Deep Point of View Archives - Lisa Hall-Wilson

5 Ways Deep Point of View Delivers Punch To An Action Scene

June 22, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

I’m working through some of the reader questions I’ve received, so this week we’re looking at writing action scenes in deep point of view. Here’s the question:

“I struggle most with action scenes. How deep is too deep POV where the reader loses a sense of what’s happening in the scene? And how do I balance the character’s inner dialogue and reactions with the action?” – Rabecka

Great question. Thanks for asking, Rabecka. Let’s dive in!

Know The Why Of The Action Scene

Just like in every other kind of scene written in deep point of view, know the why for your point of view character (POVC). Why are they fighting right now? Most people take quite a bit of nudging before they’re pushed far enough to take a swing at someone. The why must be specific to that character in that moment. That why should give the reader insight into the POVCs motives, their character, their priorities, their passion, etc. All fight/action scenes should move the story or the emotional plot ahead. If you can remove that scene without changing the story, it’s not essential. Only essential fight/action scenes get to stay.

Emotions In Action Scenes

What mix of primary emotions are at play? That mix will trigger fight, flight, or freeze which triggers a secondary emotion — where we have a thinking response TO DO something. In action sequences this must happen fast *snaps fingers* In most cases, you wouldn’t dwell on this. Let’s have a look at an example:

“Reacher chose the path of least resistance. He ducked his head and let the punch scythe through the empty air above it. Then he bounced back up, and launched to his feet, and twisted, and used his falling-backward momentum to jerk his elbow into the guy’s kidney, which was rotating around into position just in time. It was a good solid hit. The guy went down hard. Reacher fell back in his chair and sat there like absolutely nothing had happened.”

Lee Child, The Midnight Line, ch 3

So, we have Reacher in a situation that’s escalated to violence. I haven’t included the primary emotions here, but Reacher’s already placed his scarred giant-sized left fist on the table, and then the even bigger more-scarred right fist in a failed attempt to intimidate. He’s watching the guys around him for tension, for anything that tips him off to action about to happen. So, the primary emotions at play here would be anticipation – hyper vigilance, wariness plus maybe dread or suspicion that’s led him to seek the information to begin with.

So, the secondary emotion then isn’t anger. It colors more like frustration or irritation because they’re making him work harder than he thinks he should have to to get the information he needs, but he’s flexible. (Many primary emotions can also be secondary emotions depending on the context — if that emotion is a thinking reaction to a primary emotion.) “It was a good solid hit.” <- This is the internal dialogue in this sequence. This is his thinking reaction to the primary emotions he’s experiencing. He hasn’t even broken a sweat — he never felt out of control or in danger, he never exerts himself. His internal dialogue reflects this inner state.

Who your character is must dictate the action and the internal dialogue in any action/fight scene.

Internal Dialogue In Action Scenes

Internal dialogue is where we communicate/show secondary emotions. Let’s look at a writer whose POVC is a bit more… thoughty than Reacher.

“…George deliberately bumping against her. She [Anna] pulled back from him and instinctively wrapped her arms protectively around herself. He gave her a sneer he hid quickly from the others.

‘Illegitimis nil carborundum,’ she murmured. It was stupid. She knew it even before George’s fist struck out.

She ducked and dodged. Instead of a fist in her stomach, she took it in the shoulder and rolled with it. The small entryway didn’t give her much room to get away from a second blow.

There wasn’t one.

Boyd had George pinned on the ground with a knee in the middle of his back. George wasn’t fighting him, just talking fast…”

Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf

So, the primary emotions are shown through Anna’s body language. She’s wary, afraid, jumpy, hyper-vigilant. So, how does she react to those emotions (the secondary emotion)? Defiance. “It was stupid.” That’s the internal dialogue here. This scene feels like it moves a little slower than the Reacher scene. Any romance subgenre tends to be more focused on relationships so that’s reflected here. There’s more internal dialogue, more description in this scene, because that’s Anna’s thinking response to the primary emotions. Fighting back with her fists would be useless, all she has to fight with is her wit and her mouth. Do you see the difference?

