Why Deep POV Isn’t Working And How To Fix It

August 22, 2022 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 4 Comments

Many blogs repeat the same four to six points on writing in deep POV, so you read those and think – heh, that doesn’t look too hard. But your efforts continually fall short with beta readers, critique partners and editors. They say ‘go deeper’ and you scratch your head – but you DID go deeper. Let’s dive into the most common reasons deep POV isn’t working for newer writers and look at some solutions.

**This post got super long, so I’ve split it into parts.**

Point Of View Problems

You need a clear understanding of point of view for deep POV to work. This is not a beginner-friendly style to write in, so *deep breath* don’t give up.

Third person POV is a story from the he/she, they/them perspective. There are different ways to use third person POV. First person POV is the I, me, we, us perspective and there are different ways to use first person POV. Neither first person nor third person (or any version of either) is deep POV. You can learn more about first person POV here, and learn more about third person POV here.

· First Person POV heavily leans on the narrator/author voice when telling a story from a single character’s perspective. The POV narrator/character may or may not be the protagonist (so they may or may not be privy to the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings), the narrator could also be omniscient and outside the story itself.

· Limited Third Person POV uses the author voice (no narrators) to tell a story about a single character at a time. The author is only privy to the thoughts and emotions of a single character at a time, and that character may express thoughts directly to the reader (often differentiated from the author voice with italics).

· Deep POV isn’t strictly a point of view issue, the name is a little confusing. It’s an additional layer of point of view applied to either first person or third person POV. In deep POV there’s no author/narrator voice.

Let’s look at some examples:

First Person POV: I stretched out my legs under the table as Sally peeled the label off the empty wine bottle. She would never look at me when there was tension between us. From down the street, Macy’s apartment building loomed over the café. The words froze in my gut. How did I tell Sally I didn’t love her anymore?

Limited Third Person POV: Sally peeled the label off the empty wine bottle. She wouldn’t even look at him. George tucked his feet under his chair and drummed his fingers on the table, frustration making him twitchy. He stared off down the street at the apartment building where Macy lived, his gut twisting with the words he couldn’t quite get out. He didn’t love Sally anymore.

Deep POV: Sally sat, shoulders rounded like a turtle in its shell, peeling the label on the empty wine bottle. George tucked his heels under his chair and let his gaze wander down the street to Macy’s building. The modern glass structure loomed over the frozen-in-time café Sally preferred. He sucked in a deep breath, his gut clenching, his throat tight. “Sally, I don’t love you anymore.” The words erupted out.

The elimination of the author/narrator voice in deep POV requires you to give the reader two plus two and let them add it up to four. This means your description and observation skills must be on point, otherwise the reader won’t ‘get it’ and feel lost.

Head Hopping Problems

Adjacent to the issue with understanding how POV works, there are often head hopping issues. While there are first person and third person styles that use the omniscient viewpoint, it’s not all that common in popular fiction (sorry to all the diehard fans of Austen, Dickens, and Tolkien).

In contemporary popular fiction, the reader is only privy to what the POV character knows, intuits, learns, etc.

POV Violation: Cassandra kept her claws rounded and painted, her antennae erect and shiny. The green-skinned passersby approved of her with a nod and then dismissed the messy Steve who followed her.

Cassandra can’t know what others think of her or anyone else. This is an example of the author telling the reader the answer is four, instead of just giving the reader two plus two and letting them lean in and figure it out.

Deep POV: Cassandra examined the precisely-filed ends of her claws. A green-skinned man approached her, and his eyes widened and his antennae arched away from her. She checked her antennae, but they were perfect. She spun. Steve slumped along behind her, his left antennae bent and limp. Sickly splotches of purple marred his green skin.

See the difference?

This is the most-watched unit of my popular 5 week masterclass on writing in deep point of view. This is a deep dive into writing emotions in layers that assumes you already know the basics of this advanced writing style.

No Emotions Are Added

One of the most prevalent pieces of advice I’ve seen about deep POV is to remove emotion words. This relates back directly to give the reader two plus two, don’t tell them the answer is four. Newer writers learn to remove the emotion words, but don’t know how to add that emotion back in via showing and not using the author/narrator voice.

Sally anxiously waved at Mark from across the room.

Anxiously is an emotion word, so we know that’s the author voice creeping in.

Sally waved at Mark from across the room, wanting him to respond.

This is a common fix, but ‘wanting’ is still the author voice creeping in. It’s insidious, it’ll sneak in everywhere you’re unsure of what to say.

Sally rose up on her toes, heat crept into her cheeks. He finally looked at her and she lifted her hand to wave. What if he’s not looking at her? She sank back onto her heels and hid her hand behind her back, cutting the wave short.

With this last example, I’ve given the reader two plus two. Hopefully, reading that, you can figure out that she’s anxious, but in addition to that, when deep POV is done well, the WHY behind the emotion is shared as well. Why is Sally anxious? Because she doesn’t know if Mark even sees her.

Stay tuned for part two next week. What’s your biggest struggle with deep POV?

Go Deeper Writing Fiction With Personification

August 15, 2022 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

I’m often asked HOW to go deeper in fiction. Even if you’re not writing in deep POV, there are always places in many scenes where you’re looking to show insight/motivation/desire, use subtext, create setting – in a deeper way. You’re setting or characters come alive on the page. Personification is one of those tools that every writer can use more effectively.

Personification is giving human-like qualities to non-human things.

The last piece of pie called his name.

The story jumped off the page.

