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September 7, 2016 at 6:55 pm #16971
Hi everyone,
While weāre all dying, I thought it would be a good idea for me to share with you a couple lessons that I learned from a recent revision to my WIP. There are three main lessons I learned that I think anyone can benefit from.
First, I learned the key to writing good omniscient point of view. For those of you unfamiliar with the omniscient POV, itās where the author doesnāt write in any characterās head, but can know what every character is thinking. The author can make any comment he wants to about the scene, and the comment is really his comment, not the characterās. The author can say things about the scene that the character doesnāt even know and even address the reader as Dickens sometimes does (though I donāt do this). Itās rightly said that with omnipotent, while each characterās voice is important, the authorās voice is the most important and is really what the whole book is made of. Now because this POV doesnāt actually let you inside a characterās head (though the author can say what a character is thinking, as in, āJermy looked at the painting and considered howā¦ā) people are sometimes critical of it saying that it makes the characterās less powerful. Unfortunately, this is truly the case, but that being said, some of the most powerful characters ever written have been done in omniscient. So omniscient doesnāt doom a character in the least bit, but it does make it very hard to write amazing characters.
This is something I had serious problems with because I was misusing the omniscient POV. This POV allows you to take the big picture look at things which can be incredibly powerful, but the problem was that I was doing that all the time instead of focusing on one single character. I found out (thanks to Kate) that if I want to create strong characters, for most scenes, I need to āpretendā like Iām writing in a deep third person POV. What I mean is that as the narrator, I need to narrate things as they seem to a single character, and as those events affect the character. Iāll give two examples. In the first example, I use way too much liberty with the omniscient, while in the second I write things only as they affect a single character.
1. Tim was walking down the path by the cliff. Above him, the mountain things were preparing their attack. Boulders were being moved to the edge. A mountain thing shoved one over the edge. Tim shouted as it landed mere feet in front of him.
2. Tim was walking down the path by the cliff. Faint noises were sifting through the canyon. He thought it must be Jerry and Lewis. They never seemed to leave him alone. He kicked a stone. Crash! A boulder landed mere feet in front of him. Tim flew back, yelping in terror. A cackle sounded overhead and Tim looked up and his heart skipped a beat as he saw the red eyes of a mountain thing looking down at him.
If you were paying attention, you should have seen that version two was much better. Both were written in omnipotent, but version two kept to a single character. That not only made things flow better, it allowed me to do more showing with emotion to give us a better idea of how Tim feels which is hugely important.Ok, lesson two. (Man, Iāve rambled a lot!) Another problem that I run into with doing omniscient is overviews, though these may appear in your writing no matter what POV you use. Doing an overview of an event, even if itās short, can be damaging. Certainly, there are times when an overview is just the right thing to do, but more often they are not. An overview doesnāt show you how events are affecting any single character. Maybe they tell it, but maybe not even that. They certainly donāt have character interaction which is extreemly important in any POV, but possibly more so in omniscient than in any other. Overviews are characterization dark spots.
Lastly, I learned that itās good to be critical about the necessity your very first chapters. First chapters can be some of the hardest, and since the plot hasnāt fully started yet, it can be easy to dally on things that are not important without even noticing it.
Hopefully that helps someone. I can clarify anything that didnāt seem clear (hopefully:) )
@kate-flournoy, did you see anything I missed?š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢š¢
September 7, 2016 at 7:08 pm #16973@Daeus there is nothing quite as satisfying as realizing youāve really helped someone. š
No. You didnāt miss a thing. I couldnāt have said it better myself.
@kate-flournoy Ah, much satisfaction be upon you. Matthew is pretty satisfied too, so you can celebrate with him.