Blow By Blow Action Scenes

There are some action scenes that by necessity are stark in their lack of description and internal dialogue. The intention is to create this snap snap snap response to the violence. There’s no time to think, just survive.

The shot thundered across the beach, an echo of the waves. The lead bullet broke his bottom right incisor, tore through his palate, just above his upper teeth, punched through the lower bone of his eye socket, and broke through the skin just in front of his left ear. He staggered back, then dropped down into a sitting position. Pain shot through his head. The blood dripped warmly down his cheek. His left eye wouldn’t focus.

But he was alive.

Deon Meyer, Dead Before Dying

This is a stylistic choice. There isn’t a right or wrong amount of internal dialogue or description as long as what you keep the pace moving, reveal character, and push the emotional/story arc ahead. This blow-by-blow account is visceral, it makes you want to wince. The only internal dialogue is, “But he was alive.” Where another writer using deep pov throughout the novel might widen the lens and use a shallower point of view to show an out-of-body experience or use a summary technique to force the reader to lean in, Deon Meyer has zoomed way in to create the same but opposite effect for readers.

Be intentional about this. What effect are you trying to create? I had a situation where I had two POVCs in an action scene. I had initially written the scene from the female perspective, the victim of the violence. But I rewrote it in the male POVCs voice as a sytlistic choice based on where I wanted to focus readers’ attention. If we were making movies, we might think of this in terms of which camera angle tells the story best in this scene?

What Tone Are You Creating?

The tone of the fight scene should dictate how deep the point of view is in an action/fight scene. Are you trying to create a feeling of raw shock and awe like the last example? Zoom in close and use cold, fast verbs (broke, tore, punch). Cold efficiency and proficiency like in the Reacher example? The action will be clean, fast-paced, and without a lot of description. The reader does most of the heavy lifting because the description is so sparse. The underdog facing a bully’s fists like in the Patricia Briggs example? There’s more internal dialogue, more description of what’s being felt – physically and emotionally.

Use similes and metaphors and descriptors that readers can relate to. Short, quick descriptions can be very powerful. Describing a character’s clothes as wet with blood for instance, not many of us will have been drenched with blood (thankfully) but we’ve all been thoroughly soaked while still clothed. This pairs an unfamiliar experience with a familiar physical sensation. In this way, we can write what we know even in action scenes.

Make sure you check out Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers available July 1st.

Thanks for the question, Rabecka! Do you have a writing question you’d like to see me answer on the blog? Leave a comment below or on Facebook!

Do you have a favorite action/fight scene from a novel?

Readers Want More Than The Body Language Of Love — They Want The Why

June 20, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Last week I visited Writers In The Storm and wrote about writing deep point of view using layers of emotions and I promised this week to share about writing love in deep point of view. If you missed last week’s post, make sure you check it out.

Let’s recap for a moment. A secondary emotion is our thinking response to primary (instinctive, unthinking) emotions. A secondary emotion could be triggered by one or a dozen primary emotions, and that blend will be unique for every character in every situation.

In deep point of view, it’s vital to understand the why of an emotion. Why is your POVC attracted to that other character? What need or desire are they trying to ease or fill? What emotions (or mix of emotions) is fuelling that feeling of love?

“I opened the door and there he was. It was like I was a magician and had thrown aside the curtain to show my lovely assistant. The sight of him caught my breath in my throat.”

Laurel K. Hamilton, Blue Moon

When it comes to love there isn’t a one size fits all kind of love, is there? It’s nuanced and varied, the relationships don’t all have to look the same or be founded on the same primary emotions. The Greeks have/had 7 words for love:

Eros – erotic-sexual love

Agape – selfless, sacrificial love

Ludus – playful love, overt flirting/teasing/seduction with no strings attached

Philia – deep friendship, platonic and sincere

Pragma – standing in love (as opposed to falling in love) the longstanding practical love as shared by a couple married for a long time

Philautia – self-love – could be meant in a narcissistic way, or in the way of taking care of yourself enabling you to better love others

Storge – familial love as between parent and child

I would guess there’s a lot of books out there that focus on ludus moreso than eros or even pragma. So, let’s reframe how we think about writing love…

Read the rest of this post on the Writers In The Storm blog.

