Flashback or memory?

My younger son lives in LA, and he told me this is a game he and his friends play, looking at the people walking down the street talking to themselves, and asking, "Insane, or Bluetooth?"
(That is, crazy, or talking to someone on the phone?)
Another contemporary issue:
Flashback, or memory?

A commenter asked:

What is the difference between a flashback and the thought level POV when the character is thinking about the past?

From Alicia:

A flashback is an actual scene that takes place in the past. It might start in the character's POV, but doesn't stay there. 

Think of it this way. I'm going to assign years to the same character, because the PRESENT character might be remembering the PAST character experience, but isn't experiencing it:

Memory:

2013 Anna looks back and remembers 1995 Anna's firing. She has a wider perspective on it now. She realizes that the job was really wrong for her, and she probably wasn't very good at it; however, with the benefit of hindsight, she has figured out that her boss was threatened by her greater insight. Anna now gets that she was lucky to get out of the toxic situation, and anyway, if she hadn't been fired, she might never have gone back to school and gotten the computer security degree which has led to her getting the job she really wanted. So 2013 Anna looks back and remembers what happens, but also realizes it was all for the best.

Flashback (book is in 2013, and 2013 Anna is the main character):

1995 Anna gets called into her boss's office. She goes in to find her boss cursing at and pounding the computer, having once again clicked on an email attachment that has let loose the virus that eats all the files AND sends the whole company's clientlist a pornographic picture. 1995 Anna feels guilty because she forgot to back up her own files last night, and they're probably gone now, eaten by the virus. She ventures a comment that maybe we should have a company-wide meeting about computer safety. Her boss yells at her, and then fires her. 1995 Anna stumbles out, feeling like a loser, full of shame as her coworkers watch her pack up her stuff and leave.

(Back to 2013, and super-accomplished and happy Anna with the computer security degree and the great job).

See the difference? It's 2013 Anna. Is she remembering? Then it's a memory.

If she stops being for a moment, and 1995 Anna has a scene, then it's a flashback, and presumably 2013 Anna isn't remembering-- it's just being related to the reader. 

So which is yours? Is this "happening" to 2013 Anna? Is she changed by the memory in some way (like feeling better about herself when she realizes it was good that she got fired back in 1995)? Then it's a memory.

But if it's an actual scene that takes place with 1995 Anna, then it's a flashback.

I never have any success persuading writers who love flashbacks to rethink them (been trying a long time: http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2008/06/revelations-and-flashbacks.html) or at least to understand how to make them work. But let me just say, the "present of the story" is when almost all the scenes and actions should take place. If too much happens in the past, then why aren't I writing about that great exciting past time? Why am I setting the book in 2013 if I'm really so interested in 1995? 

Now if what I want is for 2013 Anna to realize that she was lucky to be fired back then, I'd make something happen NOW that makes her remember (briefly) getting fired. What sets off the memory? Seeing that her old boss was sent to jail, I don't know.

That said, I tend to use flashbacks AND memory when I'm stuck for plot events in the present. That's always a sign I need to plot better quickly.

So what do you think you're doing? It's possible to improve the scene, even a flashback, so it doesn't bother readers and actually adds to the story. Here's the question: What difference does it make? How does this memory or flashback change things in the present?

What do you think?

Alicia

Question from comments re: sequential action

Arial asks:

I've got one for ya! Setup for the sentence: The heroine is in the saddle, sitting in front of the hero. He has just reached into his saddlebags for a bottle and... 

His arms coming around her, he uncorked a small bottle, took a swig and replaced the cork. 

I'm told that he can't have his arms come around her AND uncork the bottle AND take a swig AND replace the cork all at the same time. I'm told that the way the sentence is written above, that's what I'm describing. Obviously, my original intent was to have these actions happening sequentially, but I loathe writing, "After his arms came around her, he uncorked a small bottle, then took a swig before replacing the cork." BLAH! It's wordy and sloppy. Help! Thanks! Arial 

 Hey, commenters! How would you revise the sentence?

I have to ask Arial a question. Where is the bottle? In the saddlebags? Where are they in relation to the heroine?

Now let's have some suggested revisions!

Actually, this gives me the opportunity to mention a new guideline, but I haven't really formulated it yet. I'm just thinking that the complexity of the action sequence (and the time it takes) might dictate whether it's more than one sentence. I see too often that action is rendered too quickly, so the experience of the sequence is lessened. All the action pieces are made minor, and of equal importance.

So in the above, if this is a romance, it's a lot more important that his arms go around her than that he uncorks the bottle, but putting this all in one sentence makes it seem like they're of equal importance.

(Also it's hard to tell whose POV this is-- either way, though, the arms going around her should be FELT -- perception, emotion, not just movement, should be narrated here, I think.)

So I guess I'm saying, first, I wouldn't do it all in one sentence. And then, I would go into the POV of the POV character and narrate a bit of how it feels, what it means.

Okay, suggestions! What would you all do? Arial, what do  you think would help? Which of the suggestions would you think would work best?

Alicia

First Person uncertainty

Recently a writer said that the good thing about first person was that you get to tell the truth. And I-- never one to let a categorical statement stand categorically-- riposted that it all depends, as it's the character's understanding of the truth, which might or might not be true.

I came across an example of this in Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth, which is in first-person. The issue here isn't whether the POV character is deliberately or subconsciously distorting the truth, but one of certainty-- she doesn't know to a certainty:
My sight lines weren't good, but I thought his hands were shaking.

That is, she's confessing that she doesn't really know because of "the sight lines", but she's reporting what she thinks she sees. Of course, two considerations here:
First, the narrator WANTS his hands to be shaking, that is, that he's evincing nervousness at being close to her. (She wants to think he's attracted to her.) So her perception might be less than accurate, just because she wants it to be so.
Second, one step removed-- the author put this in there. If there was no relevance, if it didn't matter, then the author wouldn't have bothered. We as readers generally assume that whatever is narrated has some importance, whether or not that's the fact. And the author knows we'll think this is important, and so decides whether or not to include this based on whether or not  he/she thinks it's worth getting the reader excited about these shaking hands.

So let's assume McEwan chose to put this in there because it had some (albeit perhaps slight) meaning. What are we to make of it? Is it actually true (the character's hands really are shaking)? Or is what he wants us to get is that the young lady watching wants him to be nervous, thereby showing us that she really does like him (despite her recent rejection of him)?
That is, is the "importance" the event (hands shaking) or the POV's perception (her thinking that his hands are shaking)?  The fun of this is, of course, that we don't need to determine that at this point in the narrative. We can wait to find out if he's really that affected by being near her, or if she's just hoping that he is.

Third-Person
Now think about how differently that simple observation would be rendered in the more common form of third-person. There would be no doubt, because ordinary third-person narrates what's happening.
His hands were shaking.

We wouldn't need the line about the sight lines, because this would be a narration of the action of the scene, not the narration from her perspective about what she's thinking as the scene plays out. In ordinary third-person, we are given no reason to doubt the truth of the narration. Clearly this is the POV of choice if you just want the reader focusing on what's happening, if you don't want them wasting time doubting or speculating. His hands were shaking. Nuff said.

But what about Deep Third POV, which is cognitively much more akin to first-person, in that narration is completely through the perspective of a character (though with third person pronouns -- he/she)?
In that case, the perspective-limiting observation (sight lines) and the doubt would probably be preserved.
Serena's sight lines weren't good, but she thought his hands were shaking.

A deep third narration is no more certain than a first-person narration-- both are colored and perhaps distorted by the limitations, desires, and biases of the POV character.

So, short work of it:
If you don't want the reader speculating, common third is your best choice. This would be more useful in plot-driven books, where the characters' inner workings and doubts aren't that important.
If you want the reader speculating and doubting if the character POV is transparent and accurate, use first-person or deep third. That is more appropriate for character-driven books.

Examples? I'd love to start collecting some examples.
Alicia

The Narrow Character Focus

The dh mentioned the current trend towards revenge films, you know, Liam Neeson (hmm) as action star, manfully pursuing vengeance for his daughter's abduction, and Harrison Ford going after those who killed his wife, and Uma Thurman killing everyone something about her wedding (sorry, I could never actually watch that pair of films, not really needing to know how many different ways there are to kill other people).

Anyway, he said that something that made films of this genre seem thin is that the perspective is often so narrow, that we as viewers(readers) are meant to identify entirely with the protagonist and never question his goal or his motivation or take a wider view of the situation.