Opportunity knocks.

Pie doesn’t talk. Stories can’t jump anymore than opportunity can knock on something. These are figurative meanings, but there’s a lot of variety and uses for personification and is a great way to be economical with your writing.

Personification can be used in a variety of ways: anthropomorphism (a non-human animal, object or deity literally acting like a human), pathetic fallacy (attributing human feelings to the natural world), embodiment (a person or thing is representative of an abstract concept – she is integrity itself), etc.

Personification is efficient – it can create both setting and mood for instance. A simple phrase can carry a lot of weight with readers and create mental pictures.

Use Personification For Setting

The environments we find ourselves in can be varied and particular, but by infusing those everyday things with emotions or human qualities, we add emotional depth to our writing. You can avoid the dreaded lists of description by using personification to show how your character is feeling, what they think/feel about the place they’re in or what they’re about to face. Show what the character is focused on or prioritizing.

I live in Canada and we have many descriptors for snow: whiteout, blizzard, flurry, squall, powder, slush, packing, frost, flake… Each descriptor dials in on intensity, impact/disruption, potential for damage, etc. Snow can cover the land in a crisp clean blanket, trace every branch with glittering frost, or cause multi-car pileups and kill with hypothermia. Now imbue some emotion or human qualities into those pictures.

The snow danced in the air, melting on my skin like a soft cool kiss.

The snow pelted my face, a thousand tiny needles freezing my face on impact.

Personification gives the setting mood, tone, and intent. How your character perceives the world around them, is it for them or against them, can show the reader the character’s mood, priorities, expectations, etc.

A man running through the woods for his life could perceive that the trees hide and shelter him. Or, he could interpret that the branches pull and tear at his clothes and skin, slowing him down. Be intentional and strategic with your word choices.

Personification Provides Immersive Sensory Details

Neil Gaiman writes, “Personification is an effective tool for placing the reader in the story with a 360° view of the setting. In Bleak House, Charles Dickens describes a thick fog settling as rolling, hovering, creeping, and ‘cruelly pinching’ the toes and fingers of a boy.” (source here)

A warrior waits on the brink of a battle. How do they feel about what’s to happen? About why they’re there? How do previous battle experiences influence their priorities, goals, motivations, and fears? You could use backstory, you could use a flashback, or you could use personification.

Zerynthia bounced on her toes and cracked her neck. Sucked in a long breath and exhaled. The leaves waved their encouragement and the sun pushed away the rain clouds and chased off the lingering shadows.

Can you picture her on the edge of battle, ready but nervous, and the trees with their waving fluttering leaves? The sun could stand in for some deity’s support perhaps. How does she feel about being there, about how her chances in the battle?

Personification Uses Subtext And Connotation

Subtext is what’s going on beyond what’s been said – it’s black-belt writing level. Use personification to show how a character feels, create a specific mood. Use connotation, the baggage that comes with a word beyond it’s surface meaning to evoke imagery and/or emotion.

If a character is in a forced labour camp, that invokes a particular kind of image. If the character is in a concentration camp, the connotation of that sends us back to 1940s Nazi Germany, even though technically a concentration camp was often a forced labour camp. See how connotation works?

Your character walks up to a house. How you describe that walk, the house, the weather, all of it creates this immersive effect for readers.

The house might loom, glare, impose its shadow, stand immovable against time, or keep secrets. Is the house cheerful or tired? Maybe the house has a veneer, a false façade? Does the character trudge, skip, drag their heels?

Using connotation, each of those descriptions add additional meaning on top of the personified meaning. The house that looms lends the impression of dread, vulnerability, inadequacy, shame, etc. That same house could stretch up to the sky stalwart against the effects of time. To a character who hates change, that might mean something comforting. To a character fighting tradition, this upcoming scene would feel like an inevitable failure is about to happen.

If the tired house leans over the broken walk, do you need to describe every broken shutter or missing shingle for the reader to understand how the how the house looks, or how the character perceives it? What’s fun is to then juxtapose the POV character’s perception of something against another character’s. The tired house with the broken walk might evoke hopelessness or dismissal from the POV character, but to another character that house offers opportunity, restoration, excitement.

Personification Easily Falls Into Cliché

Be vigilant to avoid cliché unless you’re using it intentionally to add meaning. Always build in surprise for readers. Give readers two plus two, don’t simply tell readers the answer is four. Show what the character takes in and let the reader do the math. Create an immersive experience where the reader has to lean in and care, to sympathize, to cheer for the characters because they know how this feels!

Emotions are universal across time and geography. The expression of those emotions, the understanding, social acceptability, of emotions is what changes. The reader may not know what it’s like to have a sword in hand and fight Vikings trying to destroy their village, but they understand being the underdog, they understand loss and fear.

Do you regularly make use of personification in your writing?

Examples of First Person Deep POV

August 8, 2022 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 4 Comments

First person POV is automatically deep pov, right? NOPE. They are very different, though first person POV stories may use elements of deep pov, there’s a lot more to deep pov than most realize.

I recently did a guest post on why first person pov is not deep pov (at least, not automatically as some assume). But, over and over my students and readers tell me that what they find most helpful is examples.

So, go read that first post and then come back – or read the recap below.

Quick Recap: What Is First Person POV?

First Person POV is a story told from the I, me, we, us perspective, and it relies quite heavily on a narrator voice. In third person POV, that “narrator” becomes the author voice.