Learn Deep Point of View Using Emotional Layers

June 13, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Deep point of view lets your readers experience story through a virtual reality headset. Readers want to take an emotional journey alongside the main character in every scene. This style puts readers IN the story as much as possible.

To achieve this, writers have to avoid summarizing or telling how a character feels. Instead, writers have to present evidence to the reader about how the character feels. Not enough evidence and the reader is lost, too much and the reader is bored.

To do this, the writer must know the WHY in every scene. Why did your point of view character (POVC) say that, do that, hide that, run away or stand and fight—all of it.

I’m constantly looking for a way to break things down, create an actionable process, so I can understand things. Deep point of view makes sense to me by writing in emotional layers. Every action (or in the case of fiction every thought) has an equal and opposite reaction.

Layer 1: Primary or Basic Emotions

These are the unthinking instinctive emotions. Some examples would be: attraction, lust, disgust, joy, fear, excitement, sadness, surprise, etc. Most often, we show readers primary emotions through body language and physiology—what’s going on inside: heart rate, skin prickles, sweating, etc.

This is a guest post on Writers In The Storm. Read the rest of this post here.

3 Ways To Ramp Up Setting And Description With Subtext

May 30, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

How do we use subtext to communicate setting and description?

Subtext is all about what’s not said. It’s about what’s implied, the innuendo and euphemism; it’s layered implication, it’s infused into facial expressions and tone of voice–it’s illusive. Subtext is about the underlying or secondary meanings we want to convey to readers.

I’ve had a few emails asking for help with setting. These tips help pull my readers deeper into the story every time.

What Forces Are At Work?

You must take into account all of the forces at work for and against your POV character in any scene and let that influence their words, their body language, their thoughts, and how they see and interact with the world around them. You shouldn’t need to TELL your readers anything, they will infer how your character FEELS through your description and setting — that’s subtext.

Let’s consider this scenario:

Ed and Sarah are in love and want to make plans together for that night.

Ed and Sarah are in love, but Sarah is Ed’s boss’ daughter and if Dad finds out Ed will lose his job, so they hide their love.

Ed and Sarah are in love and want to make plans without Dad finding out, but Ed also doesn’t want Sarah to think he’s ashamed of her or afraid to tell her father.

Ed and Sarah are in love and want to make plans without Dad finding out. Ed doesn’t want Sarah to think he’s ashamed of being with her and then his boss asks him to work late.

All of these things are at play in Ed’s head and heart. How would these factors color how he sees and interacts with the world? Because how he views the world at any given time will affect the way he describes settings and people.

If Ed is hopeful he can keep all the balls in the air, then that arrogance and confidence will shine through.

Ed strode into the office, the room lit with the last orange rays of the day promising a warm evening.

If he’s tired and questioning whether the girl or the job is worth all the trouble, that will similarly affect the way he interprets and filters the world around him.

Ed trudged into the office and shut the door with a soft click. The boss wouldn’t turn on the lights until the sun had gone completely down and the only light in the room was the glow from his calculator display.

Consider if he’s afraid, or prone to anger? This whole thing could go sideways and then what?

There would be a mighty push/pull tug-of-war going on inside him because he has a lot at stake. With subtext, always be aware of what the character has at stake, what they need to communicate but not say outright.

Use Setting To Mirror How A Character Feels

This is building on the last point. By using devices like personification, pathetic fallacy, and others you can infuse the setting and description with feelings. By giving the natural world and inanimate objects feelings and human behavior, readers can infer how the character feels. Let’s look at some examples.

“Nothing says hell has to be fire, thought Ralph Truitt, standing in his sober clothes on the platform of the tiny train station in the froze middle of frozen nowhere. Hell could be like this. It could be darker every minute. It could be cold enough to sear the skin from your bones.”