It's hard for a writer, I know, because we have to identify with the protagonist, and we certainly want the reader to do that too. But the reader is NOT the protagonist. The reader has and should have a slightly wider view, or rather, we ought to provide that wider view. It might be just the question of whether, say, the hero has perhaps gone too far in his vengeful actions, or a hint that perhaps the other guy might have another story, or just a sense that this might be disproportionate.

The protagonist doesn't actually have to consider this or express ambivalence for the reader to feel that. Another character, for example, can provide the other dimension (and it is dimensionality this adds-- depth is created by adding a different perspective). Spielberg's film Lincoln does both of these. Lincoln himself admits that his action in emancipating the slaves during the war might have been extra-constitutional, thus he is showing the other side of the question. But then, in regard to his own family, it takes his wife and son to add dimension to his refusal to let his son serve in the army. His wife (paradoxically) in providing his justification (keeping their child safe) forces Lincoln to remember that many parents haven't had that security. And Robert, the son, by showing his opposition forces Lincoln to say something that appalls even himself-- that every father wants to protect his son, but only Lincoln has the power to send thousands to their deaths and also the power to spare his own son. So in this case, the other characters are the ones who bring out the extra dimension.

In that case, the question is resolved when Lincoln reluctantly allows his son to serve, showing his complex moral progress.  If he'd been okay with this from the start, the question would never have been raised. It's the opposition or the conflict which provides the dimension.

So I guess-- it's important to get the reader to identify with the protagonist. But to offer a fuller reading experience, we might add to that by at least hinting at a more complicated dimensionality, that the world of the book is not confined merely to the one character's reality.

Alicia

Point of View interview

How-to Author Series – by Margie Lawson

How to Author Series Features Alicia Rasley
THE INTERVIEW:
Hello Alicia!  I’m glad you could join us today.


1.  ML:   Here’s a powerful quote from page 13 that speaks to what POV can do for your story. Could you elaborate?

POV can create tension between what the character says and what she means; between her vision and reality; between what is said and what is interpreted.

AR:  To effectively use POV, authors have to believe in the inner life, that we are not transparent beings, that our inside can be different from (and affect) our outside.  If you believe that, then you can have the POV character (for example) say something and then mentally translate it:
"Of course I'd love to babysit little Sadie!" she said, smiling so hard her teeth ached.  She had to get this account, and if it took installing little Sadie in front of a Little Mermaid marathon, she'd do it.
Or she can see something and believe it to be something the reader knows isn't real, like:
It was a lovely lunch, Shirley thought, leaving her customary 10% tip on the table. She rose, then hesitated.  The waitress was so efficient, taking back that cold gazpacho soup and returning with it steaming the way it ought to be.  Just this once, Shirley decided to leave a huge tip. She added a quarter to the pile of dimes by her coffee cup, just hoping that her generosity didn't make the waitress too conceited.
(I used to be a waitress, and 1) gazpacho is supposed to be cold, and 2) a quarter added to 10% isn't going to corrupt the waitress. )
Going into a character's point of view offers readers a terrific experience of being someone else for a little while--- but they never stop being themselves, with their own values and knowledge.  Writers can have fun with that separation between the character and the reader, and that sometimes results in unexpected character development.
2.  ML:  What are some examples of unintentional POV shifts that make you cringe?
AR:  Here's one that is kind of subtle:
Women! Wives, cops, didn't matter. All they did was complain. The lieutenant nodded at the patrolwoman and said, "Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Officer Reilly. You may go."
Judy charged out of his office, slammed the door closed, and stormed down the hall.
This is supposed to be in the lieutenant's POV, but there's a switch, probably inadvertent.  But the reader starts out in the lieutenant's head—we get his thoughts (Women!), so we know we're in his head. Notice that he calls her "the patrolwoman," and "Officer Reilly." We can assume that this is a rather formal relationship.  But then in the next line, we have "Judy" (her name for herself, not his) leaving the office and slamming the door.  Then she goes on down the hall. The lieutenant couldn't see that (she closed the door).
If you were sitting in the lieutenant behind the desk, what would your perspective be?
The officer muttered something under her breath, and turned on her heel. She stormed out, and the door slammed behind her.  He sighed and went back to his paperwork.
That's clearly still in his point of view, right? He sees her leave. He sees the door slam "behind her". He sighs.  That's what you have to do to stay in the character POV—stay in the character!
The kind of inadvertent shifts are the ones that make me cringe, because I can tell the writer didn't mean for that to happen.
3.  ML:  In your chapter on levels of POV, you address how adding some narrative distance can make characters and their emotions more appealing. Could you share an example?
AR:  I wrote a scene where the heroine was humiliated and ostracized because of something she'd done. When I read it over, I realized that her POV made her sound self-pitying—not because she was, just because the reader might interpret it that way because it's just too intimate, too raw, to be in the head of someone suffering like that. So I rewrote the scene from the hero's POV, as he saw this happening.  From his perspective, she was brave and forbearing. We got her pain—he could see she was hurting. But we also got his—he was suffering vicariously for her. 
So that taught me that the reader doesn't need to be inside the character to identify. The cues of body language, vocal expression, and speech patterns can give the reader a sense of the emotion—and bypass that "automatic shutdown" that is our common defense mechanism against too much emotion.
4.  ML: Given that your entire book is about POV and you’re limited to a short answer here, what gems would you like to share about the advantages and disadvantages of the different levels of POV?
AR:  I would just say that different spots in the scene might benefit from dfferent levels of penetration.  It's all about getting that part of the passage in the right level. For example, readers shake their heads when they read a passage where the character is in intense danger, running from the bad guy, and as she pelters down the ramp in the parking garage, hearing him behind her, she's thinking about her father and how aloof he always was and how she never knew if he really loved her—that is, action scenes are usually best done in the action level!  We can't really believe she's in great danger and running hard if she has time and mental space to relive her childhood miseries.
Always consider the reader. The whole point of point of view is to give the reader a particular experience of the story… and that rests on your ability to create a believable experience in the character's viewpoint.
5.  ML:  You recommend the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell. What can writers learn about POV from reading her forensic procedurals?
AR:  The clinical, almost objective description makes truly horrific material (autopsies) bearable, even interesting.  Whenever you're dealing with stuff that might make the reader shut down or close her eyes, whether it's because it's so emotional or so gross, consider that distance imparts tolerance. We can read almost anything if it's presented right.  
6.  ML:  Last question!  How do you recommend writers handle secrets when they are in the POV character’s head?
AR: It all depends on whether you want the reader to know, and how certainly you want her to know. That is, if Mike has a secret and you want the reader to know what the secret is, go ahead and have him think it in some plausible way at an appropriate time. But if all you want is for the reader to suspect that Mike has a secret, but not what it is, think about ways you can hint.  For example, Mike can start to think about The Secret, but then cut himself off and force himself to think about something else. Then the reader will know there's something he's refusing to think about.  Again, it's all about giving the reader the right experience.
I think writers should always be readers first and foremost. We should read a lot and notice things like, oh, "He's got a secret! I just know it! I wonder what it is!" And we should stop them and analyze what the author did to create that impression. We have 3000 years of story in the Western tradition, and all the lessons we need are there. :)

As You Know, Alphonse...

Theresa's post about exposition reminds me of something our friend Lynn Kerstan used to laugh about, the "As You Know, Alphonse" dialogue, where one character tells another something they both know, just to get the information (exposition) out. Like:

Paula said, "As you know, Alphonse, Murray is our own sainted father, and you and I lost him twenty years ago in a tragic windmill accident, right in front of your very eyes. And ever since, you have been deathly afraid of windmills, so much so that when you won a trip to Holland, you gave the ticket to me, your sister."

What's the problem? Well, of course Alphonse already knows his father's name and that Paula is his sister, and surely knows he himself is afraid of windmills. It sounds artificial, and it is, because of course Paula would never really say it that way. She'd never recite a bunch of info that her conversation partner already knows. It's a clumsy way to avoid putting exposition in the narrative (where it belongs-- that's one of the purposes of the non-dialogue parts).

Of course, we can do exposition (information conveyance) clumsily in narrative too. But while it might be clumsy, it won't be too inauthentic if it's not in the mouth of someone who would never say it.