The function of this narrator/author voice is to summarize, explain, give details the character wouldn’t know or think about, skim details, skip time, give descriptions of things the character might not notice on their own, recap history or deliver backstory. Particularly in first person POV, the character either directly speaks to the reader (breaks the fourth wall) or assumes the reader is listening in.

In deep POV, every word on the page comes from within the character, and while the reader is a fly on the wall inside the character’s head, the character doesn’t acknowledge, talk to, think of the reader at all. Everything happens in real time. So, there’s no place for the author voice to summarize, explain, skim, describe, skip over time, etc.

Some people find deep POV claustrophobic, too intense, too limiting. Others love the directness, intensity and intimacy of this style of writing. There’s no right or wrong answer.

But First Person Uses Deep POV…

Some have said to me, but first person IS deep POV. There’s no dialogue tags or filter words.

Deep POV is a collection of stylistic choices that aim to immerse the reader in the character’s lived experience of the story. Emotions are the glue that makes deep POV have so much power. So yes, many of the big names writing in first person POV (Margaret Atwood comes to mind) advocate to remove dialogue tags (he said/she said) and use beats, and this is one element of deep POV. Many advocate to remove filter words that add narrative distance, and this is also one element of deep POV.

But there’s SO MUCH MORE to deep POV than these two stylistic choices. And, that narrator/author voice is really the big stickler that differentiates the two.

Filter Words And Summary In First Person POV

I’ve used bold text to show where the author/narrator voice is creeping in.

First Person POV: A heavy pounding on the front door caused my heart to leap into my throat and I fell off the couch where I’d been sleeping. I bellowed at the door. “Who’s there?” Everyone who’d ever bother to visit knew better than to appear before noon. It was only 8am.

There are still filter words here – caused. Words like made, forced, caused add narrative distance. Just show the reaction instead of narrating it. A heavy pounding rattled the front door in its frame. My heart leaped into my throat.

‘Where I’d been sleeping’ is summarizing. Show where they were sleeping. A heavy pounding rattled the front door in its frame. My heart leaped into my throat and I fell off the sofa. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

The last line is an omniscient narrator voice, which not every first person POV would employ, but do you see how it’s summarizing and explaining many WHYS in this scene? Why are they surprised? Why are they annoyed? There’s also some backstory that assumes a reader is listening into the character’s thoughts.

Limited Third Person POV: A heavy pounding on the front door sounded through the house. Sam bolted upright on the sofa and then hit the floor. He got to his feet, his heart pounding in his throat, hands shaking. He never got out of bed before noon. “Who’s there?”

Words like heard, saw, wanted, (sounded is a tricksy workaround that doesn’t work) etc. are more examples of filter words. This adds narrative distance. Show me how this sound affects the character. The “he never got out of bed before noon” is the author voice explaining things to the reader.

Deep POV: A heavy thick-fisted pounding rattled the front door. I bolted upright on the sofa and tipped. My heart leaped into my throat and I hit the floor. The tendrils of the nightmare slipped from my memory like sunlight on fog again. My stomach and chest ache, my hands shaking. I take a deep breath and exhale through my mouth until the ache recedes. I’m home, not back there. Tapped my phone. 8am. A reminder popped up: Plumber. “Who’s there?”

This rewrite aims to remove the author/narrator voice explaining or summarizing what’s going on. I also hoped to give the reader a peek into the WHY behind their reaction without a backstory dump that required explanation or the author voice to interrupt what’s going on.

Using the narrator/author voice isn’t wrong, but if your goal is deep POV you have to remove those because what you want is the lived experience, not a summary of the lived experience. Instead of TELLING a story, have the character simply live out the story in an immersive way?

Ask yourself WHY your character is doing or thinking or deciding things. Ask how the character FEELS using what Psychology Today calls the Orchestra of silent communication: internal physical feelings (heart rate, circulation, etc), external physical feelings (bumping into things, squished toes, etc), emotions, gestures, expressions, movement – all the things. Decide on a few relevant details that will show the impact, mood, setting, etc. of the scene. Be strategic.

Removing The Narrator Voice In First Person POV

First Person POV: The first day we stumbled upon that old cabin in the woods, we knew it would change everything.

All of this is the narrator voice. The voice is talking to the reader directly. Additionally, the narrator is summarizing what’s about to happen from a time in the future. This doesn’t happen in deep POV.

Deep POV: I chased Jake through the woods, the branches pulling and snagging at my shirt, the long grass trying to trip up my feet. I was too fast though. I jumped over a log, and fell, and the ground disappeared. I shrieked. My backside hit ground. Heels dragging furrows ahead of me until I stopped. Sand in my shorts, sand in my mouth. I shook it out of my hair. Jake stood nearby, looking up. I stood, rubbing the sore parts and cursing. My shoes now a size too small with all the sand in them. An old tree, twisted and tangled, stood with its roots crawling across the ground, holding up an ancient cabin. My mouth gaped.

Jake nudged me with his wrist and took off running. “I saw it first!”

Nobody was going to believe what we’d found.

Deep POV explores the in-real-time lived experience, and doesn’t filter it through a narrator voice or the author. Every word on the page comes from the character, from within the character.

The Narrator Voice Drawing Conclusions

First Person POV: I could tell Tom was lying.

Deep POV: I waited, my arms folded over my heart. Tom wouldn’t meet my gaze. He just shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, hands shoved so deep in his pockets his wrists disappeared.

Don’t TELL the reader Tom is lying, SHOW the reader why that POV character thinks Tom is lying. What information have they taken in that gives that character the impression that Tom is lying? That’s the shift that needs to happen in deep POV.

