writing emotions Archives - Lisa Hall-Wilson

Don’t Let “The Rules” Of Deep POV Limit You!

November 7, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

There are a great many writers who LOVE rules. Rules. Rules. Rules. They rub their hands together and begin to salivate. Grammar rules. Punctuation rules. Structure rules. Genre rules. Templates. Formulas.

I’m not such a big fan of writing rules myself, generally speaking — so I’m only guessing here, but I suspect some writers love rules because it feels like there’s a greater chance for success. A gaurantee. If I follow all the rules then I will write a great book and scads of people will love my work. And, in all their varied wonder – rules aren’t bad.

Here’s What People Misunderstand About Deep POV

Deep POV is a tool. It’s a strategy. I have used a wrench to pound in a nail because that’s what I had within reach to get the job done, and it worked. If wrenches came with user manuals, would instructions for pounding in a nail with it be found there? Nope. But it worked because my goal was simply to get the nail in the wall RIGHT NOW.

Deep POV is all about creating an effect. It’s a strategy. The goal of deep pov is to remove the perceived distance between the reader and the character, so the reader is immersed in the story so they are living the story as it’s happening. Many, many books and blogs outline the basics of deep pov — and those basics are important, they’re necessary. (Many believe just learning the basics is enough, but there are so many interconnected threads to other writing tools that get filtered through deep pov — that deep pov adds depth and subtle hues to, the basics are just the tip of the iceberg.) However, a little bit of knowledge leads to frustration. You KNOW it’s not coming out on the page the way you want it to, but you don’t know how to fix it.

A comment from a student taking the Method Acting For Writers Masterclass on Deep POV.

Just Knowing The Rules Of Deep POV Won’t Make It Work For You

Learn what effect “the rules” were teaching you to create. Once you understand how the tools are meant to be used, then you have an understanding of how to put them to best use for your story. If my goal is to put a nail in the wall, does it really matter what tool I use to achieve that in the end? No, not really (no matter what any perfectionist says). It’s a nail – no one is going to see it. All people will see is the picture I’ve hung on the nail.

Let’s look at removing the distance between the reader and the character in deep pov for example. Most writers struggle with this to some degree (particularly if you’re a big fan of classic literature where the omniscient pov was king), but in deep pov removing distance is taken to all new levels of intensity and it can be hard to grasp at first.

But learning to recognize distance when you see it is one thing. Knowing how to use it to create a specific effect is another. In deep pov, writers strive to remove the perceived distance between the reader and the character because the goal is to create an effect where the reader feels like they’re IN the story, not being told a story.

However, sometimes distance is helpful. There are simply practical instances such as skimming over time or moving – a character is driving from point A to point B and the story only moves ahead when the character gets to point B. There are stylistic choices such as creating an effect of the character feeling like time is flying by, they’ve lost track of time, or an out-of-mind/body experience. Staying in deep pov in these instances won’t create the effect you’re looking for and/or will tie an anchor to the pace of your novel.

With my book, this blog, my free courses, and my more intensive paid courses, I strive to teach “the rules” because it’s super important to know what effect those rules are trying to create, but then — as an artist — it’s your job to make those effects WORK FOR YOU and not be ruled by them.

But What About… They Break Deep POV Rules

I inevitably get one or a few students pointing out that this author or that one, who I’ve cited as using deep pov, breaks this rule or that one — or a bunch of them. Here’s the thing. YOU get to decide how deep you want to write. YOU decide when you’re going to break the rules. YOU decide how strictly you want to adhere to any one rule or all of them. YOU.

Is it OK to using telling to introduce a character? “The Rules” of deep pov would say no. There’s always a way, without breaking POV, telling, or author intrusion, to introduce a character. And that’s usually correct. But, there may be times where you just need the reader to know who that new character is and keep the flow of the scene moving and focused on something else. That’s OK.

Just remember, if you cheat the rules of deep pov because you can’t be bothered to dig deep enough to find the real emotion powering a scene, a character’s real motiviation, or spend the time to craft a sentence to avoid author intrusion — you’re cheating your readers too. Cheat your reader too much and they won’t keep reading. Lazy writing rarely gets celebrated, my friends.