How then can we convey to the reader the reason for Alphonse's terror of windmills? Or whatever the important info is there? The ticket to Holland? The name of their father?  One question is, of course, what does the reader NEED to know to understand this scene and to build suspense or interest for what's to come?  One problem I see a lot in exposition passages (in or out of dialogue) is that the information is thrust out indiscriminately, without consideration for what is the important piece of information, and without consideration of if this is the best time to tell it, or if maybe it should be presented only partially (to build suspense). Another aspect which is important especially in dialogue but also for character point of view is the character's motivation for telling/thinking this bit of info.

Let's start at the top. What's the important info here we want the reader to know? Maybe it's that ticket to Holland. (Don't ask me what the plot is where that's most important. This is just an example!) In that case, maybe all that other stuff isn't necessary right here. Maybe it is, but notice-- all that is ALPHONSE'S motivation, not Paula's.  Paula didn't see the windmill accident and suffer lifelong trauma. What's Paula's motivation here? What does she want? Why is she bringing up this no-doubt painful subject? Once we know that, we can decide what about that paragraph of info is really necessary, and we can decide how best to convey it.

I generally use a mix of dialogue and narrative, in the point of view of one character. That is, the speaker says something, and the POV character (the speaker or listener) reacts mentally, maybe filling in some important bit of information, maybe translating the information (rightly or wrongly). And the dialogue doesn't have to say much-- just enough that the listener and speaker both have enough to know what this is about, and the reader gets some idea too. (It's important to cut the speech off -after- the speaker has said enough that the reader has at least some notion of what this is about.)

For example, let's say the whole point of this, Paula's motivation, is that she wants Alphonse to accept a gift of money that he needs but is too proud to accept. So she wants to remind him that she owes him because he gave her that trip to Holland.  See how immediately this will transform that exposition? Now there's a reason for it to be there-- her desire to give back.  Let's see:

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't--" Too late she remembered the reason for that generous gift, and how embarrassed Alphonse had been last year, confessing to his secret fear of windmills. She tried to cover up her lapse. "I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

Let's say you want to convey a bit more, maybe that Alphonse is her brother, which isn't apparent there (and presumably wasn't established before-- if it was, don't worry about it now). Well, in narrative, a bit of explication isn't all that noticeable, so you could amend a bit:

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't--" Too late she remembered the reason for that generous gift, and how embarrassed her brother had been last year, confessing to his secret fear of windmills. She tried to cover up her lapse. "I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

It's one of those narrative conventions that a name can be replaced in dialogue with either the pronoun (he) or a simple descriptor that the character might actually use. We do think of our siblings as "my brother" or "my sister," so that wouldn't strike the reader as odd.

Notice that the exposition there is confined to just his fear, but notice that the addition of "secret" helps make this seem more important. No, I didn't talk about the tragic windmill accident... but now the reader is alerted to something about windmills. Suspense is all about making the reader anticipate something bad-- in this case, some secret event involving windmills that terrified Alphonse. Later maybe one or the other could mention or think about dear old Dad's tragic end.

Now what if I want to be in her POV, but convey that Alphonse is still reactive to this subject?  Add her perception of his body language, like:

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't--" She saw her brother tense up, and too late she remembered the reason for that generous gift, and how embarrassed he had been last year, confessing to his secret fear of windmills. She tried to cover up her lapse. "I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

One thing to keep in mind is that the POV character is the one that tells us what's going on (for example, she sees the body language of her brother). The POV character doesn't have to interpret this correctly (Alphonse could be tensing up because he heard a car door slam outside and thinks it's the police), but how she interprets it can be a way to slide in more information gracefully (that he'd confessed a fear of windmills).

Now watch how different it can be in Alphonse's POV. Why? Because then we know his motivation at this moment, and also we can see him interpret (or misinterpret) Paula's purpose here. (You know siblings. Always assuming the worst.)

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't-- I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

Alphonse studied his sister coldly. Of course she'd take advantage of his financial problems to remind him of his humiliating fear of windmills. Hell, maybe she was even trying to tell him how much she blamed him because, long ago, as a child, he wasn't able to keep their father from climbing that windmill. It would be just like her, pretending to be all generous and giving, then sticking in the icepick of memory and twisting it in his guts.

Little edits after the first draft can help a lot in subtly pointing things out to the reader. For example, I first had "his father" then changed it to "their father" so that the reader wouldn't wonder, if only for a moment, if they had different fathers.

There are no rules here, but good writers can adroitly manipulate narrative and dialogue to convey what they want to convey. But the speaker and POV character's motivations in imparting this info are key to doing this effectively. The reader doesn't have to know every bit of backstory, but she needs to know what information is important right now to the story and characters. However, in the deeper forms of narrative POV, it's essential to impart info subtly enough that it seems to be coming out authentically from the characters' speech, thought, action, and reaction, rather than from an imposing author.

It helps me to read the scenes of authors who do this well and see how they do it.  Any suggestions for subtle authors and scenes?

Alicia

Putting People in Their Place

When you're working on a scene, remember the reader is gathering the bits of information you're supplying to "design" the setting: Where they are, who is there with them, where more or less everyone is placed.

If, for example, you have Peter and Mary run out of the rain into the 7/11, we can probably-- as long as you tell us it's a 7/11-- envision the store (though do make sure we have information about whether it's day or night). However, from what we've been told, the store has three people in it now: Peter, Mary, and the store clerk. (We expect the store clerk to be in there, so if he/she's not, let us know quickly so we can re-adjust.)  If Mary goes to pay for her cigarettes, and Peter's daughter suddenly says, "I thought you quit smoking," we're going to be disoriented. Isn't Peter's daughter still out in the car? (Or "Peter has a daughter?")

Surprise can be fun in stories. But this sort of accidental surprise isn't. It breaks the "fictive dream" of a story and particularly ruins the experience of the scene.  Think of it.  As you read, you try to build the world, build the scene, right?  You assemble the information that the writer presents and make a setting out of it, and people the setting.  So there's a car, and there are Peter and Mary, and there's a parking lot, and it's raining, and they run in, and it's a 7/11.

Now sometimes there'll be new information that you didn't get earlier, like this is one of those super 7/11s with produce and a deli.  And usually if the new info is presented right, even if it's a bit delayed (like you learn that not when they enter, but when she goes to get a cup of coffee and is presented with a super 7/11 array of six different coffees), you quickly adjust the experience to allow for that.  But sometimes, the new information is jarring, and you think, "Huh? When'd that happen?" And the dream is broken, and this is just a book again, just ink on paper or pixels on the screen, not Peter and Mary and the rain and the 7/11 at all.

So how do you know what is new info that the reader is elastic about ("Okay, no problem, six kinds of coffee, super 7/11"), and what is new info that will jar the reader right out of the dream ("The daughter?  But I thought she was asleep in the car!")?  And how do you protect against that, or set up so there's no "jar" at all?

Well, you know, I think part of the issue is whether we're supposed to be in this with one character, in a character's point of view.  And if so, what would surprise the character not at all or mildly (six different coffees when I thought this was just a regular 7/11) also won't have much effect on the reader.  But what would presumably really surprise the character (if in fact she was in this store in this scene) will jar the reader. Would Mary be surprised to find the daughter at her elbow, dissing her about smoking?  Yeah, if Mary left her asleep in the car! "Where did you come from? What are you doing here?"  Well, the reader has that sense of shock too. And if you want the shock, I think Mary has to experience it.

... "I thought you quit smoking."

Mary turned suddenly and there was Emma at her elbow, barefoot and clutching her blanket. "I thought you were asleep in the car! Does your dad know you got out?"

If Mary reacts with surprise, we relax, because it was MEANT to be a surprise. We weren't meant to know that Emma was in the store too. We didn't miss anything.

But if Mary doesn't react with surprise:

"I thought you quit smoking."

"I did." Mary dropped her change into her purse, and her cigarette pack into her pocket. "This is just to prove to myself that I can resist temptation. Did you find the beef jerky you were looking for?"

Well, then we're going to stop and look back and try to find where in the scene Emma got out of the car and came into the store, because clearly Mary not only knows Emma was there, but that she was looking for beef jerky.  That wasn't in the information base that lets us start building this scene, and so we go looking back for it, and if we don't find it, well, there goes our dream and your credibility.

This might seem like a minor issue, but it's not. It goes right to that "suspension of disbelief" required for the reader to get immersed in your story.  If you want us to believe that these are real people in a real world, you have to be careful not to propel us back to the real real world by making this world seem like it's made of paper and ink.

