4 Responses To Uncertainty That Create Tension In Fiction

January 13, 2022 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

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 1 Comment

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.

Writing Trauma In Fiction: Anniversaries

July 27, 2021 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

The anniversary of a past trauma can be a fantastic opportunity for authors to crank up the tension and internal conflict for characters, but it’s important to get it right! There is nothing more annoying than watching or reading a story where past trauma is handled flippantly, or with trite platitudes, with consequences that stray into the annoying rather than devastating realm.

Trauma is anything that overwhelms your ability to cope, give context to, or understand. For the vast majority of people, we have no context for rape. We have nothing from our past that tells us how to respond or explain or cope with what happened. I recently saw a statistic that 49% of women who survive rape develop PTSD — rape is so overwhelming in almost half of those it happens to that trauma literally re-wires the brain.

You can point to terrorist attacks, war/combat, natural disasters — and yes, all those events can and do cause trauma. However, let’s not overlook the more common events that can cause trauma: divorce, sudden illness/medical procedures, death/loss of a loved one, forced relocation, abandonment — the list goes on.

I’ve written about how to capture a trauma background in fiction briefly here, but have you given thought to the anniversary of the trauma and how you could use that in your fiction? Anniversaries can hit you unexpectedly — something you didn’t expect to affect you does. Anniversaries can force you to relive the trauma in ways that make it nearly as bad as the initial trauma itself. Not everyone struggles with anniversaries, and some trauma (particularly events that happened repeatedly like abuse) may not have any particular anniversary, but have you thought about how a trauma anniversary could ratchet up the tension and create compelling internal conflict for your character?

Emotional Reactions To Anniversaries

Trauma anniversaries can cause an array of reactions and take some time to research that. Doing that research here is really beyond the scope of what I blog about, but emotions like anger, guilt, shame, avoidance, isolation, fear, anxiety, grief, sadness would all be within the normal or expected range.

Rather, what I’m more interested in is how to go deeper with it. Yes, we can list off those emotions, but how do you SHOW them? How do you add emotional complexity? How do you dig deeper into those reactions so they’re compelling and grip readers by the throat? That’s what this blog is all about.

Get Curious About How The Character Reflects On The Trauma

When your character looks back on that trauma event, how do they reflect on it? Do they know exactly what they wish they or others had done instead? Can they imagine how things might have worked out differently? Have they let those imagined scenarios play out in their minds? This rumination, reflection, and analysis requires one to sit with their thoughts and feelings, and instead of exiling the uncomfortable emotions instead they listen to the concerns brought up. The trauma may still cause them significant internal conflict, but this ability to reflect, imagine, and sit with emotions shows significant healing.

However, the character who avoids thinking about the trauma at all, or can’t imagine it turning out any other way — who continues to feel helpless and vulnerable when thinking about it, is someone who hasn’t done a lot of healing or reflection most likely. They might feel “stuck” and so their reaction to the trauma anniversary will look quite a lot different than the person who’s done some processing and healing.

What Does A Processed, Partially Healed Reaction Look Like?

Someone who’s taken the time to process what happened between the original trauma and the anniversary (and it might not be the first anniversary) can look back at all that’s happened and reflect on it. They can appreciate how far they’ve come, even if they’re not fully healed yet. They can appreciate the courage, stamina, determination, hard work it took to get where they are. This doesn’t mean they won’t still struggle with the guilt or shame or depression or anxiety or any of the rest of it, but they see how these emotions have a purpose. (We know that emotions typically serve three different functions: to bring our attention to a concern, to protect us, to inform us of something) The character will have a perspective now they didn’t have before. There’s hope now. There’s resiliency. They have compassion and are kind to themselves, but that doesn’t mean an anniversay won’t cause significant internal conflict. Rather, how the character FEELS about that internal conflict will look much different than the character trying to fight the memories, squash or ignore the hard emotions, etc.