Go Deeper With Emotions And Remove Narrative Distance

First Person POV: Despite everything I’d just said, he was still leaving. But he couldn’t leave. He was breaking my heart.

Deep POV: I cleared my throat and blinked back the tears. My chest gaped open, there was nothing left to say. He jingled his keys in his pocket, staring out the window. “I never knew you felt that way.” He shrugged and reached for the door. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

He shut the door behind him. My knees gave out and a wailing noise filled the room. A vice wrapped around my throat. Tears rushed down my face and down my neck. My whole body an open wound and he’d just poured salt on it.

The first person POV example is the narrator voice summarizing what’s going on, it’s keeping the reader at a safe distance. The narrator concludes for the reader what is going on, where deep POV gives the reader the information they use to reach their conclusion without stating it.

Don’t tell the reader the character’s heart is breaking, show what a broken heart FEELS like to that character in that moment. In real life, we don’t take in a scene and then tell ourselves what we’ve concluded – we don’t narrate our actions to ourselves, we just take the next step and act. Let the reader draw their own conclusions. And this is really really hard when you’re full of doubt about whether the reader “gets it”, but that’s what critique partners and beta readers are for.

Deep POV aims to immerse the reader in the character’s lived experience, as it happens. Emotions, the visceral, unfiltered, vulnerable, messy, and intimate exploration of emotions is what makes deep POV so powerful. I don’t tell the reader the POV character’s heart is broken, I show (tried to show) what a broken heart felt like to THAT character, RIGHT NOW.

A Warning About Editors…

Editors not familiar with deep POV will look at these deep POV examples and say it’s navel-gazing, it’s slowing the plot – that it has to go. Deep POV will add to your word count, and it will slow the pace of your story (in places). They will want you to add in the narrator/author voice in places, summarize and explain “to keep the pace moving”, but that narrow focus of the lens is THE POINT.

This is the mindshift change that happens with deep POV. You need to strategically employ distance and telling in deep POV, like you do with every other POV style, but this is what “go deeper” looks like. Deep POV employs this curiosity of raw emotions, the lived experience of the story with intimate detail, forces t he reader to lean in and participate (think) to know what’s going on, and consequently immerses the reader in that character’s perspective and journey.

Ask prospective editors if they’re familiar with deep POV and ask to see examples of (or links to) work they’ve edited written in deep POV. Look at the examples – are they in deep POV? Look for dialogue tags. The narrator voice. Filter words. The kind of telling that’s allowed with a narrator/author voice, but is avoided in deep POV. Is the story told in real time – no hindsight or looking ahead. Does the character assume there’s a reader listening in? Some people don’t know deep POV is different than limited third person, and different from first person POV.

I’ll be posting on my own blog regularly instead of only guest posting. What aspects of deep pov would you like to see my blog about? Would you like to see me post more examples of other styles put into deep POV?

17 Things To Know About Deep POV Before You Start Writing

April 18, 2022 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

I LOVE deep POV, but there’s a lot of confusion about what it is and what it isn’t, how it works, what genre or tense you must use – lots of questions and a lot of confusion. I wanted to put together a list of things many people don’t realize before doing a two-footed jump in the deep end of deep POV.

Very Few Novels Are Written ENTIRELY In Deep POV

I’m often asked for recommendations for novels written entirely in deep POV, and I struggle to find many. Not many bestsellers use deep POV exclusively. And there’s a reason for that. Deep POV is intense, it can bog down the pace, and not every scene or character is suited to using deep POV. This is a stylistic technique you keep in your writer’s toolbox. Some writers try to stick close to deep POV most of the time, some use it only for key emotional moments. There’s no rules (though, I believe romance generally trends towards using deep POV most of the time).

The key is to know how each scene moves the story ahead, what work each scene needs to do in telling the larger story, and be strategic with the tools you use to create specific effects. That said, I have a list on this blog post if you’re looking for examples.

I’m sharing these titles with the caveat that EVERY novel MUST use telling in places, and in genres where there’s a lot of storyworld building such as fantasy or historicals, the tolerance for it is higher than in some other genres like contemporary romance.

Deep POV Is A Hard Technique To Learn (If You Haven’t Read A Lot In This Style)

Deep POV is not intuitive if you’ve spent a lot of time reading other point of view styles. Many accepted stylistic choices in other point of view styles undermine the immersive effect deep POV aims to create for readers. Those new to learning deep POV often say there’s a steep learning curve because you have to think differently about how you tell the story, the details you choose to focus on, how those details and thoughts are shared.

Emotional Depth Is What Makes Deep POV Powerful

The power of deep POV is in the depth and exploration of the character’s emotional journey. That emotional journey is what readers find so compelling. Stories that utilize a lot of action, that use characters who aren’t prone to self-reflection or thinking, may not be well-suited to being written entirely in deep POV. Deep POV used for key emotional points in stories like these, when used effectively and strategically, are very powerful for inciting incidents, mirror moments, black moments, etc.

There’s More To Deep POV Than The Same 4 Rules

There’s so much MORE to deep POV than most blog posts tell you there is. If you don’t have a goal of writing entirely in deep POV, it’s easy to give a summary explanation of remove dialogue tags, show don’t tell, remove emotion words, remove filter words – and believe that’s all there is to it.

