Viewpoint as Camera or Participant

The most common mistake in writing third person viewpoint is the writer becomes a camera rather than the actor in the scene. In other words, the writer is sitting in the corner scribbling away as they describe the movie going on in front of them.

As a camera, the writer would write:

Faith struck at him with the edge of her hand, but he caught her wrist and held it.

"Don't," he said harshly.

She clawed at his eyes, but he dodged. Yanking free, she came to her knees but paused.

He took advantage of her slowness by throwing himself on top of her and pinning her to the bed.

She kicked at his groin and missed. Screaming and twisting, she tried again.

The correct place for the writer to be is in the brain and body of the viewpoint character. She should describe what the viewpoint character sees and feels to make the scene come alive. Here's the same scene through the filter of viewpoint character, Faith Cody.

Faith struck out with the edge of her hand, but the self-defense blow which should have smashed his windpipe was as clumsy and slow as the rest of her drugged body. He caught her wrist in steel fingers.

"Don't."

His hard-voiced command spurred her from her hopelessness, and she raked at his eyes with her free hand. His hand loosening her wrist, he dodged. 

Yanking free, she came to her knees in bed. She wore only a large tee shirt.

Shocked by her vulnerability, she paused before attacking again or fleeing. In that moment, he threw himself at her, pinning her to the bed, his hands manacling her wrists to the sheets.

Her knee seeking his genitals, she twisted, but her knee glanced off his inner thigh. Screaming like an angry jungle cat, she writhed beneath him as she tried to hit him again with her knee.

From THE GAME WE PLAY.

The trick to being in a character's head is to create a reality for the reader. Use visual language. Make the reader SEE what the character sees. Make the reader FEEL what the character feels.

Don't say, "Pamela was afraid." 

Say, "Shivers ran down her back like cold fingers." 

In other words, show, don't tell. If a character is angry, don't have him shout dialogue or "say angrily." Use his actions instead. If he's grinding a wadded paper to pulp in his hand while he's talking, you can be darn sure he's mad.

CAMERA AS THE RIGHT VIEWPOINT

Camera or panoramic viewpoint does have a place in fiction, particularly in epic fantasy or historical novels, where the writer wants to show the large overview of a great battle or event. Tolkien in LORD OF THE RINGS often uses the camera viewpoint. 

If you are considering using camera viewpoint within most genre, you need to decide if the larger viewpoint is worth the loss of immediacy. In most cases, it isn't. 

Hot, Warm, and Cold Viewpoint

 QUESTION: What exactly is hot viewpoint? How is it different from other types of viewpoint?

Hot viewpoint is about the viewpoint character's emotional reaction to what is happening. Hot viewpoint is full of sensual details, strong emotions, and important/dangerous/violent actions. Most hot viewpoint moments are action scenes full of adrenaline, love scenes, or physical or emotional fight scenes which can include an argument between characters.  

Cold viewpoint has almost no emotion involved. It’s a simple recital of facts or what’s happening.

Warm viewpoint is halfway between them with emotions of importance, but not extreme importance.

Examples:

COLD: Pamela glanced at the doors' numbers as she passed them. Room 82 should be just ahead.

WARM: Pamela smiled as she glanced at the hotel room number.  Tom said he's be in in Room 82.  He'd promised her champagne, roses, and a night of passion. A night to remember.  She could hardly wait.

HOT:  The slight cheesy stench of the alien made Pamela's nose twitch as she leaned against the hallway wall.  Her hands were sweating so much she feared she'd drop the Colt she held in her right hand.  With a quick prayer for courage, she eased toward Room 82 then kicked in the door.

For a writer, it's not so important to know the difference in an intellectual way, but to understand it instinctively as we write. If we are inside the character and feel what she feels, we are more likely to get it right.

More than One Type of Viewpoint in a Story

 QUESTION: I want to use first person point of view for my hero, and third person for my other characters. What do you think?

As a rule in popular fiction, you don't switch from first to third POV or vice versa.

Some writers have done this, but many readers and reviewers don't like this because they find it so jarring it knocks them out of the story.

This would be a particularly dangerous for a newer writer who doesn't have the experience and control to handle these changes or the reader's trust that they know what they are doing.

I can't suggest which type of POV to use. Only you can decide on that. Consider your comfort level with the different viewpoints, and the ease of telling the story with that POV. 

With first person, you must also be certain you can hear the main character's voice well enough to stay in that voice for the whole novel. 

If you do decide to write both first and third POV, you should have a very particular reason for it.  

Omniscient, Just Say No

 On one of the blogs I follow, a reader asked about whether she should use omniscient viewpoint in her first chapter.  In omniscient viewpoint you read the thoughts of all or most of the characters' heads as well as get an overview of what is happening outside of the character viewpoint.  Here is my reply.