This is a messy business, and the best writing wrings more blood and tears from the writer than it ever will from the reader. But it’s worth the effort. Always. Because everyone who reads your work will get that emotional experience, that emotional journey you wanted to deliver — even you.

Have you joined the 5 Day Deep Point of View Challenge group on Facebook? Three to five times a year, I run a free challenge where I post video lessons and give feedback on YOUR work.

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Identify Your Character’s Emotional Triggers

June 26, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Everyone has an emotional trigger. This is not about mental health, anxiety, PTSD — none of that. Every one has emotional triggers – but are you using this to increase the emotional tension in your story? Why not!?

What Does Your Character Think Is Their Strength?

What does your character pride themselves on having, being, doing, possessing, needing, controlling, etc? Do they rest their identity in any of these things? Some common ones are: acceptance, respect, being liked, being needed, freedom, attention, being in control, autonomy, safety, etc.

It could be a strength or aptitude that was reinforced when they were young. A child identified as gifted at a young age might place all their identity and self-worth in being smart, in being the smartest person in the room. How would they feel when faced with a new colleague who is smarter, faster, more innovative? What would that do to their self-confidence?

This where personality plays into things. Would they react in anger and lash out, gossip, try to undermine the new colleague at every opportunity? Would they sink into shame and beat themselves up constantly? Would they become competitive and work themselves into the groud to maintain what they believe they’re owed or due?

A woman who’s always told how pretty she is might begin to expect that compliment from people, from men in particular. What thought takes root if that doesn’t happen? What emotions come to the fore if she’s in the room when another woman gets all the compliments and not her?

Emotional triggers are often linked to anything at all that a character feels they’re really good at, that they deserve, something they see as their personal identity, or that they’re constantly striving for (feeling heard by a spouse for example).

What Does Your Character Value Most And Fears Having Taken Away?

This where the primary and secondary emotions come into play. You can read more about that here – but for to recap a primary emotion is an instinctive emotional response: fear, guilt, envy, jealousy, attraction. A secondary emotion is any emotion that requires a thinking response: love, anger, hatred, shame, etc.

Anger and shame and love are always secondary emotions.

Some emotions can be either a primary or secondary emotion. Take attraction for instance (learn to write the body language of attraction here), attraction can be an instinctive thing (a primary emotion), but it can also develop over time with familiarity (a secondary emotion).

An emotional trigger skips the primary emotion phase and jumps right to the thinking response – the secondary emotion. That’s why you can instantly be angry at something and not know why.

So, for example, I have a character with an emotional trigger of feeling high maitenance. If she perceives that people think she’s being high maitenance, too-big-for-her-britches, because it’s a learned response (one that she’s practiced many times) she skips right to feeling shame. The shame is what’s observable (showable in actions or dialogue). The shame is what I show when writing this emotional trigger.

What Emotions Are Activated When Key Needs Are Or Aren’t Met?

Activated is another way to say triggered, but in this context it seems more descriptive. Once you’ve identified the feelings or fears that are emotional triggers for your character (and yes you can have more than one), next figure out what emotions are activated when that situation crops up.

You have to think in terms of secondary emotions here. Do they immediately become angry? Are they riddled with shame? Do they feel loved? Remember, triggers don’t have to be negative!

Now, to manage or overcome an emotional trigger, an individual needs a good measure of self-awareness and humility. Then, as Brene Brown would say, they need to get curious. Why do they feel that way? What do they feel is at stake?

How To Show And Not Tell An Emotional Trigger

In my Method Acting For Writers Masterclass, I talk about how primary emotions are usually felt and secondary emotions are usually seen. How does that play out?

Eliza’s husband is three hours later coming home than he said he’d be, without answering texts, emails or phone calls to explain the delay. Eliza has shipped the kids off to grandma’s for the night, prepared a nice dinner, and gottten all dressed up — as a surprise.

By the time hubs arrives home, Eliza has cleared the romantic setting from the table, put all the still-edible bits of food in the fridge, and Eliza’s changed out of the sexy outfit she’d been wearing into a terry bathrobe.