Deep POV is actually very complex and requires a fair amount of strategy to use well. Yes, these four aspects are the most-talked about, but if you don’t learn to recognize the author/narrator voice, get curious about emotional depth, learn to use subtext, learn to use telling strategically, deep POV will be endlessly frustrating and will fall flat with readers and editors.

Deep POV Is Often Added In The Rewrites

I’m often asked how long it took me to learn deep POV. I’m still learning and I’ve been writing deep POV exclusively for more than ten years. What I have found is that deep POV is best edited for, rather than attempted on a first draft. You can learn all the “rules” of deep POV and put out a first draft that immerses readers in the story, but getting curious about and creating reader surprise in the character’s emotional journey in each scene is hard heart work and I reserve an entire read-through JUST for deep POV.

Now, I mean the emotional aspect of deep POV. Learning the red flag words to avoid, removing telling and the author voice, etc. Those are all aspects that you can achieve on a first draft with a lot of practise. But that emotional work, depending on your own writing preferences, may be done on a second draft (planners), it may be a tenth draft (pantsers), but it’s work best saved for after you’ve gotten the plot and pace settled first.

Deep POV Is Not Limited Third, Is Not First Person

Many many people do not understand what deep POV really is. First person is not automatically deep POV. First person allows for author/narrator narration, summary, explanation, conclusions, etc. that would be considered telling in deep POV.

Limited third, close third – this is not deep POV. Let’s just do a quick recap of POV styles:

Omniscient POV – (either first person or third person) the author/narrator tells a story about a character or a group of characters. The narrator/author is not a part of the story, but knows everything about how the characters feel, and what happens next. Ex. Lord Of The Rings, Of Mice And Men, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

Objective Third Person POV – the author tells the story objectively, without adding emotions, motivations, or thoughts from the character Ex. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Limited Third Person POV – the author tells a story about ONE character at a time (this is the ‘limited’ part of this POV style), and may share some of the character’s thoughts directly with the reader (often using italics to set the character’s thoughts apart from the narrator/writer voice).

Deep POV – The character lives out the story in real time, immersing the reader in their emotional journey. There is NO author/narrator voice. Every word on the page comes from within the POV character. Every. Word.

Many take my class believing they’re writing limited third person, but are actually writing in objective third person. Their learning curve is even greater because not only do they have to shift how they tell the story to eliminate the author voice, they also must learn how to write emotions and thoughts that come from within the POV character.

https://lisahallwilson.com/use-beats-in-deep-pov-to-convey-emotion/

Deep POV Works For Almost Every Genre

Deep POV requires enough reader maturity and insight to understand body language, social cues, subtext, etc. So, it’s not well-suited to MG or Children’s Lit.

There are some genres that are well suited to deep POV, romance genres for instance, where the character’s internal life is a focus of the story. Some writers think you can’t use deep POV for genres like mystery or suspense or cozies, because the POV character can’t keep secrets from the reader, but that’s just not true. You can’t keep secrets, but that’s not the only way to write those stories, nor does not keeping secrets remove or undercut the potential for tension.

Deep POV Limits Where The Reader Can Get Information From

With deep POV, the reader knows everything the POV character knows, thinks, feels, wants, sees, intuits, learns. The reader should know the character’s preferences, prejudices, past experience, expertise, etc (without using telling or info dumps). But that’s ALL the reader knows.

Learning to recognize POV breaks in deep POV is another challenge that many blogs don’t mention. If your character wouldn’t know x or be aware of y, then they can’t share that info with the reader. The POV character can guess what another thinks, feels, wants, or knows, but they don’t KNOW unless the other character tells them.

The POV character can’t know what the weather is like outside if they don’t check a weather forecast or they somehow interact with the outside world, and they need a reason to think about the weather. As a Canadian, I generally don’t give much thought to the fact that it will be cold or snowing outside in January. It’s a given. What makes me think about the weather is keeping track of incoming storms, force me to drive somewhere in it, have to bundle up for a walk, then I think about the weather.

The POV character can’t know something, actively think of it, but not share that with the reader. There can be things from the character’s past they don’t think about actively on a weekly, daily, or moment-to-moment basis. But if something happens that triggers emotions from the past, the use of subtext should at least hint at what’s happened. Keeping secrets from the reader without a POV break is really hard.

Show Don’t Tell Is Taken To A Whole New Level With Deep POV

Many blogs will tell you to remove emotion words, to avoid writing: he is sad, she is anxious, he waved anxiously, she clapped with enthusiasm… That’s just the beginning. Remember, the goal is to immerse the reader in the story so the feeling that they’re being TOLD a story is removed and they’re instead vicariously living out this journey alongside the POV character – a fly on the wall inside their heads.

In deep POV, “telling” includes author intrusion, POV breaks, narrative or psychic distance, and the above emotion and thinking words. Those that love flowery descriptions and objectively listing all the items in a room will find their wings clipped in deep POV unless these are details the character would notice or think about. Even word choice is character dependent. A mechanic might label the parts of an engine, a fashionista might identify individual designers, a gardening enthusiast will know a pothos from a philodendron – but most people will not. It’s a car, it’s an engine, it’s a dress or a pair of shoes, it’s a plant… Deep POV really puts the character’s internal world at front and centre.

https://lisahallwilson.com/4-ways-to-replace-dialogue-with-subtext-even-new-writers-can-master/

Deep POV Is A Stylistic Choice, It’s Not About Voice Or Genre

Writing an entire novel only in deep POV is better suited to some genres than others, this is true – but it is possible (and would be compelling) to write a thriller, or a mystery, or a historical in this style. It requires a shift in how you tell the story.