This is, I think, even more paramount when the reader is (as most are) accustomed both to real real life and the "real life" presented in film and TV.  In real life, when we stop at a convenience store and leave a child sleeping in the car, it's something of a conflict. Do you wake her/him up (and you'd know if it was her or him, of course) and carry him/her drowsing and protesting, through the rain to the store (and then how do you manage to carry both child and package of purchases?), or leave him/her sleeping peacefully in the car for the three minutes, during which time of course the car could be hijacked with child inside and even if it turned out okay (as it usually does on the news) you will regret it all your life?  You think I'm joking? This was a constant conflict for me when my kids were small. It's not something any parent's likely to think negligible.

In real life also when we enter a store we quickly, automatically, size it up visually. Will it have what we need? Is there a long line at the cashier's? Does it smell like sour milk (in which case, can't buy the milk)? Does it feel safe? How many people are loitering in the background? Can we abide, even just for a minute, the music blasting out of the cashier's CD player?

A film or a TV show has no smell or feel, of course, but it has video and audio.  So when Mary (Anne Hathaway) and Peter (Ewan MacGregor) emerge from their Prius and cross the wet parking lot, we hear the car doors slam and the raindrops splattering on the asphalt, and we see the neon reflections in the puddles and we see her putting her purse over her head to keep the rain off, and we see him sprinting to get the door first so she will think he's a gentleman, and when they enter the store, we see the young cashier's instinctive glance over (any customer could actually be an armed robber) and we see the first rack has the bright wrappers of candy and we see the flourescent light getting soaked up by the scuffed vinyl floor tiles, and we see the truck driver at the coffee stand filling his travel mug, and we hear the Muzak and the voice the teenaged boy is trying to deepen so he can get away with buying beer.  Couple seconds, and our eyes and ears record all that.

Now let's say that a minute into the scene, Mary goes to the cashier and requests a pack of Marlboros, and Peter's daughter Emma pipes up in that insufferably wise little-girl-in-a-film way, "I thought you quit smoking."

Given that we SAW Mary and Peter dash into the store, and we looked around the store, and Emma was nowhere in sight... well, the "continuity editor" or whatever she's called is going to say (while they're still filming), "Hey, got to get Emma out of the car and into the frame."  Too right. CUT!!!! TAKE TWO! So rewind. Mary gets out of the car and dashes into the store. Peter is slower and gets more wet, because he stops at the back of the car, opens the door, unhooks Emma's safety belt, and picks her up and carries her into the store. (Can you see it? Am I the only one who goes "awww" thinking of Ewan M cradling a sleeping child, bending his own head to protect her from getting rained on?) And then she wakes up and he puts her down, and we see all that, and so it's not a big jarring moment when she goes up to Mary and makes that carping comment about smoking.

So... so...  we're fiction writers. We don't have a camera!  And we also don't have someone else in charge of continuity.  We have only words to express our consciousness about this scene, to give the reader the experience of the characters.  So the question becomes: How closely do we narrate? How much blank can we assume the reader will "fill in"? How much is too much? When does too much detail become obnoxious?

Now I tend to over-narrate, I admit. Every step, every raindrop, every door slam. But you probably don't have to be that fastidious as long as you anticipate what the reader needs to build the scene and fully participate.  What's important? Yes, it's important how little Emma got from the car to the store. Yes, it's important it's raining. Yes, it's important that it's a 7/11 and not a Safeway.  Yes, it's important that it's night. No, the car model isn't all that important, and it's not all that important which of them first opened their car door. But it is important that it was dark outside and bright inside. And it is important that Peter carried his daughter while outside  and only succumbed to her protests to be put down once they were inside.

There's no substitute for "sitting in the scene". Yep. Experience the scene from inside the POV character and narrate what's important, what the character notices. AND THEN GO BACK AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT RIGHT!  For example, maybe you want Mary actually to be surprised, thinking that Peter left Emma asleep in the car, and here she is, snarking about smoking. Okay. But if Peter had brought Emma in-- even if Mary didn't know it or see it-- is there any "rewind" necessary to set that up? Even the slightest fill-in might make this more experiential for the reader. Mary gets out of the car, slams the door, runs through the night rain and flings open the store door... and as she enters the moist, bright store, she hears but doesn't really register Peter's door slamming, and then the squeak of another door. Or maybe just a door slamming. Something to allow a subconscious hearkening back to the car, see. Mary might be inside now, but outside still exists, right? And the car still exists, and Peter and Emma still exist, even if Mary isn't consciously thinking about them. And then she (and the reader) can be surprised when Emma appears at her elbow... but see, the reader will then have the right experience, not "I must have missed something" but "oh, right, Peter must have carried her in without my noticing-- that's what that second door slam was."

No substitute for being in the character, for experiencing with the character. That's what you want the reader to do, right? So you have to do it first.

Alicia

Wisdom From Our Theater Friends

Sometimes I read books in fields tangential to publishing to see if I can find a new way to look at a writing issue. Currently I'm re-reading Sonia Moore's "The Stanislavski System" about acting technique because I find acting books contain useful tidbits about character. (And also because I was tearing my house apart looking for my Billy Mernit book, "Writing the Romantic Comedy," with the side effect that I now have a huge pile of rediscovered books I want to re-read.) (And yes, I found the Mernit, mis-shelved in baffling fashion with a stack of old chick lit novels. Go figure.) (Though, now that I think about it, that kind of makes sense.)

Anyway. Re-reading Moore, and ran across this paragraph which I thought I'd share. Not about character craft, but about audience relationship with the performance. From the chapter Elements of an Action, section Communion--

To make the meaning and logic of his actions understandable to the spectators, an actor must communicate with them indirectly, through his communion with other actors. ...[W]hen an actor has direct contact with spectators he becomes merely a reporter instead of a live character. This relationship disrupts the truth of the performance and distracts the audience from the play itself. An honest, unbroken communion between actors, on the other hand, holds the spectators' attention and makes them part of what takes place on stage.

This reminds me of a drawing we used in one of my dramatic writing classes in college. Character One and Character Two interact with each other, and the audience witnesses the interaction:













Please forgive my insanely crappy drawing skills. But despite my inARTiculateness *har*har* this drawing might make clear what we're talking about. It's about how a scene is perceived and how to control the attention of the viewer.

When we translate this concept to fiction, we're basically talking about point of view and the old "show, don't tell" rule. In other words, whether in theater or on the page, when characters interact directly with each other, the action is more interesting. When the characters interpret the action directly TO the reader-- whether through omniscient narration, exposition, or other methods -- it's less compelling.

Why is this? Dunno. Maybe we're just hardwired for it. I mean, what's more likely to capture your attention -- film footage of a train colliding into a car, or a guy with a mic talking about it? Direct experience just feels more compelling, even if we're merely witnessing that direct experience from a safe distance. I mean, nobody actually wants to be driving that car. But the film footage of the wreck itself might go viral.

So, how do we work this to our advantage in fiction? Use some of the things we've spent over three years exploring on this blog.

• Pay attention to how your narrative is weighted. Check the proportions of your narrative elements. You do this by looking at how much space they take on the page. In most ordinary commercial fiction scenes, there should be lots of action and dialogue, with the next biggest chunk coming from interior monologue, and then description. Exposition should be minimal, regardless of the form of the exposition. (NOTE: I'm not telling you to totally eliminate your exposition. Just keep it lighter than the other elements.)
  
• Make sure your interior monologue is true interior monologue, that is, not summary that tries to pretend to be interior monologue. Example: She wondered if he would like an apple pie for their picnic is not true IM. Would he like an apple pie for their picnic? is IM. She wondered is a thought tag that interprets the nature of the thought for the reader, so it removes us from the direct experience of her interior monologue. (NOTE: I'm not telling you that all thought tags are per se evil. But use them deliberately and sparingly for effect. Okay, Alicia? lol)
  
• Use gestures in place of mood words to make the experience more vivid. (Show, don't tell.) Example: She felt angry at him is less effective than She threw her napkin at him.
  

Do you see how these things sort of interrelate? They all have to do, more or less, with narrative distance between the reader and the characters. The default should be something closer, rather than farther, but the main thing is to become conscious of the ways you can push the reader back just by simple word choices and narrative choices.

Theresa

Self-deception-- Character/scene question

Question. Let's say you have a point-of-view character who is lying to himself. Example:
Tony grew up in a vagabond family, and never put down roots. Now he's grown and he's chosen his own path of stability. He bought a home, keeps the same job for years, even drinks at the same pub every Saturday evening. He's as settled as they come.