During the whole clean-up, her primary emotions are going wild. Frustration (feeling taken for granted). Concern (did something happen at work). Fear (was he in an accident). Jealousy (was there another woman). You’d show all these emotions colliding around inside through physiology , actions, and internal dialogue.

Once hubs arrives home and is safe – oh, whoops – went out for drinks did I forget to text you? Now she has to DO something with these emotions so now she’s angry. But if Eliza had an emotional trigger of say… feeling in control, then not knowing where her hubs was when he was supposed to be at home would be a trigger for a secondary emotion. Having her well-thought-out plans for the surprise would be an emotional trigger.

Emotional triggers can be powerful and effective, because they’re so often over-the-top emotional reactions. When your emotional triggers are activated, you’re not just angry — you’re livid. People can observe these night-and-day emotional hairpin turns because they seem to come out of nowhere if you’re not privvy to what the trigger is.

Are you using emotional triggers in your novel? What is your character afraid will be taken away or threatened?

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4 Tips To Get Unstuck Writing Hard Emotions In Fiction

May 22, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Emotions are hard to capture authentically in fiction, maybe in part because as a society we tend to want to express things more in terms of what we’re doing or thinking. This diving deep into the raw humanity expressed through emotions is the power of deep point of view.

How You Doin Joey GIF from Howyoudoin GIFs

Emotions are hard and uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient and there’s an inherent vulnerability in writing — in good writing — where the writer lays bare her own heart for readers in a variety of ways.

I’m an avid student of psychology and learning how emotions work intrigues me, so being able to authentically capture all this for my readers is important to me. And if you’re here on this blog, I know it’s important to you too because that’s kinda… I mean *smile* that’s what I blog about alot. What I’ve been digging into recently is trying to better understand how emotions work, how much predictability there is in terms of the consequences of past events on adult behaviour, and the dichotomy between what’s expressed outwardly (what’s observable to others) and what’s said and felt internally.

To that end, here are four aspects of writing emotions that I’ve focused on with my characters with good results. You might not use/need all of these for any one novel or even a character, but they are tools to keep in your pocket and pull out if you’re stuck or struggling how to convey an emotion authentically.

All The Girls At The Table

A friend (who’s a counsellor) described this idea of the girls at the table which she uses with her clients and it really resonated with writer-me. When emotions for your character get hot, confusing, sad, overwhelming, uncomfortable, create foggy thinking — get curious as Brene Brown would say. What’s driving those emotions for your character? Whether your character has enough self-awareness or personal insight to figure it out or not, you need to know. Why do they feel like this? Why does this hurt? What are they really upset about? Why don’t they want to be here?

This can be transformative. Get curious about your character’s emotions. Why are they feeling that way? Why don’t they want anyone to know they feel that way? What are they afraid of?

Now, add in my friend’s advice. Sit down with all the girls at the table. For every hurt moment or traumatic event in life, imagine that kid (girl or guy) at the table. Each traumatic event or hurtful moment adds another seat at the table of the heart. That group, collectively and individually, influences which past events are triggered in the present. Ask that kid – why are you afraid? What are you trying to hide? You’re hurt about this — but what does this really mean?

I have a character who’d made plans for a vacation with a close friend, and the close friend had to bail at the last minute (legitimate reason) but my character was devastated by this. The reaction wasn’t in line with what had happened so as the writer, I had to get curious. Why was this so hurtful? I realized the hurt was legitimate disappointment about not going on the trip but there was something more. There was a kid at the table slumped in her seat, arms folded over her chest, kicking her feet against the legs of the chair. That friend routinely cancelled, for always legitimate reasons, and there were past disappointments at play.

Another kid at the table cried. This was a younger still kid, she remembered that many many times her needs were ignored, overlooked, told they didn’t matter as much as someone else’s. THAT’s the kid causing the tears because once again she had felt unimportant, not a priority, passed over. Once you have this information, you can express the primary emotions at play with visceral authenticity that will capture your readers. Read more about primary and secondary emotions here.

Feelings Aren’t Facts

Feelings and emotions can’t always be trusted. As someone who struggles with foggy thinking at times because of a post traumatic stress injury, this has become super important to remind myself of.

