to write with power and vibrancy. While each writer has different strengths and weakness, in general, the entries I judge lack enough conflict and action. Not much happens, and there isn’t a lot of tension. In first person POV, this is a common problem because it’s so easy to fall into internal thoughts and narrative instead. “Do you want a cookie?” I hand the plate to Amelia. She’s a size two. I wish I was a size two. I eye a couple of the chocolate-laden golden-brown goodies. Just one won’t hurt me. Amelia glances at the plate, then goes back to sorting through her charm collection. “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.” Her charms fascinate me. She’s had some for generations

Writing emotions is very closely linked to other factors: --the words you use --character personality --point of view A writer can take advantage of point of view to show emotions in different characters. Emotions depend very strongly on the who point of view character is, and how they respond to the action. On Monday, John kissed Sally and I showed her confusion and denial. But what if John kissed Victoria instead? She thrust him away. She stared at him a long moment. Her heart still pounded, still feeling the pulse of his when he had pressed her against him. She didn’t understand. He had just walked into town last week, and today she melted in his arms like butter on her French crepe pan. Why did she respond to him so forcefully? Did she love him? Did he love her? Of course he didn’t love her. He was probably simply taking a little pleasure in his aimless wanderings. And she, like a wanton woman, had responded to his passion, his fire, his strength. All physical—nothing more. While h

Readers read because they care about the story. Let me repeat that—they care about the story. Caring involves emotions, which is why powerful stories evoke reader emotions. So how do you get your reader to care about the story? “You give them a stake in what happens.” –Dwight Swain When you start a scene, first of all pick a focal character for the reader to follow. This is also why one-point-of-view-per-scene has become more preferred by editors. When there’s one person for the reader to follow, it makes it easier to engage that reader’s emotions. The focal character doesn’t have to be the protagonist. It can be the antagonist, or it can be a secondary character. It can be someone the reader likes or someone the reader hates with a passion. Regardless, pick one person as the focal character for the scene. Then, give your focal character something to win or lose in that scene. Give them something at stake in that scene. The reader will have someone to root for or against for that sce

Synopses are traditionally in third person, but these days, there are a few in first person. It’s a matter of risk. Some editors or agents would be intrigued by a well-written synopsis in first person. Others would be turned off by it, and there’s no way of knowing what type of person will read your proposal. I personally believe in the safer route and would suggest that unpublished writers write their synopses in third person. However, there are success stories of some writers who landed a book contract with a synopsis in first person, so it’s not unheard of. The choice—and the risk—is yours as the writer. In this, get the opinions of your friends and other experienced and published writers. Have them look at your synopses to tell you which is better written, catchier, tighter. Ultimately, however, you will have to decide if you’d like to risk a first person synopsis or not.

In general, any use of "felt," "heard," "saw," etc. borders on "telling" and draws the reader out of the character's deep Point of View. You can usually get rid of them, and it serves to tighten the prose, making it more vibrant and emotional. For example: He understood how much this would mean to her. He knew she’d be worried. versus This would mean a lot to her. She’d be worried. He prayed she’d understand why he did what he did. He could only hope she wouldn’t walk away. Versus Lord, please help her understand why I had to do it. She wouldn’t walk away, would she? You might want to go through your novel to seek and destroy those kinds of verbs. Although they’re action verbs, they distance the reader from the character. By getting rid of them and rewriting the sentences, you can draw the reader closer to the characters to feel their emotions more.

This article is a collection of the Deep Point of View blog post series. Deep Point of View, part one The point of going deeper in your limited third person point of view is to stick the reader in your character’s skin. This will often result in a more powerful emotional experience for your reader. There are some tips to follow that pull the reader deeper into the character’s point of view. Often a judicious word choice does the trick for you without changing the text. These things will work to pull the reader into the story world and experience the story through the character’s eyes, in the character’s body. It usually gives more intensity to the reading flow. Eliminate emotion words. Many times, when a writer names an emotion, it distances the reader from the character. For example: Anxiety trembled in her stomach. Anger coursed through her. She shivered as fear tiptoed down her spine. It’s not that it’s wrong to name the emotion—in fact, sometimes it makes the

This article originally appeared as a 12-part blog post series. Many beginning writers are confused about the concept of point of view. I’m hoping this series of blog posts will help you out. After I finish the series, I’ll condense it into one blog post article. What is point of view? It’s the type of narration of a story. For the purposes of a writer, it’s easiest to think of it as the eyes through which your reader sees the scene. There is third person, second person, and first person point of view. First person is told from the character as the narrator. I’ll be covering that later. Second person is not used often. It’s the type of narration where the character is referred to using personal pronouns, which serves to make the reader into the character. I remember this type of narration in the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Third person is most often used. In third person, the characters are distinct from the storyteller, who is essentially the author. Most readers

Continued from Beginning Your Novel, Part 1 d. What's going on? Show things as they happen. There should be that sense of immediacy in your writing that draws the reader into the scene. Face someone with opposition, conflict. This is a surefire way to capture attention. You don't need to explain why or what happened before the action--that can come later. But start with two opponents--one with a goal, one opposing him. For an opening scene, find something a little more self-explanatory, something that doesn't need a great deal of backstory, so you don't confuse the reader about who and what's going on. The important thing is to bring the character in with action, movement, opposition. e. Who--Which character's point of view? Usually this is the first person's name that appears, although not always. Establish point of view character as early as possible. The first time point of view character is mentioned, first and last name is acceptable: An