These days, people have so many ways to entertain themselves that reading has a hard time even being considered, let alone being in the top five of how someone wants to spend their down time and money.  As writers, we have to figure out why our stories should be part of that down time.  What does reading this story give that no other entertainment gives?  

Science has helped here by studying the brain activity of readers.  "Being there" is what readers want.  They want to be in the story and feel, see, taste and sense through character viewpoint.  The character's reactions make our brains experience the same thing, and this makes the brain and reader very happy.  Omniscient viewpoint's main target is the intellect which works for some readers, but it doesn't offer those wonderful I'm-there brain reactions a majority want.  

Another reason not to use omniscient is that newer writers suck at it, every single time.  It's a landscape of bad craft land mines that the ignorant writer skips happily through, blissfully unaware that the reader experience is being destroyed in his path.  Once the craft is master level after years of writing and the writer reaches excellence, he may decide omniscient POV should be tried.  Even then, he'll probably start a few chapters then go "Hell, no. This is tripe."  End of omniscient experience.  

As a writing teacher, I'm guessing that the real reason the question asker wants that fantasy first chapter as omniscient is she wants to info dump all her worldbuilding in one spot because she thinks the reader needs this pile of worldbuilding vomit NOW.  Spoiler alert:  They don't.  

So, listen to agents, editors, other authors, writing teachers, and readers, and just so no to omniscient.  

Listen to the Force, Luke Skywriter

 I'm of the firm belief that a writer's subconscious is busy planting things the writer is blind to at the moment. 

When I rework a novel, I'll find lots of foreshadowing of events I didn't think I'd planned until the moment I wrote it, and I'll discover that certain types of metaphors or images keep appearing that fit a theme or event I didn't know was coming.

Part of the trick for a writer is going back over your work and building on the bread crumb hints left by your subconscious.  Make it obvious enough that the reader’s subconscious also picks up these crumbs to create more resonance in the novel.  

NOTE: My subconscious  just showed its unhappiness of my comments by making me unable to spell "subconscious" which is a word I normally spell with ease.

No One To Talk To

 A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on characters having conversations with themselves so I thought I’d talk about similar situations in my own writing.

In my novel, STAR-CROSSED, my hero has no one but the heroine to talk to in the first part of the novel.  To cover topics he wouldn’t discuss with her, I didn't want lots of internal monologue or flashbacks which tend to be boring.  

What I ended up doing was letting him have imaginary conversations with his best friend.  Since he was also stuck in one place, I put these conversations at interesting locations from their shared past that showed more about the hero and his past.

The first conversation, for example, was in a bar on a Wild West style planet where the two friends have rescued a sweet young thing during a bar fight.  The two characters shared a beer, talked a bit about the good ol' days, and the hero spilled his guts about what was bothering him.  

At other times, the best friend was the devil's advocate for one side of a choice that the hero was trying to make.  

If you do something like this, it needn't be as elaborate as an entire scene.  It can just be the mental presence of someone whose opinion the character either values or can't escape. Most of us, for example, can hear our mom or dad in our head reminding us to do or not do something.  

I’ve also had a character talk things out aloud to a horse he was grooming or a cat she was stroking.  The animal’s actions, as if commenting with a purr, a snort, or the shake of the head, gave a nice light touch as well as making the scene more interesting than internal dialogue.

If you want the hero himself as the other character, you should choose some aspect of him you want to emphasize. Say Dr. Indiana Jones--the scholar versus Indiana Jones--the adventurer.

Set up the use of the mental dialogue/scene fairly early in the novel or story so that the important scene when the character finally must make the big decision won't make the reader go "huh?" when the other side of his personality or an imaginary character shows up to discuss the matter.

In other words, have the mental character show up a few times so the hero can tell his other side to shut up or whatever.

Writing Witty Dialogue

 Witty dialogue is found in most Regency romances, and the comedies of Shakespeare are rife with word plays and banter between clever characters, but it also has a place in other writing.

Put two clever characters with a sense of fun together and let them at each other so they duel with words, and the reader is in for a treat that requires as much attention to the word play as the characters must pay.

This is from an unpublished contemporary novel.

"You have the tail of an ass," Ariel said. 

David raised one eyebrow haughtily. "Women have told me I have a nice ass, but not one has mentioned a tail." 

"They told tales." 

"I am happy you are named for the sprite Ariel and not Puck. I could wake up with the head of an ass." 

“Don't toss Shakespeare at me, amateur, or speak of Bottom. Why change your head into an ass? It would be redundant since you act like one already." 

Witty dialogue, particularly in a romance, is emotional and personal foreplay.  It reinforces a sense that these people “get” each other and are equals emotionally and intellectually.  

Outside of romance, the most surprising and common use of witty dialogue is between the hero and the villain who also “get” each other.

Dueling with words can be just as much fun for the characters and the reader as dueling with swords, and just as dangerous.