Unprocessed, Still Raw, Trauma Anniversary Reactions

Those who have not been able to heal or process what happened (and again, this could be the first anniversary or the twenty-first), may relive the trauma in many ways. This could be in the form of flashbacks for those struggling with PTSD — and they may struggle with those flashbacks all the time but it’s more intense during the anniversary. For others, the memories may simply become super fresh and raw again. Nightmares will likely be common — either replaying what happened or deal with themes from the trauma (feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, not having a voice, etc)

We react to trauma in a variety of different ways, but generally those reactions aim to protect us, keep us safe, and make sure that whatever happened, doesn’t happen again. Different people have learned different strategies. Some will avoid or deny what happened. Some will sink into depression or anxiety, struggling with this sense of helplessness and unable to picture a different outcome than more of the same. Some will numb the emotions through substances, work, shame-shifting, exercise, etc. I wrote more about coping mechanisms here.

If the character decides to put their energy into denying, ignoring, or numbing the trauma memories instead of trying to process and heal from it, remember that this will be exhausting. And at some point those coping mechanisms will either stop working, require more and more effort for them to work, or they escalate into something destructive. For instance, working long hours to avoid being alone seems innocuous — it’s just for a short time, but workaholism comes with sometimes significant consequences (speaking of health, emotions, and relationships) and is unsustainable long term.

How would they justify their actions? For those who are acting out of character to avoid the anniversary, how would they explain to friends what happened? How would they calm the cognitive dissonance their actions create? The normally chaste and shy girl can’t handle the reminders of the looming anniversary, so she gets drunk and wakes up the next morning in bed with a stranger. Get curious about what she had to justify to herself to allow this to happen — either she had to silence the cautioning voices in her head to get blackout drunk, or she rationalized what she was doing along the way.

Some trauma survivors prefer to continue life as though nothing happened. There are a few possible coping mechanisms involved here, but take a moment to get curious about WHY they need to live as though it never happened? What would happen if they spent some time and sat with that hurt person/kid and listened to their concerns? What if they acknowledged the raging emotions and got curious about what those emotions are trying to warn or protect against?

Add Emotional Complexity

Trauma is filled with conflicting and irrational emotions. I like to picture a table full of children — the character at various ages in the past. Each child with a seat at the table had to deal with something really difficult and they had a set of emotions that kept them safe (or gave the illusion of safety) and a set of behaviours they used to survive. Each child/teen/adult at the table will be screaming that THEIR solution is the only one that will work. A five year old’s solution to overwhelming emotions will look different (hopefully) than a twenty-five year old’s solution. But, these kids at the table will have conflicting viewpoints, conflicting concerns — and your character has to either listen to them all, acknowledge the concerns, and then choose a new path (a healthy and balanced approach) or one of the kids at the table will hijack the situation.

What happens when the terrified five year old decides what to do about a situation? Or the overwhelmed fifteen year old who mistakes attention for love? Anniversaries can be so difficult that a character could act in a way that contradicts their everyday life, or they could continue on with life as normal but the internal conflict can become very intense.

Showing Emotional Complexity

What other emotions are at play in a scene? I try to brainstorm five emotions in high-tension scenes and pick at least three to be prominent. What conflicting thoughts would those emotions generate? Try jotting those down — if your character is feeling this way, what thoughts would that emotion trigger? How would that emotion feel physically? How would conflicting emotions intensify those physical sensations or colour their thoughts?

When a child misbehaves and puts themselves in danger, the parent may have conflicting thoughts/ feelings about how to react. They may want to forget it happened because they hate conflict. They may want to punish too severely because the child’s actions scared them half to death. They may want to hug the child because they’re safe again. Which emotion will the parent listen to? Which emotion’s solutions will rule the day? What would a stronger person do? What would a better parent do? Why don’t they do that? What won’t they let themselves do – why? Just get really curious about all the other things going on.

Be particular and specific with what other emotions are at play, the solutions they offer, and the WHY behind those emotions. This is how to surprise readers and keep them reading.

Some Going Deeper Questions

What irrational belief does your character hang on to? Do they acknowledge this belief is irrational, but continue to be ruled by it? Why?