Deep POV does not affect what kind of story you tell – your author voice. Your author voice is about what kind of story you tell, and how you tell it. Deep POV does not require steamy sex scenes or graphic violence, it requires emotional depth. Are you willing to “go there” with your characters? Are you willing to get really curious about what emotions are present, and all the complexities of the emotions felt but not expressed? You must learn to ask yourself what ELSE is going on internally with this character. What do they wish they could do – and why don’t they do that? What do they want, but can’t express or allow space for?

Identifying The Narrator/Writer Voice In Deep POV Is Difficult

This is an aspect of deep POV that seems to hit people unexpectedly. Identifying the narrator/writer voice, learning its function, is the second biggest obstacle for new writers learning to write in deep POV. Intermediate and advanced writers already know what the author/narrator voice is, what function it serves, so learning to write without it is much easier (though I still wouldn’t say it’s intuitive unless you’ve read a lot in this style).

Writing emotions in deep POV without using the narrator/author voice to summarize, explain, justify, conclude, is a learning curve.

You Learn Deep POV Best By Doing It

Deep POV is not intuitive, and depending on your prior skill level can come with a very steep learning curve. This technique is best learned by writing it and getting prompt feedback. There’s a lot to take in. Having a community to help you learn is really really helpful.

Otherwise, you end up learning like I did – slowly, painfully, frustratingly…

I would go to a conference and have an agent or editor meeting, and they’d point out one phrase, or something like removing dialogue tags – as not being in deep POV. I’d think I’ve got it. I might read a few blog posts that pointed out a couple of other things, and I would go the next conference only to be told, you need to remove this to be in deep POV. Over and over that happened. When you only get one cog in the mechanism at a time, nothing works and the learning is super slow.

Not all editors/beta readers understand deep POV

I’ve had many students complain to me that their editor or beta reader flagged this or that aspect of deep POV as wrong. Deep POV is a specific technique that throws out a lot of accepted things, and incorporates other things other POV styles avoid.

Be aware of this when getting feedback. When employing an editor, ask them if they know and understand deep POV, ask for a sample edit and see what they do with the deep POV aspect of your writing.

Deep POV Is Not A Beginner’s Technique

If you’re just beginning to learn writing, deep POV will present a massive learning curve. I like to say deep POV is the cosmetic final layer to building a house. I watch a lot of historical building reno shows from the UK. They take a derelict historical building, and the first thing they must do is make it water-tight and structurally sound. No one is picking curtain fabric or bathroom fixtures until all that work is done.

It won’t matter how pretty the curtains are if the walls won’t stand up. If you are a beginning writer, just know that there’s a steep learning curve ahead of you to learn this technique AND plot, structure, characterization, tension, pace, emotional arc, etc.

Deep POV, without all the foundational aspects of writing fiction in place, is going to shine a giant spotlight on where things are weak. The caveat to all this is if you’ve spent a lot of time reading deep POV and that’s the style that comes to you intuitively.

This class runs 2-4 times a year. It is open April and October 2022.

Deep POV Can Be Past Or Present Tense

Tense is really the wrong question when it comes to deep POV. The goal is to write immersively, and in real time. Can you do that in past tense? Yes. Can you do that in present tense? Yes. Most of us find one or the other usually comes to us more naturally than the other, so go with your preference. Sometimes, genre can dictate tense as well. Deep POV works equally well with either style.

Deep POV Really Brings Your Character’s Voice To The Forefront

Deep POV, because every word on the page comes from within the POV character, that character’s voice: their worldview, prejudices, motivations, past experiences, priorities – all of it is expressed in word choice, in what they focus on or ignore, what’s normal to them, what they pursue, what they give up on, what they suppress, what they express…

This is part of how deep POV creates that immersive effect for readers. But it means you have to set aside how YOU would describe something. You have to cut descriptions of things the character wouldn’t notice, or use words your character wouldn’t use. It’s like handing the reader virtual reality goggles for your character – you, the writer, don’t have a voice.

Writing Emotions Is Hardest Part Of Learning Deep POV

Removing the author/narrator voice can be super challenging. Learning to remove all the telling (emotion words, thinking words, sense words) for instance, can be a huge obstacle and leave writers floundering. Writers mistakenly think this is the hardest part about learning deep POV. It’s not.

Once you’ve learned to remove all these words, phrases, storytelling devices to create this immersive in-real-time effect, you must now add the emotion back in without using those telling techniques. Learning where, and how, and when to add emotional complexity and depth is the black belt level of deep POV and where the real magic happens.

Two to four times a year, I run a deep POV masterclass online. Two units of this masterclass are available all the time, but the interactive course that provides oodles of feedback and a supportive community only opens a few times a year. It’s open for April 2022. Find out more info here.

4 Responses To Uncertainty That Create Tension In Fiction

January 13, 2022 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

Something I’ve observed over the last two years or so is how different personalities react to uncertainty. Very little about life is certain, that’s always been true, but when the stakes are raised different personalities handle uncertainty in varied ways that can create all sorts of really compelling internal conflict. So how can you use this for your characters?

What Is Uncertainty?

Most of us can probably parse out what uncertainty means, many of us are word nerds after all. Uncertainty is a situation in which something is unknown or unknowable. Simple enough. But let me take you through a brief thought exercise that helped me wrap my head about this idea that on the surface appears simple but is astoundingly complex.