A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick

Standing on the train platform in the frozen middle of frozen nowhere. How does Ralph Truitt feel about where he lives? About having to wait on the train platform? Does it matter what the train platform looks like? Can you picture a tiny frozen train platform? Readers will do 90% of the work with description.

“He bought a ticket for the first bus out, no matter where it was going. Which turned out to be an end-of-the-line place way north and west, on the shore of Lake Superior. Fundamentally the wrong direction. Colder, not warmer. But rules were rules, so he climbed aboard. He sat and watched out the window. Wisconsin flashed by, it’s hayfields baled and stubbly, it’s pastures worn, its trees dark and heavy. It was the end of summer.” The Midnight Line, Lee Child

How does Jack Reacher describe Wisconsin in fall? Not terribly flattering is it. It’s actually quite beautiful there in fall, but Reacher is headed somewhere he doesn’t want to be, alone-again, leaving town after a relationship has ended. Do you see that how Reacher FEELS colors everything he sees. He’s going to an “end-of-the-line place” that’s “colder, not warmer” where the pastures look worn and the trees dark and heavy.

He doesn’t see the bounty of harvest, the colored leaves, or the sunsets over pastures. He doesn’t sigh with relief at the cooler temperatures or welcome the approach of fall. The way Reacher describes the setting mirrors how he feels and allows readers to infer through subtext how he feels.

Precise Word Choice For Description With Punch

Once again, we’re building on the last two points. Here’s an example:

“Yes, father,” Bran told him. He looked up. Wrapped in his furs and leathers, mounted on his great warhorse, his lord father loomed over him like a giant.” Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

Martin emphasizes his point of view character’s stature (a child) as well as how he feels about his father. Bran is impressed and intimidated by his father, yet knows he holds a privileged position. His lord father loomed. Bran could have described his father a million different ways, but Bran sees that his father casts a long shadow. Just a word and we can infer how Bran feels about his father through his description.

“But I ain’t never seen a baby yell like Mae Mobley Leefolt. First day I walk in the door, there she be, red-hot and hollering with the colic, fighting the bottle like it’s a rotten turnip.” The Help, Kathryn Stockett

The baby is red-hot and hollering — that’s not a normal sight for this character. We can infer she isn’t used to seeing infants this upset. The baby is fighting the bottle like it’s a rotten turnip. 0_0 What’s that tell us about the point of view character?

We use items we’re familiar with for comparisons. Turnips, typically, aren’t the chosen fare of the wealthy is it? Do you see the subtext at play here?

“I was dreaming of cool flesh and sheets the color of blood.” Blue Moon, Laurell Hamilton

Not how one typically describes their bed or their dreams, is it? What’s the subtext here? First, Anita is the point of view character and her lover is a vampire. Now, with that context does this line of description help with the subtext? Her lover isn’t normal and the sex is HOT – at least, that’s the subtext I drew from that line. What can we infer about Anita from that? Hmmm…

The setting and description should mirror how the character feels. The setting and description should lend subtext to a character’s goals and motivations. That seems like a lot, but it’s simply precise word choice and word associations.

Share your best line of description or setting and see what others infer from the subtext.

Don’t forget, you can get the free Writing Emotions in Layers 5-day e course here.

4 Ways To Create Unique Character Voice That Work For Any Novel

May 2, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Creating unique character voice for your characters is essential for great fiction. Even classical writers like Tolkien writing in omniscient point of view were able to imbue their characters with enough uniqueness that you felt like they were an individual. Yes, precious. In writing styles like deep point of view where the writer needs to become invisible and let the character tell the story entirely, creating unique voices for each pov character can be challenging.

Before I turned to writing and teaching writing full time, I worked as a freelancer which roughly translated to writing anything for practically anyone. I did quite a bit of ghostwriting, usually for a president or CEO or founder of a non-profit. Oh – you thought they actually sat down and personally wrote all those direct mail campaigns and emails? 0_0

I had to completely disappear and write a piece that read like it had come from someone else. The best compliment I could get was to have a client tell me that they’d been out speaking in-person at an event and people had commented that they sounded just like their blog, newsletter, whatever. That was the job. So, what’s the key to creating a unique voice and disappearing as the writer? (You might find this post – 4 ways to become invisible with deep pov interesting.)

