Tag Archives: POV

Write What You Don’t Know

Posted in Writings about Writing by

The old adage goes “write what you know.” Actually, I hear very few people in the writing industry actually promoting that idea anymore – probably because it’s a terrible idea. Well, not terrible, really – just an inaccurate and incomplete idea. 

If you’re writing a memoir or anything autobiographical, then obviously you’re writing what you know, and only what you know. That’s the point of that genre. Anything in the non-fiction realm, actually, should be what you know. Whether you’re writing a book about gardening tips or the history of shoemakers in 19th century London, then hopefully you’re writing from your own knowledge, experience, or research.

Continue reading →

The Value of Writing Fan Fiction

Posted in Writings about Writing by

The subject of fan fiction can be a controversial one, so I may be making some people mad when I say that fan fiction is valuable and important.

First of all, to clarify for those who might not know, fan fiction is just what it sounds like: stories written by fans of a particular book/TV show/movie. Fanfic stories can range from plots that easily could have fit into the official story, to endings or explanations for unfinished storylines, to alternate universe adventures and wild what-if tales.

Fanfic is written for the fans, by the fans, and is generally not authorized by the original authors or creators of the book series/show/movie. There’s nothing illegal about fan fiction, unless you try to make money off of it or claim it as your own property. Then you get into plagiarism, theft of intellectual property, and related cans of worms.

This post is not about the legal or even moral implications of the fan fiction world, but rather its value as writing and art. All nerdiness and fangirling aside, writing fan fiction has several benefits: Continue reading →

Nitty-Gritty of Writing – POV

Posted in Writings about Writing by

POV – Point of View – is a vital element of narrative fiction. The point of view character is the one who is telling the story. There are three basic points of view for narration – first person, second person, and third person. Each one has different pros and cons, and different degrees. For example, in third person (where he or she is telling the story), there can be a single narrator or multiple characters serving as narrators. The point of view can also be very surface-level, as if you were watching a movie, or much deeper and more similar to first person narration (where I tells the story).

What I’m going to cover, however, is a lot more basic, and is something that I often see new writers struggle with. Even more experienced writers might struggle with POV a bit during their first draft, as they’re figuring out what sort of narration they want for the story. Continue reading →

Unusual Narrators

Posted in Writings about Writing by

I am not an expert on all the ins and outs of the narrator or narrative voice in fiction. Most of my stories wind up being in the third person, and often from multiple characters’ points of view. Before you jump all over me for that, let it be known that a) I never head-hop within a scene, and b) I’m currently writing an epic fantasy trilogy, and it just wouldn’t work if I had only one P.O.V. character.

Anyway, despite the fact that I have experimented very little with my narrators, I’m fascinated by the concept of the role of the narrator. I’ve decided to make this blog post a brief study of several unusual narrators that I’ve come across (in both books and movies).

The role of the narrator is first and foremost that of storyteller. Whether it’s omniscient third person point of view or an individual character who says “let me tell you my tale,” we learn the story from a narrator. Since I like the telling of stories, I’m always fascinated when I encounter an unusual storyteller.

Unusual Narrators in Movies

Okay, so both of these that I’m going to talk about are technically stage productions, but I’ve only seen the movie versions. The story and the characters would be the same, though. The musicals Evita and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat feature very unusual narrators to tell the story. The narrator Ché in Evita and the unnamed Narrator in Joseph both actively participate in the story, even though they are not characters within it. This is a technique that seems like it would be more effective in a show or movie rather than a book.

Ché and Joseph’s Narrator set up the story, introduce the characters, and then take the audience on the journey of the story. Both of these narrators are in just about every scene and every song, but not just as a distant storyteller – they interact with the scene and the characters within it. The characters in both of these stories are unaware that the narrator is a being that exists outside of their world.

For example, in Evita, Eva has several duets with Ché, but she does not recognize him from scene to scene. Ché is simply there to represent the everyman (or sometimes her conscience). Similarly, in Joseph, the characters always greet the Narrator with exuberance and welcome her into the scene, but treat her as a passing fancy. Only at the end, when Joseph and the Narrator sing the final duet, does Joseph seem to become aware that the Narrator has been there all along, telling his story and giving him life. These two stories would actually make a great character study, as well, because of this unique interaction with the narrators, but I won’t go into that right now.

Unusual Narrators in Books

The two books I’ve decided to discuss are Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. (Incidentally, I mentioned the narrator of Rebecca in another post I wrote some time back, in which I outline first, second, and third person points of view.)

Both of these books are written in the first person, which at first blush seems like the most limiting of all narrative styles, because the reader can never know anything beyond what the narrator knows. This is definitely the case in Rebecca, where the narrator’s ignorance and conjecture is basically what drives the plot.

The Historian features a very different sort of narrator, because there are technically several narrators. The main narrator (unnamed) is telling the story of her hunt for her father. She follows the trail left by her father based on the letters he’s written to her; these letters are first person, narrated by her father, and his narration (this narrator’s name is Paul) actually takes up the bulk of the book. Paul (via his first person letters) also followed a trail left his by his professor, so portions of the book are told in the first person by the narrator Professor Rossi. It’s a fascinating way to tell a story, and this technique enables the reader to experience multiple points of view (and even multiple time periods) while always staying in the first person. I found it occasionally confusing, though, as there were no markers to indicate when we were switching narrators (or time periods). Since everything was told by “I,” the reader has to rely only on the setting, and an acute awareness for each of the narrator’s voices, to determine who was telling the story at any point in time.