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September 8, 2016 at 9:55 am #16999@Daeus thanks. I think I will. *calls over shoulder* āHey Matthew! Did you remember about the confetti?!ā
*grins*
@Daeus I think the omniscient pov is one of the hardest to do. It can be done well but, like you said, it can be harder to create stronger characters. Another thing which can be hard and annoying if not done right in the omniscient view (I donāt know if your story does it or not; I just startedā¦but some published books Iāve read do this) is the flow between characters. If youāre telling it deeply embedded in what character is thinking and sensing, then flip in the next sentence to the thoughts of a completely different character. Even though one can do that because itās omniscient, it still has to flow between characters well or else itās jolting.
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
September 9, 2016 at 5:43 pm #17073@hope Hmm, yes I should say itās hard (knowing a thing or two about that). I think Iām starting to get the hang of it though. Letās hope. Oh wait, I should say āletās Hopeā. Congratulations on your promotion to a verb.
I think I had some occasional problems with rough transitions before, but hopefully not anymore. If you see any though, please shoot them. I certainly do transition between characters. Itās one of those things about omniscient where every blessing has the potential to be a curse.
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September 9, 2016 at 7:53 pm #17094*shakes head* Promotion accepted, I guess.
The other day I posted a picture on twitter of my feetā¦Iād traced my veins I could see with a felted pen (I had a novella to rework and didnāt want to do it. It was only natural to turn my pen elsewhere) and got a reply āwhen you pick up a pen to write, but itās all in veinā. Iām still not sure what I think of that one. š
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
September 10, 2016 at 5:21 am #17122Can I add something @Daeus? Itās about overviews. Or summaries. Or telling (instead of showing). After reading Showing & Telling: Learn How to Show & When to Tell for Powerful & Balanced Writing by Laurie Alberts I believe that summaries is rather essential to stories. I know that contradicts āshow donāt tellā but hear me out.
You need to use summaries when you need to compress time or describe perpetual happenings. Or maybe you need to have some reflection time: one of the strengths of novels (as opposed to the visual strength of movies). My main point is that summaries occur more than you think in novels. Letās say you have a character who interrogates a witness in the morning. Then the next morning the character finds the witness dead. What do you do in between? You have to summarize. What if you have an niece who lives with a crazy aunt? How will you show that the aunt is crazy? You have to summarize.
Now whatās that? You said you can show what happens instead of tell? Okay letās see what would happen if that were true.
So you have the investigator who interrogated the witnessāyou describe what he had for lunch, how he went through the files at work, how he mulled over how the murder couldāve happened. Important stuff, right? Actually it isnāt because nothing important to the plot happens. Maybe you can have some great characterization moment or maybe you can show how intricate the murder was but you still have readers ready to drop the book. You can always characterize later on (actually every scene should have a great characterization moment).
What about the niece? You show the aunt being crazy. How she draws circles whenever she can. How she spends time staring at a mirror talking to her dead brother. How she sees snakes crawling around the house even though they live in Ireland (I have a strong desire to live there). Okay so thatās great. But what does the daughter do? I mean does she watch the aunt the whole day? If you think about it then it really doesnāt work. Now you have to add some showing (like dialogue) in there, but the majority of it will be telling. Also, this is dead time. You have to get to the next āgood sceneā quick. Giving long scenes of the aunt acting weird will bore the reader. Writing a summary (with some good showing moments) will be shorter and more compelling. And if you think about this if you have a strong point-of-view then youāll also reveal character while telling.
So Iāve stated my case. @Daeus @hope @kate-flournoy
Can somebody attack me please?
I blog on story and spiritual things at mkami.weebly.com
September 10, 2016 at 6:51 am #17125Hey, @Mark-Kamibaya welcome back!! It would be a poor welcome indeed if someone attacked you nowā¦ XD
I do see what youāre saying, and to some extent I agree. For the most part, however, we arenāt talking about scene-by-scene summaries. In @Daeusās case, it was several chapters summarizing a characterās childhood. (At least I assume thatās what he was talking about). For the most part, that should be relegated to flashbacks and subtext.
But with any summaries whatsoever, I would make the argument that you can skip them and let the next happening infer what happened in between. Writing is all about subtext, and subtext is all about the seen unseen. Inference. It makes the reader think.