Catchphrases and Signature Exclamations

I would sometimes only get twenty minutes with the person I was ghostwriting for. In those short introductory meetings, I would listen for a turn of phrase — something they repeated. One client kept saying to me he was “neck deep in alligators.” Others might be stern and all-business and I gleaned more about their voice from what they didn’t say. These little snippets were amazing glimpses into personalities and priorities. I was amazed at how much I could learn about a person from even a phone conversation.

How does the way your character phrases things show their personality or priorities?

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Does your character have a signature phrase or exclamation? The phrase above tells us a lot about the character, doesn’t it. This character isn’t overly educated, but very kind and very wise. Another one that comes to mind is Claire Fraser’s, “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ” which is said in the Outlander books quite frequently (not so much on TV). She’s familiar with faith but not a strict adherent and doesn’t care who knows that, nor is she particularly lady-like given the time-period, nor is she conventional. It just says so much about her character. Or how about “You’ve got some ‘splainin to do, Lucy” by Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” from The Godfather. Or Dickens’ “Bah! Humbug!” Each of these catchphrases signature exclamations gave audiences a good deal of insight into the character and how they see the world.

You really only have to sprinkle in a few of these signature phrases or turns of speech to give credibility to character voice. Used sparingly, as you might add spice, it can be effective.

Metaphors and Similes

Metaphors and similes are perhaps the most common literary devices fiction writers use. Metaphors are more precise than similes but both can be effective. A simile is a comparison using “like” or “as” whereas a metaphor is a comparison not using like or as.

“. . . she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach.” — Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.” — Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

An easy way to add character voice is have the character use those things they are most familiar with as metaphors and similes to describe things. She’s angrier than a hornet in a Coke can – what would that tell you about the character who said it?

“The café was like a battleship stripped for action.” The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

“The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires.” Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Just remember to use metaphors and similes sparingly, for emphasis. In the quote from Stoker above, it would’ve been easy to slip in more than one simile there, but he’s only used one for punch. Love that.

Apply Filters

Everyone sees the world in their own unique way. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and all that. What one person values has no value at all for another. What your character places value on shows readers what they care about, what they’re willing to fight for, die for, etc. Your character’s perspective should color every word you use. Characters can show readers what they’re seeing by describing how they feel. Are they an optimist? Are they driven – what would they find annoying or ignore? Do they have an artist’s aesthetic appreciations or more of a soldier’s utilitarian focus?

Here’s an example of filters. Sarah is the point of view character in both bits below, but I’ll give Sarah two different “filters” that will affect how she describes what’s happening. Can you tell how Sarah feels in each example?

First Example

Catherine answered the door and invited Sarah to the back patio. She followed Catherine, tucking her elbows in and hunching her shoulders to avoid touching anything. If you-break-it-you-bought-it applies here, she’ll be broke before they get to the kitchen. Sarah asked questions about the different pieces of art and furniture, more questions than necessary to be polite. She pretended to brush dirt off the patio chair before sitting. Out of time.

Second Example

Sarah checked her watch again. Catherine opened the door finally and invited her to the back patio. Sarah could see the patio doors from the front entry, but Catherine insisted on taking the long way through the living room and kitchen. Catherine’s ability to decorate wasn’t going to get them out of this mess.

Remove Yourself

Some writing teachers place too much emphasis on developing your writer’s voice. I chased it for a good long time. Your voice is simply which stories you choose to tell and how you choose to tell it. Will you use profanity or not? Will your stories be fast-paced, dark, or always end happily-ever-after? Sometimes genre must dictate some of these choices, but please don’t mistake your writer’s voice for character voice. Character voice will be distinct to one character and can and will change from novel to novel. How you tell a story and which stories you choose to tell, that will have more consistency between all your work.

Want to learn more about creating unique character voice in deep point of view? This is the last week to register for Method Acting For Writers: Learn To Write in Deep Point of View. Class starts May 7th. Learn more here.