I googled a bunch of synonyms for uncertainty because I was curious about the true scope of what uncertainty includes. These are a few of the results I found: doubt, confusion, upheaval, unpredictable, unreliable, precarious, variable, ambiguous, concern, distrust, suspicion, skeptical, conjecture, indecision, hesitant, prolongation, wanderlust…

Now, as word nerds we can look at that list and understand how context, connotation, and nuance lends to meaning. Upheaval and indecision are very different, but inherent in both is this element of uncertainty. Do you see where I’m going with this? Uncertainty runs through almost every aspect of life and how your character deals with uncertainty can really increase the stakes for readers.

Let’s get more curious about this and see how this can add emotional depth to our fiction.

Personality Types And Uncertainty

There are several popular personality typing systems out there, and diving into each one with their multiple descriptions and labels is just a time-wasting rabbit hole in this context. Instead, I poured over three of the bigger ones to try and parse out five different ways that the various personality types are said to respond to uncertainty. These are just how I interpreted those personality descriptions, it’s completely generalized, but I wanted to focus in on the WHY behind each response to uncertainty, because that nuanced information is really helpful to writers.

The WHY helps us understand the character’s priority, their goals with certain behaviours or thinking patterns, predispositions to react in specific ways — but then you force them to find another way through the problem, you remove the crutches, the familiarity, and BOOM! Instant tension.

Order And Predictability

These types find uncertainty extremely difficult and the way to a sense of safety is through a step-by-step process, a rigid structure (either self-created or imported from other sources). They may doggedly follow (or break) rules to fit into their chosen structure. Their focus is on safety (like many of the others below), but the WHY seems to be a need for a guarantee. There is very little or no tolerance for uncertainty of any kind.

From their trust in the process, they can find ways to help or offer pragmatic solutions. Helping is used as a distraction from the uncertainty, the helping isn’t the WHY behind their actions or thinking. When those processes don’t work as promised or predicted, anger and resentment follows and they shift the blame because the process can’t be the problem or weak point.

Intellectuals Who Question Everything

I’ve observed two general types of intellectuals and they’re both excited or energized by uncertainty and change. They see opportunity instead of calamity and it fires up their out-of-the-box thinking. These types can appear spontaneous, but every decision has been thought out, they just rarely bother to include others in the thought processes (think Sherlock Holmes).

Those more prone to analysis, their WHY is a solution. Iron Man comes to mind. “Things are gonna get weird.” They will turn to research and raw data and experimentation to find the solution. They are constantly looking to make things more efficient or streamlined or scaling things, creating uncertainty even where none appears to exist, but if solutions remain elusive, if overwhelmed or lacking agency, their focus gets very very narrow and depression can set in. Their solutions can drift to focus on “the greater good” without thought to consequence or costs.

Those intellectuals who lean more to towards philosophy than analysis (my own explanations) are collectors of knowledge so turn to research because their WHY is truth (more Dr. Banner than Iron Man). Once they know the truth, they can make a decision but no source of info is off the table – raw data, conspiracy theories, expert opinions, personal experience, historical records — they’re going to research and read all the things and then decide for themselves. But if the truth remains elusive, if they can’t parse out the truth from the varied sources available to them, they throw up their hands and can become fatalistic. What’s it all mean?

Both types may qualify their opinions by acknowledging that new information may present itself, or that things might change, or they can’t know everything, While these types are skeptical by nature, they aren’t cynics.

The Sky Is Falling Cynics

Cynics face uncertainty with negative-bias split decisions. There is no uncertainty. By expecting the worst, by assuming the world is against them, their focus is protection. They tend to eliminate uncertainty by creating a narrative, but that narrative brings tension rather than comfort. They tend to have a negative view overall, so they blame corruption, abuse of power, someone is untrustworthy, something is broken or unjust — things that are outside their perceived ability to control or change. The focus is protection, but their WHY seems to be avoiding guilt, shame, responsibility, etc.

Now, a caveat to this is trauma. Someone facing uncertainty who is viewing the world through a trauma lens, their focus is on preventing what happened before at all costs and their WHY is a perceived sense of control. They tend not to trust anyone. They doubt everything that’s said to them, because they’ve been lied to, gaslighted, etc. Often, they struggle to even trust themselves because they may have believed the lies or they learned to ignore emotional or physical pain. An almost universal sense of helplessness appears to others as fatalism. For childhood trauma, all kinds of things lend to a play-dead response because fighting back or running away wasn’t an option.

So, a trauma survivor may be predisposed to one of the other uncertainty personality responses, but this trauma response will either be overlaid or in conflict with that.

The Avoiders And Optimists

Uncertainty causes some profound discomfort so they isolate and insulate. The avoiders flatly deny the uncertainty exists even when it makes them look irrational. Some take a very laid-back approach and decide to keep their heads down and just wait things out and see where the dust settles. The optimists are the perpetual silver-linings types, meme-warriors and inspirational quote-collectors. All of these types focus on personal safety, but their WHY is internal peace and that’s an important distinction.

From within that place of safety and internal peace, some are able to engage their out-of-the-box thinking to create or find solutions – so they may appear to be intellectual analysts but their WHY is different so that would change their internal conflict and internal dialogue. Some divert energy into finding/offering hope to others (this could be a tangible help, but it doesn’t have to be). They are more prone to sympathize without empathy (because true empathy would threaten that inner peace), but mature individuals and/or those with strong support systems are able to empathize and offer powerful help to others. When overwhelmed, this type can lean towards cynicism.