Just because I feel a certain way, doesn’t mean that feeling is true or trustworthy. Because there’s a lot of past experiences and prejudices at play (see above with all the girls at the table) that can influence, skew, and colour my perception of what’s going on around me or being said (or not said).

This is important to understand, because emotions and feelings power our goals, motivations, and priorities. Where does your character’s feelings lead them astray? How does their past influence them to incorrectly evaluate a situation or threat? At what point do they realize their feelings may not be trustworthy in any given situation or recurring circumstance? What are the consequences of the thinking based on feelings that can’t be trusted? OOooh – tell me you can see all the conflict that potentially arises from this?

Emotions Aren’t Stable

Being emotionally stable is nebulous though highly sought after. We tend to avoid people we perceive to be emotionally unstable. Here’s the thing though, we’re all emotionally unstable at times and our characters can’t always have it all all together either. Just as feelings aren’t facts, emotions are neither static nor linear. Some days our emotions bounce from one conflicting emotion to another like a ping pong ball. We have what’s called a “window of tolerance” and anyone can be pushed out of their window of tolerance (the ability to function, perceive, and integrate information and emotions effectively) at any time.

Those perceived as emotionally unstable are often individuals with a narrower window of tolerance. However, a car accident will push you out of the window of tolerance. A sudden death in the family or a close friend will likely push you out of the window of tolerance. Those with anxiety or traumatic injuries will likely have a narrower window of tolerance and a learned response to certain triggers (hyper arousal -fight or flight- or hypo arousal – freeze).

Most of the time, as writers, we craft a situation (or several situations) in a story where we push our characters out of their window of tolerance which means they’ll be emotionally unstable. Be authentic with that. Let there be consequences to that. Let them learn from that. Will that experience narrow or widen their window of tolerance? Hmmm…

Emotions Are Subtle And Nuanced

Speaking of wide brushes, I hope I’ve made a case for drilling down into why a character feels a certain way, determining how much intergrity those feelings have, and the natural consequences of that unique blend of factors combined with a character’s past experiences, prejudices, goals, and motivations. If you’re able to know your characters well enough to have all this sorted, then deep point of view is going to intensify your fiction and grab your readers by the throat!

Not every emotion your character feels needs to be BIG. Not every decision needs to be based on a BIG emotion. Sometimes we’re ruled by emotions we refuse to acknowledge but are readily picked up on by others. Avoid the easy road with your fiction. These are really simple factors that when combined create endless possibilities. It’s the possibilities that make each character unique.

Not every character needs to be thought through to this level, but certainly your protagonist and antagonist do.

Which character(s) from your favourite book or movie had an emotional journey that really resonated with you?

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Advice From Jack Sparrow On Building Emotional Connections With Readers

March 6, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 7 Comments

Captain Jack Sparrow, love him or hate him, most people FEEL something for the irrascible pirate. What can Jack Sparrow teach us about creating emotional connections with readers? Lots. Savvy?

There are many posts out there on the interwebz for writers looking for advice on how to create emotional connections with readers, but let’s look at a character many many people love but may not be able to put a finger on why.

Jack Sparrow Is Relateable

When creating a character you want readers to connect with, give them traits that your reader might share. It’s hard to put yourself into a story, into someone’s shoes if you can’t see yourself in any of their character traits or decisions.

Jack is selfish and deceptive and he appears morally bankrupt, so why do we love him? He literally stumbles through life. But we love Jack because we have a lot of things in common with him. No, really – we do.

He prefers to talk his way out of trouble instead of using brute force, even though he has the sword skills to do great injury. He’s intelligent and witty and uses those strengths to his advantage. Jack is immeasurably creative.

“Did everyone see that? Because I will not be doing that again.”
Jack Sparrow

Jack is OK with ambiguity. Today’s enemy could be tomorrow’s ally. He’ll steal your rum one day and shake your hand the next. Jack’s morality tends to be situational, but isn’t that also true of our own society where little white lies, no harm no foul, and other such sayings are held as truth. A person might never steal a chocolate bar or clothing from a retail store, but they’ll pirate movies or music or ebooks without thought. The character who always chooses the moral right, who’s never dishonest or corruptible in any way, is hard to relate to.