What would happen if they faced the trauma memories/feelings? What are they afraid will happen? WHY? (the why is SO IMPORTANT).

What would happen if their preferred coping mechanism was taken from them? What would they do next? WHY?

What would a stronger person have done in that trauma situation (according to your character)? Why didn’t they do that? (see if #1 is appropriate for your character)

Ignored emotions demand attention! In what ways do the squashed emotions from the trauma leak out and cause problems for your character? Why must those emotions stay squashed?

Anniversaries can often de-rail progress in many aspects of life. How does this anniversary make life more difficult for your character? Why?

What is holding your character back from imagining a different-from-now future? What are they afraid might happen? Why would that be so awful they’d do anything to avoid it? What does that tell you about your character — what emotions are really driving their thinking and choices?

Have you used a trauma anniversary in your story? How does it affect your character?

Use Beats In Deep POV To Convey Emotion

September 9, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 7 Comments

In deep point of view, we want to use beats instead of dialogue tags to attribute dialogue. Beats move the story ahead, they are more efficient, keep the reader deep inside the character’s head, and remove the writer/narrator voice. In limited third person, dialogue tags are encouraged (he said/she said), but they aren’t used much (or preferably at all) in deep point of view.

“Hand me that bowl,” Edith said. (dialogue tag)

“Hand me that bowl.” Edith waved her finger at the large red bowl on the top shelf. (action beat)

Action Beats

It’s a pretty easy switch to replace dialogue tags with some movement or action by the character speaking. This is known as an action beat, but if all you’re doing with that action is attributing dialogue it’s a stage direction. Stage directions have their place, but in deep point of view you want to use stage directions sparingly and instead challenge yourself to ensure every word moves the story ahead. Your action beats should also show emotion, or motivation, or priorities, etc. AS WELL AS attribute dialogue.

“Hand me that bowl.” Edith waved her finger at the top shelf. “The red one.”

“Hand me that bowl.” Edith stabbed the air towards the top shelf with a stiff finger and raised her voice. “The red one!”

For an action beat to do all of this, dig deeper than stuffing hands in pockets, running hands through their hair, or moving from stage right to stage left. Really be aware of the emotions the character is struggling with (both those they’re willing to let people see and those they’re trying to hide) and then add movements or gestures that reflect their emotions, their inner turmoil, angst, hopes, etc.

Jan sat and bounced back up out of her chair to pace. “But I really like him and he doesn’t even know I exist.”

Physical Sensations: Internal and External

There are internal physical sensations and external ones and these can be used to attribute dialogue as well. Both work well for powerful beats to convey emotion and move the story along.

Heart rate is an internal sensation. The sting of crushing snow in your bare palm is an external sensation.

Emotions are FELT inside the body, so google the emotion you want to convey and work with the physical symptoms. Consider flushed skin, heart rate, constricted throat, tense muscles, quivering muscles, numbness, sensitivity, tingles, shivers, prickles, stinging, etc. Various aches and constricting – throat, gut, shoulders, back, lower abdomen, thighs, hands, etc. show emotion or emotion withheld. Whether these parts ache, or squeeze, twist, have stabbing pains, get tense, or throb – they can all show how a character feels, what they want to do, etc.

Where do they carry tension or hold emotion? Where a character carries their tension can tattle on the kind of tension they carry. A tight and clenched throat often hints at words that are swallowed or stamped down, or some deep emotion (from the past) that’s kept under control though it wants to burst forth.

Choose verbs that convey emotion intentionally and strategically. Do shivers creep up their arms, or rattle their spine? Is there a stiff breeze or a chilly draft? Is it raining or humid, how does that make their skin feel? Are their clothes too tight, too loose, wet, bunching – what draws their attention to their discomfort? The character’s perception of these things can all be used to show how a they feel or show the WHY behind a decision.

Shannon sank her toes deeper into the icy sand and cracked her neck. “I can do this.”

Shannon swallowed around the lump clogging her throat and pressed her shaking fingers against her belly. “I can do this.”