3 Reasons Deep Point Of View Might Not Be Working For Your Story

April 19, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

When writing in deep point of view, even though this writing technique is visceral and delivers an emotional punch — sometimes it just doesn’t seem to be working. There’s no depth. Readers aren’t connecting with your characters. Assuming the story is well constructed and the characters well-conceived, does that mean Deep Point of View isn’t the right decision for your story?

Perhaps.

Maybe it means you have one of the problems below instead and just a simple tweak can turn a good story into a great story that readers tell all their friends about.

Voice

Deep Point of View is a great tool that almost by necessity forces you to create unique voices for your characters. However, if your characters all sound the same, or they just sound like you, that’s a problem. Often, the cause for this is that you either don’t know your character as well as you think you do, or you’re trying to artificially force a character into a plot event. Deep point of view works best for stories that are character driven, not plot driven.

As an exercise, pick a scene with high tension/emotion. Dig down into what I call the why. Why is your character behaving this way? What are they trying to accomplish by behaving this way? List three other ways your character could react to that exact situation and in point form explain the thinking/rationale that character would use to justify each of those actions. The actions don’t have to be rational, but they do need to make sense to that character. What does each of those reactions show readers about that character’s traits, motivations, goals, backstory, etc. Now, pick the action/reaction that is surprising, that forces the character into a situation or emotional state that leaves them uncomfortable.

Now that you know why your character is behaving the way they are and what they’re trying to accomplish in that scene, now write the scene as the character moves through the scene.

Filter

Every detail of the story that the reader knows about has to come to them through a point of view character, and that character has to have opinions, feelings, attitudes, prejudices, history, etc. that influence how they see the world and see themselves in the world. This filter is applied to every word you choose, every metaphor, all of it.

Sometimes this points to a confidence problem in the writer – either they don’t trust themselves or their reader. Sometimes it’s laziness because we don’t want to do the hard work of figuring out these kinds of details. Don’t take that personally. Every writer is guilty of lazy writing at least now and then.

So, going back to the exercise above, you’ve rewritten the scene as though your character is telling the story. Do your word choices reflect how your character feels about what’s going on? Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games describes her sister’s cat as the ugliest cat in the world and says it’s the color of rotting squash. It’s not an orange cat, or a marmalade-colored cat, it’s not the color of a Halloween pumpkin – it’s the color of rotting squash. How do you think Katniss feels about that cat? You find out that Katniss’ sister named the cat Buttercup. What do those two small pieces of information tell you about Katniss and her sister? About how they each see the world. That’s filter.

Change (Emotional Arc)

Does your character change over the course of the story? This might be why the deep point of view technique isn’t working. There is such a thing as a static character, a character who begins the story with all the tools/skills/knowledge they need to accomplish their goals. Usually, we see this in characters who are professional detectives, lawyers, etc. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher is perhaps one of my favorite static characters. Indiana Jones could arguably be considered a static character. However, most of the time your character will have to grow, change, learn, acquire new skills or thinking in order for them to have success by the end of the story. Will your readers see that change through the way your character experiences or tells the story? In the words they use, what they notice that they might’ve skipped or skimmed over before?

The emotional arc applies even to static characters. They have to care about something in order to put themselves at risk to accomplish the seemingly-impossible story goal. Emotional arcs are critical in deep point of view because the reader isn’t just inside your character’s head, they’re inside the character’s heart too. This journey then should include some emotional challenge to overcome. Is their pride getting in the way? Is it their prejudices or attitudes or assumptions tripping them up? These emotional obstacles need to be overcome. Remember, to build in this emotional journey for your character and readers too.

I LOVE getting emails from readers and I LOVE hearing how these posts are helping you create better stories. What topic(s) would you like to see covered here? Leave a comment or send me an email!

Want to learn more about deep point of view? Heard about it and don’t know what it’s really about? Been told readers struggle to connect with your characters emotionally? Know about deep point of view, but stumped trying to find intermediate-level resources? Registration is now open for Method Acting For Writers: Learn To Write In Deep Point Of View. Class begins May 7 and the cost is $165CDN (approx $130USD).