In the case of the crazy aunt, that would be shown in the nieceās attitude. (POV). Say she walks in the door after a day of gardening and her aunt greets her with some off-the-wall comment about snakes strangling the mirror and making it so she couldnāt talk to her dead brother. The niece sighs and nods and gets on with whatever she was doing. That interaction only takes a moment, and it does advance the plot because presumably we need to know the aunt is crazy. But itās not a summary. Or rather itās about a chapter of relationship development deleted and crammed into a few words and a simple action/reactionā¦ thing. Iāve forgotten the word. š Thatās subtext, and Iām pretty sure thatās where the majority of summary belongs.Does that make sense?
Hi, @Mark-Kamibaya, good to see you.
Youāre right that overviews are essential, but I was arguing that theyāre way too easy to overuse and that itās best to always be critical of them.
To clear up what I was saying in my own novel, I was talking about any place in the novel where I overviewed events as if they happened in the past instead of showing them taking place in the present (even if I use past tense verbs. What I mean is that I have a live scene). The childhood chapters, @kate-flournoy, included a big overview when Matthew was at the Fletchers, but the burial chapter was not technically an overview because it was a live scene. It just still wasnāt best to keep.
As for your two examples, the murder one I could see going either way. You could give a summary, but I think it would still be better to have a live scene. Now, by live, I donāt mean āshowing every second of whatās happeningā. No, the investigator could arrive on the scene, see whatās there, and then you could say he wrapped things up and went on to some other scene. Granted, that would be an overview there, but it would only be one single sentence. You could also show him leaving in one paragraph which wouldnāt be to bad, but weāre assuming then that there is something really worth stretching out the length so that we can see it.
For the mad aunt one, Iād agree with Kate, itās just so easy to show that it doesnāt make sense to make it part of an overview. If it can work smoothly, keeping details like that to subtext can have massive benefit. For many details, the reader will be able to figure them out by themselves if you give them a small hint or two. This is always way stronger.
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September 12, 2016 at 9:41 am #17180Okay Iāll respond with a more comprehensive reply later, but the point of a lot of summaries is that youāre describing perpetual happenings. Like as in it happens over and over again. So one scene might not cut it. A summary also gives a chance for the viewpoint characterās voice to shine.
I blog on story and spiritual things at mkami.weebly.com
September 14, 2016 at 1:10 am #17298Yah. I totally get what youāre saying. I actually write everything like a movie. Like it shows everything as it is happening and (unfortunately) I barely enter into my viewpoint characterās mind (something I need to work on). However, once I read the book about showing and telling I really wanted to . . . liberate(?) my writing.
So do you guys get what Iām saying about perpetual happenings? A scene might work, but canāt you see how a short sweet summary (said in the viewpoint characterās unique voice) would really push that this happened again and again? Also, you would really highlight the perpetual occurrence instead of making it a passing thing. Subtext? Sure, but if itās essential to the plot then you get to the point when you just have to tell it. You wouldnāt show a climax or turning point through subtext would you? Some moments have to be shown right in front of the reader.
And think about characters that you want to tell them what theyāre like, but also want to give character development. So you got this person and the viewpoint character summarizes an incident in the personās life. Is that a flashback? Sure. Summary? Yeah.
And think about reflection. There are millions of books that have reflection. Reflection is one of the strengths of books against movies! You canāt enter into a personās head in movies (unless youāre watching X-men). And voice-overs are pretty stupid. And reflection is always done in summary.
So I hope you understand what Iām saying. I mean if you donāt have summaries and the like then youāll end up with books that read like movies. Is that a good thing? Maybe. Might be trendy even. But youāre losing the strength of entering a personās mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3QsUx0x_4w (video has language but is super helpful)
And for the record you should look at classic books. Even modern books. Rife with summaries.
I blog on story and spiritual things at mkami.weebly.com
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