Setting Beats

A character’s perception of the setting can be used as a beat. Remember, it’s all about how the character perceives what they take in – do they feel encouraged, set upon, beat up, blocked – how can the natural world around them or the physical setting show this?

“So you’re leaving? There’s no changing your mind?” Steve leaned against the faded pencil marks on the doorframe that had tracked their childrens’ growth over the years that now seemed more like a countdown clock to this moment.

“I don’t believe you. He was fine this morning. I kissed him goodbye.” Cynthia glanced out the window and the last leaf let go on the maple Joe had planted, scattered to winter’s coming chill.

Tone Of Voice

I find this one is very effective, but often overlooked as a beat. Tone of voice shows us so much about how a character feels. The actual meaning of the words we speak are only one third of the information we take in when deciphering communication: meaning of words, body language, tone of voice.

She couldn’t keep the quiver from her voice. “Everything is my fault.”

Steve crouched down to the child’s eye-level and forced some cheer into his voice. “I’m home now. Still wanna play?”

This is also effective when the POV character is interpreting what others are saying to them. Consider these examples. Barric is NOT the POV character in any of these sentences, but the POV character is taking in more than just his words to interpret the meaning of what he’s communicating.

“Well, you’re stuck with me.” Barric didn’t raise his voice. Like he wasn’t mad at all. “We don’t get to choose our families.”

“Edric was doing his job.” Barric’s tone grew sharper and his accent more pronounced than it had been. “Don’t find meaning in actions where none was intended.”

Internal Dialogue

Yes, you can use a thought as a beat. In deep POV, italics or he/she thought tags are avoided and beats used to attribute thoughts as well. Some writers *I think* fear that if they don’t tell the reader the character is thinking they won’t know thoughts from narrative, but in deep pov all of it comes from the POV character. Thoughts, when used well, can be very effective beats.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Lynna had told him the truth and he was still saying no. (Lynna is the POV character)

Unique To Your Character Or Storyworld

Many of us have “tells” that tattle on the emotion we’re feeling or even trying to hide. Does your character have a tick or a specific mannerism that readers will associate with a specific emotion? Do they twist buttons, or pick at loose threads, or bite their lip? Are there any objects they carry or have at hand to help them stay calm or find motivation?

Sara wiped the blood off her sword and stood straight. “I’m fine.”

Judy perked up her antennae but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “All clear, Captain.”

Using Subtext

The above beats, when used strategically, are very effective. But challenge yourself to go even deeper! Try using subtext to replace dialogue between people who know each other well. (read more about replacing dialogue with subtext here).

Steve caught Marcy’s gaze, tapped his watch, and lifted his brows. “It’s ten o’clock.”

Marcy threw him that saucy smile of hers, and then turned her back on him and kept right on talking.

Complex Beats

Try combining two of the above ideas to create a nuanced beat that really pulls readers in and grabs them by the throat. Go deeper than an internal sensory beat (a racing heart or trembling fingers) and also incorporate internal dialogue or metaphor to add depth and realism. The goal is for the reader to feel like they’re right there in the room, inside the character’s head, in their skin almost. Show what they’re feeling!

“There’s been some mistake. I’m Joe.” He straightened to his full height and looked down on the girl.

This example uses dialogue, an action beat, and subtext to show emotion.

Stacy’s heart pounded against her ribs like a wrongly-convicted prisoner behind bars “You’re Charlie. I heard you give that name to the maitre-D.”

This beat uses an internal sensation and a metaphor.

You’ll notice that I haven’t included stating emotions in any of the beats. That’s because in deep POV, using emotion words (most of the time) is considered telling. It’s fine if you’re writing limited third person, but the goal is to eliminate the author/narrator voice in deep POV. The following types of beats would be considered telling in deep POV, but perfectly acceptable in limited third person:

“Steve, you came!” Natalie bounced on her toes and clenched her hands against the nervous flutter.

Mark stamped his foot in anger. “I’m not going!”

What other beat-creation tips do you use when writing in deep POV?