But his brother comes into town and suggests a grand adventure, "like the ones Mom and Dad used to take us on," taking a couple months to hike the entire Grand Canyon. Tony would probably have to quit work, but so what?

Now how would you do a scene where Tony tells himself and his brother that an adventure is the last thing he wants? He marshals all sorts of good reasons he can't join bro, and they're good reasons. But underneath, he so wants to go. Really. The old vagabond spirit has been reawakened. But he knows his life is here in Podunkville, and he wants to want it. He doesn't want to want to run off with his brother for adventure.

So... how would you show him-- internally and in dialogue-- saying that of course he can't go vagabonding, that his life is here, that he doesn't WANT to leave, that he's never been happier, that of course he's not bored, that he's not that rootless wanderer anymore and has no desire to return to that life.

And how, within that, would you let the reader know (if not Tony) that he really is itching to go with his brother, that part of him longs for adventure, that he's at least partly lying to himself when he says he's no longer a vagabond even at heart?

That is, how do you show what he thinks is the truth, while letting the reader know it's at least partly self-deception?

I mean in first-person or deep third point of view, no omniscient.

Alicia

Disliking and deep pov

I was recently critiquing an opening for a friend, because she'd said contest judges always noted that they didn't like her heroine. It was a puzzle, because she'd set the heroine up to be admirable-- a social worker who has organized a charity to help poor women get out of abusive situations.

What I realized is... sometimes deep POV in the opening of the story is counterproductive. If the character isn't easy to like, consider easing into forcing the reader to "be her".

In this story, the heroine was snarky. Really snarky. She had snarky mental criticisms about everything, about her boss's choice of footwear and the mayor's speeches, about her best friend's latest boyfriend and her own inability to get a date. Since we were in her head deeply and exclusively, we were sort of surrounded by all these snarky comments and couldn't get away.

So at first I tentatively suggested that the author just tone that down, make her less snarky. "But that's who she is," said the author. "And it's important that she be skeptical and critical because she's the only one who figures out that the congenial old mayor is a killer."

Okay. Well, you know, point of view "depth of penetration" can vary throughout the book, depending on what you need and how much you need the inner reality of the character. This is really important to know: Deep POV is not some life choice you make and can never unmake. It's just a tool to get what you want. And usually when you use deep POV, the purpose is to give the reader the experience of being this character.

Not all characters are good to "be" right off. Sometimes it might be better to ease into the character. You know how some people you don't much like right off, but as you go on you realize they're wonderful people, just gruff or curmudgeonly or sarcastic or whatever is offputting? (Interestingly, this can often make male characters more intriguing and appealing from the inside, but can make a woman character really hard to like. Sexism? Or is that just women readers' response? Maybe men don't respond so negatively to sarcastic women characters? Or maybe I'm the only one who responds that way?)

Well, sometimes it's better to present the character as she is on the outside, and hint at her inner depths, and then, when the reader already has reason to like her (because the outside draws him in), unleash the Seinfeld-within.

Just a thought. But you know, deep POV is not the only approach to introducing characters to readers. I bet you feel like you know Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy pretty well, and they were presented almost entirely from omniscient viewpoint. Sidney Carton? ("It's a far, far better thing I do...") Omniscient. All those books in the 19th century: If they weren't first-person, they were probably mostly in omniscient, and they were pretty good, right? You never put down Dickens and thought, "Boy, I don't understand that Scrooge fellow one bit. Wish I could be deeper into his mind."

You can get to know characters by their actions too. In fact, "By their fruits, ye shall know them," should be emblazoned on the computer screen of popular fiction writers. What the characters think and feel might be important. What they DO, however, is essential.

So if you feel like your character isn't immediately likable, but will be eventually, try easing in on the point of view. Start in single POV, but a little more distant. (I think that might also help us concentrate on an active opening, btw, rather than a few pages of snarky introspection. What's happening, not what's being thought?) Show the character through his/her actions and reactions, and just slide in thought and feeling as needed.

You're in charge here. Never forget that. You are not controlled by your POV choice!

Alicia

Deep POV myth #1

I was asked whether the writer can use the character's name when deep in his POV, especially if there are two men in the scene (you know, the infamous "two he's" problem we've talked about before). In other words, is the "rule" that says the POV character doesn't think his own name apply even in complicated sentences with two people of the same gender? That is, can we use the POV character's name to distinguish him from the other male character, like:

Danny handed his friend the controller, feeling a bit of triumph at his high score. Even the principal, who thought videogames were the tools of the devil, would be impressed if Danny won the big videogame match. But he had to beat Tyler here first!


Well, you know me and rules. Tools, not rules! Deep POV is not a set of rules, but a mindset that allows the writer to write from within the character, in the character's own voice. But... but you're still writing. That is, no matter how closely you try to replicate the character's inside experience, you're doing this with words. And therein lies the issue.

Okay, here's my question. If you ignore any supposed rules about what deep POV is supposed to require, and concentrate just what I said, drawing the reader into the experience of being that character, what do you think works?

See, the character Danny knows who he himself is. When he's thinking of himself, he doesn't have to use his name because, well, he doesn't think "he" is anyone but himself. To the extent that he thinks in language at all, rather than just has consciousness of "me vs. other," he'd think "I", right? He wouldn't even think "he".

But the reader isn't him, and this isn't first-person. So already you're imposing a different experience on the reader, and it doesn't help much to say, "Well, he wouldn't think of himself by name," because he wouldn't think of himself as "he" either. He wouldn't think, "I'm not Tyler!" because, well, he already knows that.

The reader already is making an allowance-- has to make an allowance-- for certain conventions of narrative, and the first is... this is all done in words, when, in fact, experience has very little to do with words. We have only language to convey everything in the world of the book-- how the snow sounds when you walk on it, and how the moonlight glints off her hair, and what it feels like to realize your lover is cheating on you. That's it-- but we really can convey it all in words, enough so that for several thousand years, written language (and spoken language for much longer) has been the dominant way of conveying and recording experience. Right? Right.

Okay. Given all that-- given that we convey experience using words, how do we convey what it's like to be Danny? Well, the first thing is acknowledge that "Danny" is who he is. That name is a construct, of course, but it's a construct that conveys everything about who he is. Everything that is Danny is symbolized by the name Danny. When one of his friends tells the tale of how they almost got arrested but Danny got them out of it, he says, "But that's Danny. Silver-tongued. He could talk the devil into converting to Catholicism." When Danny tells his mother that he's working 20 hours a day, she sighs, "Oh, Danny, you're just like your granddaddy, and he died of a massive heart attack when he was 40."

That is, Danny IS Danny. The reader knows him as Danny. If we're lucky, the reader can even, for a short time, BE Danny. But Danny is Danny, and there's no shame in that. Use the name. Of course. "Danny" is at least as much of who he is than "he" is. In fact, I bet he thinks of himself as Danny a lot more than he thinks of himself as "he"-- "Well, Danny, my boy, you've really gone and cocked it up this time."

Now given that this is third person, so there's not that easy distinction of first person ("I" and "everyone else"), and that the reader expects a certain level of narrative conventionality (that this is all in language, that it's in past tense even though to Danny it's happening right now, that Danny has to think of himself as "he"), the question is: What will give the reader the experience you want?

What will let the reader "sit in" the character?

What brings the reader out of the character first thing, immediately, automatically, is confusion. As soon as the reader has one jot of confusion that the character doesn't feel, one moment of not knowing what the narrator means, that's it. There goes the deep identification. "I'm not that person! I'm me, the reader, and I don't know what the heck is going on!" It takes only a second, and you've interfered with the reader's deep identification with the character.

What confuses the reader? Well, Danny knows who he is. He knows his achievement is something the principal would disapprove. He knows he feels a moment's triumph. He knows he got a high score. See what I mean? You have him think that "out loud," in words, though of course he already knows that. There's no other way to let the reader in on his thoughts and knowledge than to just say it in words.

Now why is only one word in all the world -- his name-- barred from use in conveying what Danny knows?

It's a fake rule, frankly. It's illogical that everything else-- the whole world, his whole consciousness, his whole being-- is conveyed in words, but you can't convey, "This is Danny, and this is the other guy," in the simple shorthand way of USING THEIR NAMES?