Jack’s An Ethical Pirate

Your character needs to stand for something. They have to draw a line in the sand — this far and no farther. That line will look different for every character and that line doesn’t have to be one that readers necessarily would choose for themselves, but it’s one they can cheer for. Readers connect emotionally with characters who have a code of ethics they won’t violate–an ethic the reader can cheer for.

Jack is a complicated character and whether he’s good or bad is often up for interpretation. Certainly, he’s no moral paragon, but unlike many other pirates Jack does his best to uphold the Pirate’s code. Jack isn’t a pacifist, but he often steps in and tries to de-escalate an impending conflict (often for self-interested reasons) by suggesting a negotiation. When he does draw his sword, it’s in self-defence.

“Why fight when you can negotiate?”
Jack Sparrow

Let’s not forget that the reason Jack was branded a pirate was because instead of delivering a shipment of slaves, he set them free. Jack, in the end, often chooses the morally right thing to do at his own personal sacrifice, even if he’s doing it for selfish reasons. He rescued his friends from the Kraaken (and the Pearl), he walked away from the fountain of youth, and he helped break the curse of the The Flying Dutchman to free Will Turner.

“Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.”
Jack Sparrow

Jack Is Always The Underdog

Readers love to cheer on the come-from-behind-kid, the one who succeeds against all odds, the David in a David-and-Goliath story, the nerd fighting against the schoolyard bully. When a character faces overwhelming odds, when they choose to step into a hard thing when they could walk away, readers get behind that. They want the character to win. But let me clear, the odds need to be overwhelming and preferably the stakes are life and death. I don’t mean only literal life and death stakes, but identity-ending, career-suicide, life-is-no-longer-worth-living kind of stakes.

In every movie, Jack has a goal–there’s something he wants. His motivations aren’t always obvious or clear, sometimes even to himself, but he presses on even though the odds of him succeeding are fairly remote (hello – finding the fountain of youth??).

“I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly, it’s the honest ones you want to watch out for because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly…stupid.”
Jack Sparrow

Jack Teaches Us Things

Readers want entertainment AND they want an emotional journey. They want to immerse themselves in a fictive dream and become a character, live vicariously through them, for a short period of time. Fiction helps challenge people’s thinking and offers new perspectives and paths for readers in a non-threatening way. It’s OK if you only want to entertain with your writing, but it’s OK if you want to use if for more than entertainment too.

“If you choose to lock your heart away, you’ll lose it for certain.”
Jack Sparrow

Jack is a character a lot of people wish they could be more like (in certain ways). Jack is comfortable in his own skin, in the expression of his personality, and doesn’t care too much what other people think of him. He doesn’t take offense easily and doesn’t hold a grudge. He lives in the moment

Jack very much lives in the moment. He doesn’t concern himself with a five year plan or even where he’ll sleep that night. Jack embodies freedom. “Wherever we want to go, we’ll go. That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and hull and deck and sails–that’s what a ship needs. But what a ship is–what the Black Pearl really is–is freedom.” Jack has simple wants: to be a pirate and to be captain of the Black Pearl. Most of us, in some way, long for that kind of free-spirited freedom, ability to laugh at ourselves, own our eccentricities and quirks, and care less what people think of us.

Jack Surprises Us

Writing that has readers leaning in, afraid to put the book down because they have to know what happens next — that’s the goal, right? That’s my goal. The surprises have to be true to the character and the storyworld, often the surprise causes the main character even more trouble, but we cheer them on even harder.

Jack constantly surprises us. He’s funny. His wit and charm are disarming and the way he plays with the truth makes you feel like you’re inner circle sharing an inside joke. His antics, his flailings, his reliance on rum, it all adds up to entertainment and surprise. A joke isn’t funny if you already know the punchline, right. Sometimes his wit is full of great truth. Sometimes you have to repeat to yourself what he’s just said, and then it hits you — ooooh, that’s deep.

“You’ve stolen me and I’m here to take myself back.”
Jack Sparrow

“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Understand me?”
Jack Sparrow

What do you love about Jack Sparrow? In what ways did you (or did you not) connect emotionally with Jack?

Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers

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Create Emotional Connections With Readers Using Deep Point Of View

December 7, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

There are still many many fans of writers like Tolkien, Austen, and Dickens, but contemporary readers (particularly genre fiction readers) are looking for more than entertainment from a book — they want an emotional experience!

“By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long pipe that reached nearly down to his wooly toes (neatly brushed) — Gandalf came by. Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

First published in 1937, The Hobbit was a stellar example of storytelling for the time. The narrator voice is prevalent and the whole work is written in the omniscient POV (both of which were common at the time).

In the early 2000’s, (perhaps earlier) readers began craving work that let them feel closer and more involved in the story and so close third person POV evolved. Strike is the POV character below.

“When informed by telephone that her husband was not, after all, at the writer’s retreat, Leonora Quine sounded anxious.

‘Where is he, then?’ she asked, more of herself, it seemed, than Strike.”

Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling), The Silkworm

You can see with this closer third person style, the reader was drawn much closer into the story. The Silkworm was published in 2014 – hardly vintage. Still, readers want to be in the action of the story, they want an emotional journey — they want to be the main character.

How Does Deep Point of View Look/Feel Different?

“Chris pulled the phone away from his head and stared at it. The chill on his neck crept down his back. This guy couldn’t be for real. What he was saying about the dreams had to be a coincidence.

“He started down the sidewalk. He needed to get out of here, needed to find his dad, needed to figure out how to stop chasing his tail through life.” K.M. Weiland, Dreamlander

In this last example, the reader isn’t being “told” what’s going on, rather through what the main character sees, hears, knows, thinks, and feels, the reader must infer how the character feels to understand what’s going on. Readers have to care. They must engage and take the journey in the main character’s shoes.

Deep Point Of View Doesn’t Write For The Reader

In other less intimate POVs, the writer can insert information through a character’s internal dialogue, through dialogue tags (ie. he whispered, he wrung his hands anxiously), but in deep point of view everything is written as though the character is alone in their own heads. Beats are used instead of dialogue tags. Instead of writing a story, you’re recording a character’s journey as it happens.

No one else is privvy to the point of view character’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The reader and the writer are the main character, they’re not looking over their shoulder.

Using Deep Point of View Selectively

Not every writer who uses deep point of view uses it for their entire story. Some writers will use some aspects of deep point of view for just certain characters, or just certain scenes, to create intensity and intimacy for readers. It is possible to write an entire story in deep point of view, of course it is, but many writers come up with their own brand of deep point of view. They may continue to use italics for emphasis and dialogue tags for instance.

It’s important, as in anything else, to learn the rules first before breaking them. Strictly adhereing to the rules of deep point of view might be too restricting for you or the story you’re telling. Maybe you like the challenge and intensity and never waver from deep point of view.

In a shallower POV style (such as the Robert Galbraith example), deep POV is effective when used for selective scenes to deliver an emotional gut punch for reachers. For books written entirely in deep POV such as the K.M. Weiland example, using a shallower POV style in certain moments and situations will help keep the story moving and not get bogged down in the minutae of the everyday.

Deep Point Of View Isn’t Limited To First Person Or Third

Deep point of view is effective in either first person or third person styles. A story written in first person isn’t deep pov by default — there are many ways writers add distance between the main character and the reader even in first person stories. Deep POV is very popular among first person story writers, but there are many third person writers using deep POV as well.

Deep POV isn’t limited to a present or past tense style either. It can be used effectively either way. You can use deep point of view for every POV character in your story, or just one. You can write in past tense and use present tense for all the internal dialogue in deep point of view. It’s very flexible, the challenge will be to use it consistently (in whatever way you’re using it) in order to prevent jerking the reader out of the story experience.

Avoid Adding Distance Between Readers And Protagonists

The key to effective deep point of view is removing any hint that the reader isn’t IN the story AS IT’S HAPPENING, or that they aren’t the main character in any given scene. Writers build in distance in all kinds of ways that’s acceptable in other POV styles but not in deep point of view. Setting and description are used to do more than tell the reader where the main character is or what’s around them. Instead, in deep point of view the main character must feel their way through the setting.

Do you enjoy reading deep point of view? Do you feel it’s better suited to some genres more than others?

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