4 Ways To Make Limited Third Person Into Deep POV

August 19, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 12 Comments

Are you writing (or wanting to write) in limited 3rd person POV or Deep POV? Many blogs write as though the these two popular fiction styles are the same and it muddies the water quite a bit leading to a great deal of confusion. Deep POV came out of limited third person, and they have some similarities, but they are in fact different in style and strategy.

Have you joined the free Facebook group Going Deeper With Emotions in Fiction where I share tips and teach about Deep POV?

Third person POV has a three different styles: omniscient third, objective third, and limited third. This distinction is important to understand the intent behind limited third person and how it differs from deep point of view.

Omniscient third person uses an all-knowing narrator who not only reports on facts but may interpret those facts through the perspective (thoughts) of any of the characters. Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events is an example of omniscient third.
Objective third person is an all-knowing narrator who doesn’t go inside the character’s head much at all. The reader gets what the narrator observes. Hemingway wrote in objective third.
Limited third person limits the narrator voice to one character’s experience (thoughts) at a time and usually with a very limited cast of characters. The reader gets one character’s point of view (at a time), but the story is told by the author. Limited third has varied flexibility in how strictly the author limits themselves.

Deep POV developed out of limited third person. Deep POV aims to remove the author/narrator voice entirely and write AS the character to create an immersive experience for readers. Here are the top ways I can think of that make these writing styles different.

Author Voice

In close 3rd person, the author is telling the story about the character. The reader is brought in close to the character’s perspective through dialogue and thoughts (internal dialogue), but the author or another narrator-type voice is telling the story. Because of this, the author voice can share a good deal of information that the point of view character doesn’t know, wouldn’t think, etc. Some author will limit how much of this they do, but it’s still not deep POV.

In Deep POV, you’re writing AS the character instead of about them. The reader experiences the story as the character experiences the story to create an immersive effect. (Learn more about immediacy here) That means, all those author-voice bits become author intrusion or telling in deep POV. The reader can only know what the point of view character knows, sees, hears, intuits, learns, etc. even when not writing speech or internal dialogue. Every word written comes from the POV character’s perspective.

Deep POV takes show don’t tell to all new levels, and many storytelling strategies that are acceptable in close third are considered telling — like naming an emotion (telling) instead of showing what that emotion feels like. This includes filter words like: saw, heard, noticed, and felt (although some writing in limited third eliminate these as well). This includes thinking words like thought, remembered, hoped, reminisced, and wanted. (Read more about author intrusion in deep POV here.) This forces the reader to lean in and engage with the character emotionally.

In Close 3rd: Sherry was terrified of her boss. He always yelled at her during breaks when she wasn’t doing anything wrong.

In deep POV: The boss walked towards Sherry. She trembled. What did I do wrong this time?

Character Voice

In close 3rd person point of view, the character’s voice predominately comes through in dialogue and thoughts (internal dialogue). Everything else written comes from the author, so you’re not limited to only what the point of view character knows, their vocabulary or prior knowledge, etc.

In deep pov, you are limited by these things. If your character Charlotte has car trouble, you are limited in how you can describe the problem by Charlotte’s knowledge of cars. If she doesn’t know a spark plug from an air filter, she won’t be able to open the hood and identify the problem or know the names of any of the engine components. She’ll just know the car isn’t working. In limited 3rd person, the author can fill in those details, use terminology Charlotte doesn’t know.

In limited 3rd person, the reader isn’t inside the character’s head all the time. This gives the writer more freedom to describe things. In close third, Sally can trudge through the door of the tavern and the author/narrator voice describes the place as a seething cesspool of vice. Sally may or may not share this opinion — remember the author is telling the story not Sally.

In deep POV, the way Sally feels about the tavern, and her motivations for staying there, her goals for that scene, will dictate how SHE thinks/talks about it.

Speech and Thought Tags

He/she said. He/she thought. These are tags and in close third person you’re free to use these. In fact, because readers are more likely to just skim over these without being pulled from the story, you’re encouraged to use these over others such as, he exclaimed.