You can. When they invent some USB cable that truly lets us be inside another person's experience, maybe we won't need words. But we do. And we're writers, and we should love words. :)

Anyway, the worst danger in deep POV is to eject the reader from the experience. Trust me here-- the reader will NOT be ejected by the mere sight of Danny's name. She won't think, "Wait a minute! Danny called himself Danny, and that means-- while him calling himself 'he' didn't-- that I am not him!! Oh, my gosh! I'm not named Danny! I'm not even a man! I'm not living in the Cotswalds! I'm out of here!" The reader won't even notice. (You can, of course, do it maladroitly enough that the reader notices, like use the name 24 times in 24 lines, yes, but you're not doing that. :)

But what WILL eject the reader from the experience is confusion. If the reader for one second doesn't know what's going on (and the character presumably does), then the bond is broken. So it's much, much, much more important to create a smooth identification experience, a protected space of connection, a cocoon of consciousness, where the reader can trustingly BE, and BE IN the character.

So-- long long answer. Yes, use the name when the reader needs it. Why not? It's far more important that there is no "bump" of "huh? Who is that?" that reminds her, as "Which he is this?" will do, that she is not he.

This is hard. Don't make it harder by denying yourself the character's name. We need more words, not fewer, to help us create this fictive experience for the reader.

Sorry to go on so long, but "you can't use his name" is #1 Deep POV Myth. :)
Alicia

Well, you know, sort of

Seth said...

I prefer to write for characters, rather than to write for rules. If a certain character is our POV character, then I would use a sharper version of that character's voice as my narrative style. If they would end a sentence in a preposition, it usually reads better to just let them.

If you have a more pulled back narrative, of course, that's a different style. But I think character voice is far more important than author voice.

This is such a good point, and let's talk about it. (This is, btw, why I say that deep POV isn't for everyone or every book-- you really have to cede a certain amount of "voice" to the POV character, and you might not want to do that.) Let's say your POV character (first- or third-person) is not the most incisive narrator. Let's say he/she is really pedantic, or sort of vague and spacey, and the narrative voice reflects that.

Can we have some examples? Here's mine:

She just didn't know, okay? She kind of thought that she was sort of someone he cared about. But not like you could tell it from the way he said things. He probably said the same things to other girls, you know? So, anyway, she was maybe taking a chance trusting him with what she had to trust him with. But life was risk, right?


Okay, maybe I channeled a few of my freshman students there. :)

Let's have some other examples! This is for, um, un-sharp or un-pleasant or "bad" voices. Give us a quick (first try) example, and then write about what you'd change if you were revising-- NOT to revise into a more author-voice, but to make this person a better -narrator- (not just character). Help?

Now what I mean is-- We already have dialogue to show how a character sounds, to reveal this character's inattention and inarticulation. So we don't need this person to be the POV character, the narrator, unless she brings something to the narration. So what does she bring?

One thing I notice in re-reading that is the paragraph tells us almost nothing. (And understand, I couldn't bear to write a book or even a scene in this POV, so I am immediately revising, and you might not do that. Depends on what we want!) So right from the first, I look at that lame preposition-ending, and I think-- so what does she have to trust him with?

Maybe we know, or maybe I can insert that without losing the flavor of her voice. Let's see:
So, anyway, she was maybe taking a chance trusting him with what she had to trust him with. Her secret. You know. The whole murder thing.

That still has the prep, but at least I feel like I'm imparting a bit of information-- by the end of the paragraph, the reader knows more not just about the character but also about the story (murder, I guess).

I can't help it. I have to get rid of at least one preposition-ending.
She just didn't know, okay? She kind of thought that maybe he sort of cared about her. Maybe.


I have to say I like all the "kind of" "sort of" vagueness, just because that's sort of an amusing take on the utter inarticulateness of some people. They could be talking about undying love, or they could be talking about a load of mulch for the backyard-- same diction. (But really, I don't think I could write-- or read-- pages of that.) But she could be sharper and give more info without totally compromising her authenticity, because we don't know if he's a potential lover, or her father:

She just didn't know, okay? She kind of thought that she was sort of someone he cared about, not in a romantic way, yeah, more like a friend. But not like you could tell it from the way he talked to her. Sure, he joked around and said some flirty things. But he probably said the same sweet things to other girls, you know?

Does adding those adjectives to "things" (sorry, it hurts to type that word :) get in the way of her voice? I like to think that identifying the relationship in her mind (not romantic, more like a friend) helps deepen the understanding. And we can see he says flirty, sweet things, so we don't imagine him saying insulting or smarmy things, I guess.

So I guess I'd start with the free-writing to "feel" her voice, than go back and add and subtract so that the passage says what I want it to say to advance the story just a bit. That is, it's not going go be enough for me to have the passage just show her voice or reveal that she's incapable of articulating a complete thought. It might be enough if there was only a few paragraphs in her POV-- but if she's the narrator, she's got to keep the story moving too. And a tiny advance every paragraph, surrounded by a bunch of "voice," well, actually, that is totally my problem. Really. I don't write characters as inarticulate as that, but I have to say, I also take a long time saying much (much prettier prose, of course), so my passages and scenes are long. Hmm.

Anyway, how about some examples of deep POV voices that aren't, shall we say, OUR voice-- and are lame and limping and all that. And then, would you make any changes in revision?
Alicia

another myth of deep pov

Just making a list of these because I'm going to teach a class on this....

Another myth of Deep POV-- that letting the reader feel with the character, feel what the character feels, is always good.

Usually it is. But sometimes what the reader is feeling has to be different from what the character feels, and that probably requires some distance. For example, suspense is often dependent on the reader feeling dread as the character unwittingly stumbles into danger. If the reader is truly confined to the character's understanding, she might not get that sense of dread and hence the gathering suspense.

A fun aspect of reading is the doubling effect that's caused when the reader can simultaneously feel with the character and still have the distance to feel something else, an alternate emotion that's created not by the character but by the scene as a whole. It is possible to create distance and simultaneous and conflicting character/reader emotion while using deep POV, of course. Remind me to suggest some ways to do this. However, sliding up and out of deep POV into a more omniscient POV -- maybe especially if you've usually been one with the character-- can kind of signal to the reader to feel separately right here. That will help create that wonderful effect, where the reader is yelling, "Don't open that door, you idiot!"
Alicia

Fragments redux

Coming from comments on the last post:

Deb:
Fragments make sense in deep POV, but I've read that editors will 'repair' them, killing the voice. Is that still true?


Deb, thanks for letting me talk about one of my favorite subjects! I could go on and on and on....
(I can just imagine the other commenters:
"Deb, did you HAVE to mention fragments? You know she's going to rant--"
"That's what Deb wants! She thinks it's funny to poke that stick at Alicia and run away."
"She knows that Alicia has final grades to get filed, and she thinks it's fun to distract her!"
"Deb is pretty smart."
"As long as we don't actually have to read this long rant -- oh, and she's going to do another one!-- about fragments.")

SOMETIMES fragments work -- not in deep POV specifically, but when you are narrating using the character voice (kind of first-person but with the third-person pronoun). Surely not all character voices are full of fragments. I mean, if I'm deep in the POV and voice of an erudite British Oxford don, fragments probably don't make sense-- this guy probably was speaking in full grammatical paragraphs at age 3. Deep POV isn't a set of rules (like "use lots of fragments" :) but a writer's approach to presenting the character, and when you commit to that, you commit to presenting -this- character, and that can mean using this character's voice (that's actually a further choice-- most deep POV narrations these days will be in the character's voice, but that's a rather recent trend, and some authors-- Koontz comes to mind-- can do deep POV and still be mostly in their own authorial voice. Maybe we should discuss that later).

And so does this character exist-- not just think-- in fragments? Deep POV and character voice are not simply "in the mind and thoughts." Deep POV is NOT stream-of-consciousness. I wrote a post on stream of consciousness, which was an important literary trend in the start of the 20th Century. Often when writers today talk about deep POV, they act like they mean stream-of-consciousness (which is being in the MIND at this MOMENT of the character, while -- in my definition-- deep POV is being in the character, who is more than just his mind). If you read Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake and the other famous s-o-c books, you'll see the danger of replicating the inner workings of the mind-- often it's just about unreadable.

Very, very few books actually get in there and report the inner thoughts as they happen. (Most of us don't even think primarily in words anyway-- we think in memory blasts and images and associations as much as we think in words. So even trying to convey thoughts in words is modifying these to make them readable.) That's partly because actual thought -- even in words-- is unreadable: illogical, dissociative, and spastic. But it's also because that sort of narration can be boring and unfocused on what the reader is reading for, which is probably not those flashes of memory occasioned by the sight of snow, but, you know, the story.

