Point of View -- The Last Word

Point of view is something all beginning writers struggle with. It is simply a matter of letting the reader know who they are in the story. Imagine you are playing a role in a film. This is who you are, this is what you see, and this is how you feel about it, and what you understand is going on in the scene. How you choose to convey all this to your reader, to make him part of the story, is the point of view. You have to decide how you’re going to do this. There are a lot of choices and it can get pretty confusing. In the last two blogs I’ve only told you how I’ve dealt with this, with some success, with two of them, Interior Monologue and Omniscient. I’m also a beginning author, not an expert and only sharing my experience.

Most of us write in third person POV. You pick out your main character and see the action through their eyes. You let the reader know in the first line or two of the chapter who that person is and can establish how they feel about themselves and the world around them. This is where “show, don’t tell” comes in. You don’t say: “she saw him and was frightened.” You say: “The menace reflected in his eyes and the way his fists clenched made her heart pound.”

The good news is that there is an expert who has written a series of books that not only explain POV, but the entire craft of writing. Her name is Dr. Angela Hunt. There are seven short, easy to read books in the series titled, Writing Lessons From The Front. The first book is about plot, the second about creating characters, the third about point of view, the fourth is titled Tracking Down the Weasel Words.

Weasel words? All beginning writers do it. We use too many words to describe a scene or make a point. A very wise mentor of mine, Dusty Richards, who is a member of my writing group and has published at least a hundred and forty western novels, puts it this way, “You have to have something happening on every page.” Dr. Hunt tells you how to find all those extra words and get rid of them to keep the action flowing.

The fifth book is Evoking Emotion, or how to keep your readers hooked on reading. She tells you how. The sixth book is Planning and Process, or all that stuff you must do before you get around to writing, and the seventh book is Tension on the Line. You have six seconds to hook your reader on the first page and you have to keep that tension going throughout the book. This might be the most important book in the series, but you need them all if you’re going to be a writer.

The entire series is very affordable as e-books, but if you can choose only one, make it Point of View. Dr. Hunt’s easy, conversational style not only takes the mystery out of the subject, but gives you the freedom to experiment using more than one point of view in a scene or a chapter.

In my western romance, Maddie’s Choice, I used two POVs. Maddie is from New York, a writer, and she has a smart mouth and a sense of humor. Gideon, the male protagonist, is a bitter, disillusioned war veteran, suffering from PTSD. His voice and approach to Maddie’s shenanigans keeps the pace and the humor flowing.

Learn the rules, understand the reasons for them, then go your own way. Rules were made to be broken, as Dr. Hunt says.

Where Do Writers Find Characters?

 

All writers use bits and pieces of people they’ve known to create characters. Your mind “collects” memories, scenes and bits of dialogue that show up when you’re in the middle of a story. At least that’s the way it happens with me. I have a closet full of notebooks with observations and people I’ve met throughout my life. If you want to write, start with a notebook.

For instance, here is a fragment about someone from my army basic training days at Ft. Lee, Virginia, September of 1950. Someday she will be in a book.

     The Women’s Army Corps was still in its infancy when I joined. Recruits were women wanting something different, recently released from foster homes, or escaping poverty or abuse and had nowhere else to go. Remember we didn't have the job opportunities available today. We were expected to live at home until we got married. This was before Ms. Magazine changed all that.

New recruits lived in old wooden barracks, one long, narrow room, twenty-five cots on each side. No privacy. A recruit’s “area” consisted of two feet on either side of the cot and room for a footlocker at the foot.  A short pole on the wall was for hanging uniforms. The inadequacy of the housing, however, didn’t deter our enthusiasm. Cultural shock is an efficient bonding agent. Most of us bonded quickly. We looked out for each other. You need to know this to understand how we all banded together for the “re-making” of Private Kierkgaard.

      Alice was a Wisconsin farm girl, about twenty, who was so shy she never talked. She was awkward, physically clumsy, knew nothing of “female things” like ironing her clothes, shaving her legs, etc., and bathing. We decided she must have lived in abject poverty because she had never seen a flush toilet. She was terrified of the communal shower in the latrine, convinced she’d drown under the water, and refused to have anything to do with it. After about a week, this became a crisis. The whole platoon pitied her, and six of us who had become good friends, decided to take her in hand. We assigned duties: one would teach ironing, one bed making, one shoe shining, etc. It took all of us to get her into the shower, kicking, and screaming, but we persisted. A miracle happened. Once she felt safe, she gloried in the hot water, the soapsuds, shampoo, the whole thing. She became obsessed, spending every available minute there.

Our biggest challenge was teaching her how to march. Alice had two left feet.  We devoted hours to marching up and down the barracks, chanting, “left, right,” but by God, we succeeded. By graduation Alice was a real WAC, and proud of her new assignment as a cook. It was all she ever wanted.

Alice taught me a lot. I learned about compassionate leadership, group loyalty, and never, never to pre-judge. No matter how hopeless you think someone is, they have something of value. When we were packing to go to our next assignment, Alice’s battered paperboard suitcase was open on her bed. Inside were dozens of blue ribbons and small trophies from state fairs—awards for baking. Alice was a champion pastry chef. Who knew?

So what’s the message here? The possibilities of a novel about Alice are endless. The story of women in the military has never been told, especially women in combat. We don’t behave like men when we're in a group. I have dozens of stories from that period of my life that I’ll never get around to telling. 

Open yourself to the people around you—at a party, a shopping mall, or a restaurant. Get inside their heads. Who are they? Fantasize then write it down. Gideon, the hero from my novel, Maddie’s Choice, is the result of thousands of conversations I’ve had with men, in the military, on air planes, standing in line at the supermarket, and memories of those days drinking beer at the NCO club. There are characters everywhere. Find them, and then write the book.