In deep POV, tags aren’t used at all in favour of beats. A beat is an action that keeps the story moving ahead, SHOWS how a character feels, and attributes dialogue or thoughts. Further, in deep POV there’s no italics for internal dialogue (thoughts) because the reader knows who’s thinking or talking through context. Deep POV allows you to write a story in third person POV (he/she), and use first person for thoughts (internal dialogue) if you want to. (Read 8 FAQs About Deep POV Here.)

“What are you doing?” David said. His wife’s clothes sat piled high in a suitcase on the bed. His fists clenched in anger. She can’t leave him!

“What are you doing?” David shoved Sarah’s suitcase off the bed, dumping her clothes on the floor. She can’t leave me!

Keeping Secrets

In close third POV, the character is allowed to think/know things that the reader doesn’t. Because the reader only gets selected glimpses into the character through speech and thought, the author can keep the character’s plans or expectations a secret. Conversely, the author can share details with the reader that the point of view character doesn’t know.

In deep POV, if the character knows something, the reader knows it. So, you can’t send a character into a situation with a plan fully formed without the reader also knowing the plan. Using an unreliable narrator in deep POV still works so long as the character is lying not to the reader, but to themselves.

Know Each Style’s Strengths And Weaknesses

Bravo if you’ve made it this far!! Here’s the golden ticket, my friends. There are positives and negatives with each writing style, and neither is right or wrong. You can use deep POV with first or third POV, past or present tense. It’s really more of a question of genre (some genres trend more towards one style over another) and personal preference.

Now, those seeking a fail-safe template clutch your pearls. You can write a novel entirely in deep POV, or third person limited, or use a combination of both styles as fits the story. My advice is to thoroughly understand the techniques of each style, the effects those techniques aim to create, and then use them to create the effect you’re looking for. Afterall, you can use a wrench to pound in a nail if you want to, if you’re making a point about something, but often it’s more efficient to use a hammer. Make these styles work FOR you, don’t be enslaved to either one.

I love this bit of advice from David Mamet:

Use deep POV in scenes that call for it. You might write your book in limited third and reserve deep POV for scenes that warrant a more introspective look. “Sara noticed he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring and wondered if he deliberately took it off before he met up with her.” That’s an interesting observation in a story and worthy of deeper exploration. Cut the distance between Sara and the reader. “His wedding ring was missing. Did he take it off before he got here?”

What other differences between close third and deep POV have you noticed?

8 Ways Voice Can Show Emotional Depth

July 6, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

How we say things communicates as much or more than what our words say. Deep point of view takes show-don’t-tell to new extremes, and I’ve found it helpful to pause and take things in from new angles and perspectives because there are a great many things we overlook or take for granted.

When we communicate in real life, we use quite a lot of non-verbal cues to convey emotion. We parse the meaning in speech from body language (gestures, expressions, etc.), from content, and voice.

Tone of voice is incredibly powerful and often overlooked in fiction. We’re tempted to shortcut things – he exclaimed, she whispered, she said anxiously. Sometimes our voices change unconsciously, but the change can be heard, and sometimes it’s intentional. When intentional, we can affect our voice to convey emotion or attempt to invoke it in another person.

Ever seen a young girl try and wheedle something from her father? This lilting, half-pleading, higher pitched voice is affected. “Daddy… Can I have…”

Think about the phrase “get out.” Said with a loud assertive voice – Get Out! You know the speaker wants those with them to leave. Get out said in a playful light tone might indicate surprise or incredulity.

How a voice sounds is about more than volume, but also consider speed, pauses, cadence, pitch, etc. Punctuation can also play a role in this by hinting at pauses, words trailing off, etc.

Try listening to this clip – just listen. Can you pick out the voice changes? The emotion in the both Ethan Hawke’s and Robin Williams’ voices?

Let’s have a deeper look at some aspects you can play with when adding voice details. Remember, you can mix and match these. Surprise readers with emotions they don’t see coming but that also give a greater depth to your characters.

Shaky Voice – This can affect both the pitch and volume. It can tattle on nervousness, overstimulation, exhaustion. It could also be described as a tremble where it might show being cold or afraid. There’s a rhythmic wobble to the voice, and it can affect the neck, jaw, tongue and face as well.