In fact, in deep POV, we are NOT replicating the inner workings of the mind. We are instead trying to create an experience FOR THE READER (the reader is all-important) of being this character, and this character is more than his mind, and what counts is not exact replication but how you go to create the experience for the reader.

And the first rule is: Don't narrate in ways that make the reader stop reading, because she can't be this character if she can't bear to read the scene. :)

Now obviously different readers have different reasons to stop reading. I get bored with a lot of "world-building," where other readers love that. But keep in mind that most readers are comfortable with a certain degree of syntactical conventionality that is useful when conveying the scene in written language. We do expect capital letters at the start of sentences, and quote marks around dialogue (though we can adapt-- there are some books without one or the other of those that even I, hidebound pragmatist that I am, have got through).

So we might always think about the concessions we're already making to the conventions of written language. Most of us don't think putting a capital letter at the start of a sentence interferes with our "voice", right? And once we start accepting that some conventions just make it easier for the reader to get into our story (because they're not being distracted by relatively meaningless departures from convention), we can start evaluating which breaks from convention are helpful when in creating the right experience for the reader.

(And one way, btw, to seduce readers into accepting your syntactical innovations is to ease them into it, maybe have the start of the book fairly conventional, and add in innovations where they work most effectively. For example, deep POV is often more effective in high-emotion and high-action moments, but not necessarily so helpful in conveying information about the setting or situation, which is why often we do that at the beginning of the scene in a somewhat more distant POV. So we should realize that deciding to do a book in deep POV doesn't mean that we always need to be in deep POV at every moment-- rather when it deepens the reader's experience.)

So onto fragments, and it's interesting how often this comes up. Some fragments are "voice," "character." Some are just the writer being lazy or defiant, frankly. Sometimes the editor can tell which fragments add to the story and the voice, and which just annoy... but do you want the editor having to make that decision? Especially as many editors will fix all of them? (House style, remember, is going to trump "voice" every time. Sorry. But reality trumps desire on this blog, at least once in a while. :)

The best way to make sure that the character's voice is kept in there is NOT to overuse the more annoying,I mean innovative, aspects of voice. Use fragments when they count, not all the time. If we're judicious about when some break with convention really does add to the reader's experience, we're far more likely to slip it by the editor-- I mean, the editor is more likely to read this as a moment where the character is particularly emotional or in tune or whatever. The editor might not let it go if the narration always fragments sentences, if there are fragments regardless of which character is in viewpoint, if there is no distinction in sentence construction between highly emotional moments and more thoughtful moments. Sin judiciously, and you're more likely to get away with it. :) Okay, let's put that another way. If you construct sentences and paragraphs in ways that add to the reader's experience, that make the experience exciting, deep, whatever that passage calls for, then the editor might go with it and allow it.

(Again, this is not necessarily entirely a choice the editor gets to make... and the copy editor might have some control here too. So keep that in mind -- that's the price of having your work pass through two or three editors as is customary and usually helpful in so many publishing houses. If you don't want that, well, there are places to publish that don't have editing.)

Now there is character voice, which is often related to deep POV but not the same thing. After all, first-person narration is definitely "character voice," but might or might not be very deep POV. In fact, a lot of first-person narrations are deliberately deceptive, which might mean keeping the reader OUT of the narrator's mind.

So what if your character's voice is all fragmentary? Hmm. Well, the tradeoff for the authenticity might be unreadability. If you don't want that trade, I'd certainly think of being in a more restrained (authorial) voice and/or a less deep level of POV for most of the book, and only in the fragmentary POV/voice when I want to give some sense of what he sounds like or what his mind is like. Just because he has a unique voice doesn't mean that's the best voice to use in narrating everywhere. I'm thinking of the lovely book Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale, which actually has a hero who thinks fragmentarily (he's had a stroke). Kinsale has a few passages (very emotional moments) in that voice, but most of the book is in the heroine's voice or a restrained and eloquent author voice (Kinsale has a wonderful voice).

Not to say that a book can't explore the unusual voice. But if the book isn't ABOUT that voice (as Ulysses really was about the narrative/voice experimentation), does the whole story benefit from being told in that voice?

Back to fragments--
A fragment is really just another type of sentence-- an incomplete one. And just like any sentence form, a fragment will work in some situations (and some constructions) but not others. If you have a good editor who is sensitive to this, yes, she's probably going to take the ones that don't work (and with many writers, that's most of the fragments, because most of their sentences are incomplete). That might or might not "kill the voice".

There isn't some blanket allowance-- "Fragments are allowed in this book!" or "Fragments are part of my voice!" Fragments in and of themselves don't work anymore than rolling through a four-way stop on the road works. They work when they work-- when they're right for this moment and this passage and this character and this moment. My saying, "Sometimes a fragment works," doesn't mean always. Sometimes, say at 2 am, on a deserted road, when there are no cars anywhere around and most important no police cars, it works to roll through that four-way stop. That doesn't mean that every four-way stop sign can be ignored if we feel brazen today. :)


Too many writers use deep POV as an excuse to fragment too many sentences. There is still the need to communicate to the reader in a language and syntax the reader can understand (this is why the French character thinks in English :). That should be "easily understand" if you are not meaning to write the more narratively and syntactically complex innovations of the more extreme literary fiction. Do you want the reader to have to study your passages to discern the meaning? Then that's the more narratively and syntactically complex, etc., and I'm not talking about that sort of fiction. I'm talking about fiction that is meant to tell a story about these characters, which is what most of us write.

Also, some types of fragments are easier to "hear" than others. The ones that are actual fragments-- that is, fragmentary elements, incompleted thoughts, bits of information-- do in fact convey that bittiness that gives a particular staccato feel to the narration. What doesn't usually work for me is when the writer just breaks off part of a sentence, like this:
He headed for the door. Which was closed.

Now there can be some reason to break that off. But more often, there just isn't. The writer just adds that afterthought, and there's really no meaning reason to keep it separate from its sentence. (Really, most of the fragments I see in submission are like that, and I think that sort of fragment gives them all a bad rep. :) If you can join the fragment to an adjacent sentence without altering the meaning, why not do that?

And "sentence and paragraph construction" is key here. Fragments are a part of a whole, not just apart from that whole. They might not be part of a sentence, but they are part of a paragraph. They only work if they work in that paragraph or in the larger passage. The question is-- why is this thought or info presented in a fragment? What is the reason for the incompleteness? That's important. That's essential, in fact.

For example, let's say I'm writing a passage where the character is describing the setting of her 10th year high school reunion and how it makes her feel. A lot of fragments-- bits of this and bits of that-- can work, if the character is feeling fragmented, if she can't focus, if she's distracted by something else.
Back again. The high school gym. The strobe light flashing intermittently, illuminating her old classmates, the ones who bothered to come, and hurting her eyes. The streamers from the last prom and the smell of basketball-team sweat. And Johnny, still mysterious, still elusive, standing in the shadows near the exit. The silver-foil sign-- "Welcome Class of '99!" -- the message missing the comma. The timorous teen band in the corner, laboring away at old N'Sync hits.

But there should be a reason for the bittiness, like the presence of her high-school boyfriend distracting her. And I notice that even with that, I'm selecting and revising. Here are my revision thoughts, dictated by my left brain right this moment:
Johnny ought to be at the end of the paragraph, not in the middle. I like the sweat thing, but the rest of the paragraph is mostly visual (N'Sync isn't, maybe put those together, before the strobe light?), so I might find some visual bit to replace it. I don't like all those participles in that third sentence, so I might use "flashed" instead of "flashing," thereby making this a sentence. :) I'd worry also about the sign because the punctuation isn't exactly right (needs a comma before "message", but that doesn't work with the dash... must find a way to fix that because it will always bother me). The "old N'Sync hits" is summary, not this very moment-- they'd be playing only one song this moment. So Google and find an old N'Sync song they're playing right now. Be in the moment. What's happening right this moment, not the whole evening? Also, I might start with "She was back again" or "Tracy was back again," just because that feels better. Anyone can be back again. And without a subject, the reader might think I mean "the high school gym is back again," and that's not what I mean. SHE is back again. In the high... (should I have "In the high school gym?" I don't know. That sounds sort of clunky and directive). Okay, you know, I really want to be all fragmenty and flirty, but the truth is, I think that opening should be "She was back again in the high school gym." In fact, you know, if I'm in deep POV, would I think "the high school?" What do I think when I think of my old high school? I actually think "BHS," don't I? I mean, "the high school" could refer to any high school, but the school she went to isn't any high school. It's very specific. So how about "She was back again in the BHS gym"?