What’s also interesting about both of these stories is that the narrators are not actually the main characters. In Rebecca, we are in the unnamed narrator’s head the entire time and we get to know her intimately, but Max de Winter and even Rebecca herself are the major players in the story. In The Historian, the unnamed primary narrator quickly fades into secondary importance as we follow her father Paul as the narrator. At times reading this book, it was easy to forget that the “main” plot of the story was supposed to take place in the 1970s, because the majority of the story was told via Paul’s letters from the 1950s.

Other Unusual Narrators?

So now I’d like to hear from you. Have you ever read (or watched, or written) a story with an unusual narrator or narrative style? There are other stories I could have discussed here, but I’d love to hear some more examples from you!

And also, for your viewing pleasure, here is the Narrator from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat setting up the story and introducing the main character:

Characters are real people, too – part 2

Posted in Writings about Writing by

A while ago, I did a post with tips on writing well-rounded characters. I decided to follow that up with another post, featuring three more tips on how to flesh out your characters and make them just like real people. We are all more than the sum of our parts, and your characters should be, too.

1. What’s the motivation?

There’s always a why behind the what. Nobody does anything for just “no reason,” even if it seems like it at the time. Even something as innocuous as stopping for ice cream on the way home from work just on a whim has a motivation—you wanted ice cream more than you wanted to get home in a hurry.

Where the plot of a story is concerned, character motivation is a very important feature. Actually, I could devote an entire blog post to this (and many talented writers have already done so). But in short, your characters, major and minor, have a reason for doing what they do. The decisions that characters make is the main thing that drives the plot.

For an example, I’ll use Dumbledore and Snape from the Harry Potter series. (I must insert a quick confession: I’ve actually read only the first three books. But assuming that the movies were at least slightly accurate to the books, I feel comfortable in using these characters for this particular point).

Both Dumbledore and Snape spend the series protecting Harry. They go about in radically different ways, and that stems primarily from their motivation. The end goal for both men is the same: protect Harry. The reason? So that he can defeat Voldemort. But each man has a very different personal motivation for devoting the rest of his life to protect the boy who lived. Just in case you haven’t read the books or seen the movies, I won’t give away all the details; but it’s apparent right from the beginning that Dumbledore and Snape have very different motivations for everything that they do.

2. Challenges and struggles hit everyone

This can be related to motivation, because the way that character responds to challenges and struggles is what makes a plot. A story with characters who never go through troubles, never get stretched or challenged, and make no decisions because they have no motivation, is not a story at all.

There are basically two types of challenges (in stories and in real life): self-imposed struggles, and externally-imposed struggles. A story about a man who loses his wife could be told in many ways: did he lose his wife because of his stupid financial decisions and his refusal to curb his temper (self-imposed struggle), or because his wife was killed in a plane crash (externally-imposed struggle)?

In the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman, the characters all become involved in the plot in different ways. Lee Scoresby finds himself involved in a multi-world war (the struggle) simply by doing a quick helpful deed for a strange little girl (his motivation—kindness and a desire to help out someone in a rough spot).

The character of Will Parry becomes involved in the war (the struggle) because he is on a quest to find his father and will stop at nothing to get answers (his motivation). Because the motivations of these characters is different, they respond to the various challenges and struggles in different ways. They also are faced with their own set of individual struggles (some self-imposed, especially on the part of Will), apart from the war that is the overall plot of the series.

3. Whose head are we in, anyway?

This is sort of a point of view tip (which I blogged about here). But as it relates to characters, the point of view or perspective can be used as a tool for the development of characters. If a story is being told in first person (narrated by I) or limited third person (he or she) then the reader can learn about the character’s quirks, faults, motivations, and decisions through interior monologue as well as external actions.

Characters who are not narrators of the story can only be developed through their actions and dialogue, as presented by the narrating characters. This doesn’t mean that non-point of view characters are flat or lacking some way—it just means that the author must chose a different way to develop the character.

I could use most any story for this example, but I’m going to use Ruse, a short-lived comic book series that probably few people have heard of or read. It was a Sherlock Holmes-esque sleuthing story, set in a steampunk Victorian world. The two main characters are Simon—the detective, and Emma—his assistant and the narrator of the story.

Even though the story is told from Emma’s point of view, complete with her inner musings about Simon, the two characters develop equally well throughout the series. Simon is a well-rounded character because of all of the points that I’ve covered in both of these posts—his quirks, his strengths and weaknesses, his motivations, his response to struggles. Emma’s thoughts about Simon contribute to this, because she is constantly second-guessing him and wondering about his actions.

As a narrator, Emma shares her thoughts with the reader—but not every thought. She has secrets of her own, which Simon often figures out just as fast as the reader does. Simon has secrets too, and towards the end of the series, the reader feels that they know Simon perhaps better than Emma does—specifically because of her inaccurate interpretations of his actions and motivations.

Emma’s quirks, weaknesses, and motivations are revealed as she reluctantly divulges bits and parts of her secrets to Simon (and the reader). Simon’s quirks, weakness, and motivations are revealed as Emma interprets them through her own personal filter. The writer(s) of this series used this limited point of view narration to develop two very strong characters in two very different ways.

Please share your thoughts! Any other tips or ideas about developing three-dimensional characters?