shame

Deep POV is a fiction writing style that aims to remove the narrative or psychic distance between the reader and the point of view character — think first person shooter style. The goal is to completely immerse the reader in the character’s emotional experience, in a way that feels immediate. When done well, deep pov will grab your reader by the throat and not let go. But, deep pov leaves no place for weak writing, poor plotting, or under-developed characters to hide. Deep POV is the black-belt of fiction writing!

For the summer, I’m working on a series of posts that will look at different emotions. Emotions are really the heart of deep POV. Let’s take a quick minute to look at the role of emotions in deep POV and why it’s worth a whole summer of posts.

Omniscient POV

If you think of works written in omniscient pov, the narrator/writer voice tells the reader a story about one or a group of characters and shares everything the characters think and feel. Nothing comes to the reader directly from the character apart from spoken dialogue. An example would be Lord of the Rings.

Objective Third Person

This is still the writer/narrator telling the reader a story about one or more characters, but usually this style leaves out the emotions. It’s objective. You’ll get the character’s thoughts and actions filtered and interpreted through the narrator, but not very often will the narrator voice delve into how the character feels.

Limited or Close Third Person

This is the writer/narrator telling the story about ONE character at a time. That’s the big difference. There’s typically only one to three point of view characters, and you only get one pov at a time. The character’s thoughts and actions and emotions are filtered and summarized through the narrator, however — limited third person makes room for direct thoughts. Many like to italicize the thoughts of the characters to differentiate them from the narrator/writer voice. There are many newer writers who believe they’re writing in limited third person and they’re actually writing in objective third. Ask yourself what place emotions have in the storytelling?

Deep POV

Deep POV shifts everything, that’s why it can be so hard to learn. Every word on the page (every action, thought, feeling, bit of backstory, element of setting, every description — all of it) comes to the reader directly from the character. There is no author/narrator/writer voice to filter, describe, summarize or explain what’s going on. Hear me when I say this: N O N E. And the thread that makes deep POV really explode off the page, are the character’s emotions.

SHAME VS GUILT

If you google this, psychology sites are going to inundate you with a flood of conflicting answers. In fiction, there are primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are the gut reaction, without-thinking, knee-jerk responses to events, conflict, people, etc. Secondary emotions are the reactions to the primary emotions. Depending on the character and the situation, many emotions can be either primary or secondary (for the purposes of fiction), but some are almost ALWAYS secondary emotions. And shame is one of those (anger is another). Shame is almost always a reaction to another emotion.

Guilt and Shame are emotional cousins but there are distinctions — and the labels might not be particularly helpful for your writing but understanding the differences can be. Guilt can be good for us when it pushes us to change (our thinking or behaviour). Guilt can lead to regret, can lead to righteous anger, etc. Guilt says “I did a bad thing.” When I threw a ball in the living room and broke Mom’s favourite antique cup and she cried — I felt guilty. I won’t ever throw a ball in the house again.

False guilt is when we have negative feelings (real or perceived) about our own thoughts or actions, but you really had no control over those events or actions. I was texting in the backseat when the car hit a patch of black ice and we hit a tree. If I wasn’t texting in the backseat, Dad wouldn’t have had that accident.

Shame is not about something we did, it’s about who we are. Guilt says I did a bad thing. Shame says I’m a bad person. Shame can be placed on us by others and we can place it on ourselves through real or imagined perceptions of how others see us. Shame can arise from a loss of status or identity. You can’t just change your behaviour to get out from under shame like you can guilt. With shame, who you are is the problem. I am overweight, so that means I’m ugly, unlovable, and lazy. Or I was molested so I’m dirty and broken and unlovable.

Do you see the difference? Shame is debilitating.

Shame seems to be one of those really universal emotions that I don’t see writers delving into too much in fiction — which is a “shame” (hahaha – see what I did there) because it’s such a powerful, compelling, and rich-with-complexity emotion. This can (and in many cases should) be part of what drives characters to their absolute lowest moments.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Compass-of-shame-avoidant-behaviours-and-masking-emotions-Webb-2010-developed-from_fig1_282152685?fbclid=IwAR2N0tRbq6iF38wEpWFL7WtEvYXXNc-BellFV-gS7sBiVGAFkgIdJoATvt4

This is a really awesome graphic that shows the many ways we try to shake off shame. Shame is one of those emotions that we carry around, it sits like a rock on our chests, and we can’t get out from under it by avoiding it, or being logical, or ignoring it. The only way out from under shame is to acknowledge its concerns, and answer those concerns. Those who struggle with perfectionism are more prone to shame. Those who care (too much) about what other people think of them, are more prone to shame. Shame is the shadow that relentlessly haunts trauma victims and whispers — it was all your fault — you’re a failure — there’s no hope.

Writing Shame In Deep POV

Because there’s no author/narrator voice to summarize, explain, or narrate what’s going on inside your character, you must capture the emotions with enough realism and immediacy that the reader can understand not only how your character feels but why those emotions are driving their thoughts and behaviours.

The unique blend of primary emotions that fuels the shame will be unique to your character. That unique blend will carry with it different triggers, different coping mechanisms, etc. You can learn more about primary and secondary emotions here and more about coping mechanisms here.

Someone who feels shame about being overweight and unable to lose the weight, will have different triggers and sensitivities than someone who feels shame because they were abused – for instance. The actual emotion will feel the same, but the primary emotions behind it may be different. The intensity may be different. The reactions to the shame will be different. The way it causes disfunction or change will be different.