(Yes, my left brain thinks in parentheticals and emoticons.)

So, point is, my immediate drafting voice might start out with all fragments, but my revising voice starts knitting things together, shaping the passage (most important thing last), connecting thoughts, all that. That's actually ME, not the character. The character might not care all that much about having the sensory detail presented coherently (visual first with the strobe light illumination), but I do, because I think the reader likes the more logical presentation, so she can assemble it into a coherent picture.

But I would still end up with some fragments in there. And I'd keep them because they added to the paragraph somehow, not because they're fragments and because the first time I drafted this they were there, and therefore they're my "voice". Actually, my voice is more in the revising than the drafting-- even if I get it right in the drafting, I will know that because I try to revise it and can't make it better.

So-- long post, as per usual. But if there's anything to come out of this, it's -- fragments are part of an entire whole-- the paragraph, the passage, the scene. Does this particular fragment add something to this paragraph? Does -being a fragment-- add to the meaning? There's nothing inherently cool about fragments. If this one works, it works. But it works because it works, not because it's a fragment. So if I say, "Fragments are okay," I don't mean every fragment is fine by nature. Think of it rather as another type of sentence. All forms of sentences are okay... in some situations. Is this right for this situation? There's no blanket endorsement here. It's all about the context. (And to some degree, it's about the writer's skill-- some can pull off stunts I wouldn't want lesser writers to try at home. :)

Alicia

This was posted on J's site, but I need to record it

Let me start by saying that there are no absolutes in fiction-writing. Deep POV is now trendy, and it’s appropriate for many types of stories, and also for our highly interactive culture. However, it’s only one of several POV approaches, and it’s not right for every genre, every book, and every author.

First, I should quickly define deep point of view. (I go into this in much greater depth in my book, The Power of Point of View.) Deep POV is a variety of single POV, where an entire scene (or chapter, or book) is told through the perspective (or point of view) of one of the characters in the scene. Deep POV takes this further—the narration is done not just in the perspective but in the voice of the POV character. It’s meant to establish almost no distance between the narrator and the reader—rather like a first-person feel with third-person pronouns. Here’s an example:

Allie thought Saturday was never going to come. All day Friday she kept waiting for school to be over, but it was taking forever. Every time Allie looked at the watch her daddy had bought her for Christmas, the numbers had barely changed at all. She thought maybe the battery wasn’t so good anymore, but if it wasn’t, then the clocks at school weren’t working either, ’cause when her teacher dismissed them for lunch, it was the exact time on Allie’s watch that it was s’posed to be. (Tara Taylor Quinn, Jacob’s Girls.)

The character is a child, and so the deep-POV narration uses the diction and sentence construction of a child. This lets the reader get an intense experience of who this person is and how she thinks.

Very useful. However, there are two points I want to make:

1. Most writers who think they’re doing deep POV aren’t. They are doing single POV and confining the narration to one character’s thoughts and perceptions (and that’s FINE). But they are writing more in their own voice. There’s nothing wrong with that (single POV is by far the most common and accepted POV approach). What’s wrong is the writers who say they’re doing deep POV because they’re following a list of rules they got from somewhere, like “In deep POV, you never use the character’s name, and you never use ’she thought’.” Deep POV is not about rules. It’s about being so into the character that you feel with her body, think with her mind, and write with her voice. It’s writing from inside the character, and those rules imposed from the outside? Worse than useless.
2. Deep POV is not right for every story.

And since (2) is what I’m supposed to address in this blog post, let me get going on that.

A) Deep POV is not right for every author.

I’ve concluded that most of us have a natural POV approach, one that feels comfortable and right for us. And we can learn to write in other POVs, but when we’re writing most naturally, we’re probably going to write in our natural POV, and that’s going to sound most authentic. I’m not saying you should only write in your natural POV (my natural is single-third POV, but I’ve been writing a lot of first-person and enjoying it). But you shouldn’t feel you have to force yourself to write deep POV if every word feels wrong.

Why might it feel wrong? Well, if you’ve spent a lot of time working on your own voice, making it beautiful and evocative, you might not want to cede control of your prose style to a character. I’m an English teacher, and I spend way too much time every semester helping students distinguish sentences from fragments and comma splices. Every time I write in deep POV, I find myself echoing the character (as I should in deep POV), who is invariably uncaring of grammar, not to mention easily distracted. So half his sentences are actually fragments, and half of hers are run-ons. That might be quite effective. But what if one of my students would brandish a highlighted page of Tony’s POV and yell, “Fragments all over the place!” (Well, actually, if one of my students could so effectively identify fragments, I’d give him an A right away. )

Many writers are proud of their voice, and rightly so. You can be poetic and evocative in deep POV—even an illiterate character can think in lovely if broken prose—but it’s not, at base, YOUR voice (if it is your voice, you’re not really doing deep POV). It’s not supposed to be. And if you want to write in your own voice, if you think the reader will get more from “hearing” you, well, why not? The whole point of writing is to create an experience for the reader, and creating an interesting or lovely experience is a valid aim.

POV approach also connects to your worldview. Now no one else agrees with me on this, so take it with a grain of salt. But I think your natural POV might reflect your understanding of reality. Hey, give me a chance! Let’s say that you think that there is an absolute reality, but it’s not necessarily knowable by most of us. That worldview is the one expressed by omniscient POV—the “godlike narrator” knows everything, within and without the characters, and knows more than all the characters together.

But maybe you think there’s no absolute reality, and that the only way to get close to knowing reality is to juxtapose the accounts of several people, a collage-like effect that is very similar to multiple POV. Now we single-POV types, we don’t know if there’s an absolute reality, and in fact, we don’t much care. We’re mostly concerned with the inner reality of characters, what they think and notice and value.

Well, you know, if you have one of those worldviews, your story choice and your POV choice will probably reflect that. And that’s good. It takes all kinds. That’s why we have several POV approaches, several genres, and many writers. There isn’t just one worldview out there, so there shouldn’t be only one POV approach. And you should at least start with the one that lets you express your worldview and voice, and—you didn’t really think I was going to say, “Anything goes,” did you?—refine it and reinvent it and revise it so that your writing is the best possible proof that your POV approach is right.

No, you won’t get it right the first time. Yes, you still must revise to make sure that your reader will experience what you want her to experience. But making your story and voice work well is plenty hard enough without adding in the pain of trying to write in a way that doesn’t feel right to you.

B) Deep POV is not right for every genre.

Most genres and sub-genres have their own preferred POV approach. Private-eye stories are usually in first-person. Mysteries are usually in some form of omniscient. Romances are usually in single-third POV. General (mainstream) fiction is often in either multiple or first person. The preferred POV reflects something about how the genre works—the mystery is about the mystery, not particularly about the character of the sleuth, so omniscient works well (as it does in many plot-driven stories).

Private-eye novels, on the other hand, are indeed about the character of the detective (and the detective’s voice), so that snarky first-person narration allows that. The genres evolved a preferred POV approach because that approach usually (never say always ) allows writers to create the experience for the reader which is desired in that genre (chills and fear in the thriller, thoughtfulness in the mystery, etc.).

You are likely to be drawn to the POV approach and/or the genre which feel right to you, which explore the themes and issues that are most important to you. So trust tradition. You can innovate if you understand WHY the horror novel is usually in single POV or sf/f is often in omniscient. The preferred POV approach usually helps create the desired experiences of that genre. So that’s a good place to start. And for most genres, deep POV is not the default (third person, at least—first-person can be pretty deep too).

C) Deep POV is not right for many stories.

Many stories would be pretty much unwriteable in deep POV. Plot-driven books, where information must be conveyed which the main character doesn’t have and action must be shown that the main character doesn’t witness, are usually told in a form of omniscient POV. Sweeping epics where worldbuilding or setting description are essential are better from omniscient too. Books where you are using an unreliable narrator are better from first-person.

Even tightly-focused character books can often be better-handled in a single-third person where your voice dominates. Dialogue-heavy books often benefit from the contrast of the conversational quality of the dialogue and the more formal quality of an omniscient or third-person narration. Stories with several major characters and a fast pace will often sound more coherent with multiple point of view. Comedy, which relies so much on the author voice, is usually in an omniscient ironic viewpoint.

That is, never feel pressured to write deep POV. It is not the only or best viewpoint approach. It’s only best if it’s right for you, the genre, and the story. Otherwise, try out the more traditional approaches and find the one that fits best.