Change in Pitch – There are lots of emotions that might cause us to change the pitch of our voice. When there’s romantic interest, our pitch can change dramatically to show interest, deference, or vulnerability. A sudden higher pitch can signal nervousness or anxiety. Suddenly lowering the pitch can indicate vulnerability, a desire to hide.

Her lithe body pressed against his chest, her every curve flattened against his torso.

“Everything OK?” His voice cracked on the last word.

Can you guess at what this character ↑ is feeling? Just tone of voice.

Cadence – It’s when you choose to go louder or softer, faster or slower, etc. Monotone voices can show boredom, nervousness, lack of enthusiasm. Choosing to use a rising inflection at the end of every phrase, whether it’s actually a question, or not — is pretty annoying.

Volume – We get really quiet for a variety of reasons including feeling vulnerable or overwhelmed, nervous, anxious, tired, fearful, etc. We similarly get loud for good reason too, sometimes just to be heard over another noise, to clarify ourselves, frustration, nervous, angry, etc. Ever expected someone to be really mad at you and instead they go quiet? That’s super unnerving isn’t it. This is often paired with cadence, we get quiet and our speech speeds up, or our voice gets low and very quiet, etc.

Watch this clip from The Fresh Prince. Soooo many raw emotions. So many small signals of one emotion blending into another. Powerful!

Dry Throat/Loss of Voice/Hoarse Voice – These can be symptoms for a variety of things from innocuous allergies to very serious illnesses. However, when used to convey emotion, having a suddenly dry throat or hoarse voice conveys nervousness, anxiety, panic, fear, stress, etc. A common cause for a dry throat is constant swallowing from being anxious or nervous. Those characters who carry tension in the throat or jaw may struggle with this.

Articulation – How well a person can express themselves, or they express themselves differently can show lots of emotion. We typically skip over or omit in fiction the ums and ahs, however, those stumbles can show nervousness, anxiety, fear, vulnerability, excitement, surprise, overwhelmed, etc. Showing someone search for a word, or go around in circles trying to say something that’s simple – it all shows emotion.

Effective use of pauses, incorrect words, forget words, backtrack and reword things repeatedly, can show emotion. Combine this with a higher or lower pitch, with a sped up or slowed down speech, or even volume – have the voice get progressively quieter or louder. Mix and match these things for greater effect.

Stuttering/Mumbling – We stumble and mumble when we’re nervous, tired, apprehensive, afraid, etc. There’s a number of emotions this could show. We can trip over our words unsure of how exactly to express ourselves or become hyper aware of body language and self-correct endlessly when we sense our words are having a negative or undesired affect.

Listen to how Matt Damon’s voice gets lower, quieter, when he talks about the wrench and why he chose the wrench. Can you hear the vulnerability there? Hear the contrast in the lighter, almost playful-dismissive tone Damon uses juxtaposed against Williams’ even, radio-FM DJ voice. It carries conviction without being confrontational. Just listen to the changes in Damon’s voice near the end when it’s repeated – it’s not your fault. He goes from joking, defiant, angry, and then vulnerable and it’s all through his voice.

Intensity – You can use an assertive tone, a playful tone, an authoritative tone, a declarative tone. I follow two actors on social media who both like to post inspirational/motivational videos. One punctuates his speech with various noises, laughs, varied cadence, and comical expressions to get his point across. Always on point and way deeper than you expect. The other actor taps into an intensity that includes being loud, that includes faster speech, lots of cadence, and is punctuated by sharp movements and clipped words. You can show passion, excitement, frustration, redemptive anger, stress, sadness, joy, fear — all kinds of things by varying the intensity.

An Exercise

Next time you’re in a group or public place, listen for the changes in voices that signal emotions. Or do the same with a movie or TV scene. How does their voice change? How does the pitch, cadence, tone, tempo, articulation, etc. change to affect meaning in the speaker or those they’re speaking to.

Do you incorporate a character’s voice into your story to add emotional depth?