The key to deep POV is specificity and particularity. Put the reader in the scene with the character, in their shoes, inside their head — keep no secrets. Then the WHY behind the character’s thoughts and actions becomes clear without you needing the writer/narrator voice to TELL the reader what’s going on.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Complexity

So many times, I’ve encouraged students to delve deeper into the emotions in a scene. What ELSE is going on here? They create these dynamic, powerful, tension-filled events, and the character is simply afraid, or simply frustrated or simply angry. NO! Life is never that simple, is it? We have emotions that conflict, that amplify, that contradict one another. Emotions can be fleeting or last a lifetime. Get curious about that.
Ask not only what ELSE is the character feeling, but explore what a better person would do in this situation? Why can’t they be that person? What would a stronger person do ? What keeps them from doing that? Ask them what they think they SHOULD do in this situation? Why aren’t they doing that — OR — why isn’t that enough?

Shame is one of those emotions that should add this sort of complexity for readers.

Are you using shame in your writing? Do you find it easy or difficult to write shame really well?

Shame is one of the most powerful and underused emotions in a fiction-writer’s toolbox. Shame is pervasive and common, it’s ugly and hard to capture well, but deep point of view is the perfect technique to use with this complex emotion. Readers cheer for characters who are relate-able, who stand up to bullies, who stay and fight when they don’t have to. They relate to characters who have flaws!

And shame is one emotion everyone studiously avoids, denies, and conceals and because of that can have some awful negative consequences like rage, anxiety, depression, emptiness, isolation, addiction, substance abuse, violence, bullying, suicide, eating disorders, etc.

Guilt says you did a bad thing. Shame says you’re a bad person.

This is an excerpt from a guest post – click here to read the whole post on Writers In The Storm.

How To Show And Not Tell Shame In Fiction

Brene Brown in her book Rising Strongdescribed shame as living with a rock on your chest. Shame feels like a crushing, inescapable weight on our chests, cutting off our air, knotting our guts, stealing our words, making us flushed. (The Emotion Thesaurus is a great resource.)

Whether your character starts off feeling shameful about something (past or present) and works to shake that off, or shame is something that they take on in the course of the story, the key to a shame emotion arc is what Brene Brown calls The Reckoning, The Rumble, and the Revolution. It looks a lot like the 3-act structure *smile*

In Rising Strong, Brown gives this example: “…Your face turns red and heat radiates from your chest when you learn that your boss gave the lead for a new project to your colleague.”

Here are two scenarios Brene poses to this emotional problem:

“My boss is an a—hole. Todd’s such a brownnoser. Who cares? This job sucks and this company is a joke.” This is the shame-train reaction—the knee-jerk, off-loading, emotional avoidance caused by shame. As long as your character stays here and never questions WHY they feel this angry, then your character is letting emotions they refuse to admit they feel to drive the shame-train.

“I’m so pissed about her giving the lead to Todd. I need to figure this out before I lose it with everyone on our team…” This curiosity begins the process below. There’s an inciting incident that causes the character to take a proactive step to get off the shame-train.

The 3 Act Structure For Writing Shame According To Brene Brown

The Reckoning: At some point in the story, your character decides to jump off the shame-train and gets curious. Why do I feel like this? Why am I reacting like this? Why do I think of x or y when this happens? Hopefully your character has a friend or ally with them. The Reckoning is about identifying and/or labelling the emotion or thinking that’s got them convinced they’re a bad person (put them on the floor of the arena).

The Reckoning is heart-breaking work because it’s one step forward and two steps back over and over. Their best thinking is what put that boulder on their chest (either as a reaction to something they did or is a survival mechanism to something done to them) to begin with and they’ve managed the rock by ignoring it was there altogether. Now that they acknowledge it’s there, life is going to get harder as they reckon with hard emotions they’ve trained themselves to numb or off-load onto others.

This kicks off The Rumble.

The Rumble:The Rumble is the shame-showdown. Now that your character acknowledges the thinking and emotions that have put them on the floor of the arena, now they’re going to THINK their way out from under the shame-boulder. But they’re acutely aware of those in the stands staring at them, at their repeated failure, their unworthiness.

The Rumble is about living with, allowing to well up, wrestling with the emotions they’ve avoided all this time. It means admitting they over-reacted. It’s about acknowledging emotions they might not understand or memories that seem unrelated that keep popping up. It’s doing the hard work of figuring out how they feel and WHY!

Now the character moves on to The Revolution.

The Revolution:Once the character has gotten the rock of shame off their chest, once they’ve rumbled with the emotions that put it there, now comes the revolution. They now must rebuild their self-esteem. This provides incredible character arc if you look for it. How does one let go of perfectionism? How does one learn to forgive themselves? What do they ask themselves as they stumble in The Rumble? That’s narrative gold, right there.

Questions To Ask Your Characters About Shame

What emotions does your character refuse to acknowledge they’re struggling with? Does the tomboy refuse to acknowledge the girly side that’s vulnerable? Does the warrior refuse to cry? WHY?

When something negative happens, we create the stories in our heads we expect to hear. We filter everything that’s said and done through how we believe we’re perceived even if there’s no evidence for that conclusion. How can a self-fulfilling prophecy of shame play into your story?

What thought does your character avoid having confirmed in any conflict or hurtful event?

What is your character’s go-to emotional substitution? Do they lash out in anger? Do they self-flagellate with destructive internal messages?

Been told you should learn Deep Point Of View? Had an editor or critique partner tell you to “go deeper” with the emotions in your fiction? Looking for a community of writers seeking to create emotional connections with readers? Check out the Free Resource Hub and then join the Going Deeper With Emotions In Fiction Facebook group.

Writing Complex Emotions In Deep POV: Shame