So, those are my big picture classifications based on reading the way different personality-typing systems describe a tolerance for and approach to uncertainty. The focus and the WHY are the key take-aways here because that’s how you can make your character’s journey unique and individual. That’s how you can SHOW the reader why they’re making decisions, their priorities, etc. Your next steps would be to take these basic groupings, and decide what response best fits with your character and then how uncertainty creates internal conflict for them. You could go a step farther and take away the option of responding in the way that comes naturally — remove the option for the denier to deny, remove the option of the intellectual to find a solution or parse out the truth.

Lisa’s 5 week masterclass on learning to write deep pov launches January 24, 2022. Find more info here. This class will also run in April and October of 2022.

Is there one type, or a blending of types, that you’re using for your POV character?

1 Pro Tip To Create Emotional Depth In Deep POV

December 9, 2021 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

I have mainly been writing guest posts for other blogs and neglecting my own. *sad face* So, I’m hoping to post here more regularly going forward, but it will mean shorter posts. *mittened fist-bump*

One of the things that writers seem to struggle with a lot when shifting from limited third person to deep point of view is using the character’s whole body to show emotions. We learn to remove the telling emotion and thought words, but don’t add in how the emotion feels – the emotions stay in this cerebral thinking mode that doesn’t really immerse the reader in how the character feels.

Limited third person POV allows the writer/author voice to summarize, explain, and justify how a character feels. Whereas deep point of view asks the writer to remove their own voice and capture what the pov character sees, perceives, feels, intuits, etc without that narrative explanation, justification or summarization.

With narrator/writer voice: Jarrah’s heart was breaking and he didn’t even care. How could he betray her like that again and expect her to believe the same lies? She wanted to double over with the pain filling her chest. Steve’s fake contriteness was nothing more than a smoke screen. “I’m not buying it this time.”

Without narrator/writer voice: Steve slouched his shoulders and peered up at her like a contrite puppy. He even made his lips quiver as though he was on the verge of tears. “It just happened. It didn’t mean anything. I swear.” He wrapped his hands around hers as though he shared his warmth. “It’s you I love.”

Jarrah snatched back her hands from his icy grip and folded her arms over her heart. He couldn’t even come up with a new act. Same explanation, same affectation. Every. Single. Time. She would not cry. She drew in a deep breath and stiffened her spine even though her heart bled out. “I’m not buying it this time.”

Do you see the difference with the writer/narrator voice and without? The reader must lean in and perceive the betrayal, the heartache, the resolve that’s breaking her heart.

Add In Reactions

When something happens in the story, look for your POV character’s emotional reaction. You’ve likely built in a thinking reaction – he was stunned, she gulped, etc. Many of these reactions are either telling (the writer/narrator voice is explaining, summarizing or justifying) or you’ve used a simple beat (just an action) when you need to upgrade to a complex beat (action that conveys emotion).

Let’s say Sherry has just found out she’s been fired for something someone else did.

Simple beat:

Sherry stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I don’t understand.”

Sherry shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t…” She stared at the floor. “I don’t understand.”

Complex beat:

Sherry’s throat constricted, strangling her words. “I don’t… I… Why?”

“I don’t…” Sherry choked on the lump in her throat, coughing. “I…” Her vision blurred with tears. She sucked in a deep breath to regain her voice. “Why?”

When the emotional reaction remains solely in the character’s head, in just their thoughts, it keeps the reader at a distance from the tension you’re creating. The goal of deep pov is to immerse the reader in the lived experience of the character’s journey.

The Body As An Orchestra For Communication

We feel emotions with our whole bodies. When we relegate emotions just to our heads, to our thoughts, that’s usually a sign of trauma – of dissociation. And if that’s what you’re going for that’s fine. The character can puzzle through why something that should hurt, does not. Or be thankful that this awful thing doesn’t affect them. This clues the reader in that something is off.

But without that trauma or shock element, emotions should be felt throughout the whole body. Tension is felt in the shoulders, spine, joints, jaw, fingers/fists, gut, heart rate, perspiration, stability (sensation of weak joints or limbs, or quivering/shaking/trembling). You can show confusion, distraction, frustration, etc through disordered pacing, gestures that are truncated or jumbled – frantic movements that are inefficient or nonsensical – looking for keys in the fridge for instance.

Emotion can be heard when we speak. How does your character’s voice change with emotion – not just volume (whisper, yell), but in tone, cadence/rhythm, or pitch? In North America, our voices rise in pitch just a smidge to communicate a question or surprise. Ever listened in on one side of a phone call between spouses? I shared very thin office walls with two men in long-standing committed marriages, and I couldn’t hear the words that were spoken through the walls, but I could tell just by the way the tone of their voices deepened, softened, slowed, that they were speaking to their wives.

How does your character’s posture or movements change with their emotions? Even emotions they want to keep hidden affect things that are outwardly observable (a point to keep in mind when your POV character is evaluating how someone else feels). Women (in North America at any rate) often affect a smaller posture when flirting or trying to gain the romantic attentions of someone else. We preen when feeling insecure (straighten tie, suck in gut, smooth out wrinkles or tug on hems, etc.)

Even very slight shifts in stance, shifting of feet or avoiding eye contact can communicate quite a lot.

Application

Will you use this tip? Take one chapter of your manuscript and find a simple beat that stands in for the emotion/telling word you removed or wanted to write. And go deeper using some of these tips for showing emotional reactions. Try to have the emotion felt in the entire body, instead of remaining in the character’s head.