Creating unique voices for multiple POV characters – and how to show their emotions

July 29, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

So excited to have Aiki Flinthart on the blog today. I’m recovering from knee surgery and Aiki generously stepped in for me and is sharing about creating unique characters. Aiki describes every pantser’s nightmare below, *grin* but don’t panic. You would go through all the same steps to pants your way through this, you’d just do it through a first draft and a lot of rewriting.

Be sure to check out Aiki’s book for writers (I’ve already ordered mine):

As authors, we all know that she who makes the reader cry, wins. If a reader connects strongly to your character, then they will react emotionally to the character’s conflicts.

But, for many genres, it’s not the external conflict the reader gets caught up in – it’s the internal conflict; the character’s feelings about what’s happening. That’s where the treasure lies.

So how do we ensure the reader cries when we want them to? Or laughs? Or gets angry?

By creating characters the reader identifies with in some way. Then showing how that character reacts, so the reader can easily imagine themselves in the story.

A Personal Challenge

A couple of years ago I wanted to improve my ability to write unique character voices, in close first person POV, with deep emotional connections for the readers.

Sounds good, huh?

Yep. Except that I like to make things hard for myself and chose to create a mosaic novel – a collection of intertwined short stories that all advance an overarching narrative.

But wait! It gets trickier.

Set in 1486 London, Blackbirds Sing consists of 24 short stories, each from a DIFFERENT woman’s POV. Each story is stand-alone, but also interlinked with the larger narrative (someone trying to kill Henry VII). And various POV characters pop in and out of each other’s stories for continuity.

One of my readers has called it the literary equivalent of a quadruple back somersault.

It certainly wasn’t easy.

And the hardest part was creating so many unique voices, unique backgrounds, and unique emotional reactions to conflicts. Twenty-four different characters that people cared about enough to cry over in just 4500-word short stories! Sheer madness.

Readers Bring Their Own Past Experiences To A Story

When the book came out, I sat back, biting my nails. Would it work?

Then I started getting message from readers. So many said they’d loved this character or that; cried at various points; stayed up all night reading.

You know what was most interesting?

Different readers cried over different characters.

I counted that as a win. It meant readers were bonding deeply with all the characters. They cared when terrible things happened to these women.

Here’s how it worked.

Planning Twenty-Four Unique Characters

To begin with, I ensured the overarching narrative, the novel’s theme, and the internal conflicts/character arcs for every POV character were all closely related. Then I made sure that each short story’s external conflict also revolved around the central, universal theme. (The sacrifices people make to protect their families, lives, livelihoods).

Next, I meticulously created the POV characters – resulting in a very large, complicated spreadsheet. (I’m sure there are better ways of doing that part!)

I started with their birth-personality (use whatever personality profiling system you like) then layered on backstory influences – traumas, culture, family life, physical and mental limitations/issues, mental health, wants, needs, occupation, etc etc.

Then I noted their dialogue and physical tics – the ways of speaking or moving that indicate to a reader which character is talking even if you’re not using dialogue tags. So every character had a unique way of speaking, favourite words they used, way of swearing – all of which reflected their upbringing, personality, and education.

And when they were under the influence of a strong emotion, their dialogue would change – perhaps become faster or choppy when they were angry; halting and hesitant when they were feeling vulnerable; sullen and monosyllabic when hurt; etc.

They also each had a unique stress-tell. A physical action to show the reader the character was upset or worried. Perhaps rubbing at their skirt, fiddling with hair, or twisting rosary beads etc.

Additionally, I worked out how they filtered the world – what they noticed around them. That’s usually based on either their occupation and hobbies/interests, or on their emotional state/priorities. A pessimistic work-a-holic girl who’s frightened and walking the streets alone at night will notice different things than a scatterbrained optimistic girl who’s partying on with a group of friends as she strolls home. The frightened girl will jump at noises and shadows that the party girl won’t even notice.

The spreadsheet noted each one of these traits for each of the 24 POV characters, so I could keep their reactions consistent.

Lastly, came 24 internet images – one for each woman – based on physical appearance and personality. If the character was 40-year-old dark haired woman with a happy-go-lucky optimist personality, I’d google ‘happy middle aged woman with dark hair’ until I found an image that suited. It helped to remind me of how she would most likely react to conflict, and how to describe her facial and body movements to reflect her emotions.

All of these things, when added in as little details to each scene, help immerse a reader into the character’s feelings without ever having to say, “Sarah felt frightened.”

Of course, not all characters need that level of creation information. But even listing personality, dialogue tics, and physical tics for a minion will help the reader to understand what each character is feeling, and to distinguish between various characters. Which, in turn, helps them connect with the one they love best.

Show Your Character’s Priorities – Don’t Get Distracted

Spend time creating a fully-fleshed human for your POV characters before you launch into writing the entire novel. Whether you use a spreadsheet or do some freewriting from that character’s POV, it doesn’t matter.

Just learn how each character thinks, reacts, swears, talks, moves etc. Then use that information to show the reader how the character feels about the conflict.

One more crucial thing: leave out the distractions – the details that don’t show us what’s important to the POV character.

Keep only what will make your reader understand or care more deeply about your POV character/s. Keep only what makes each character – each person – unique and fascinating. Keep only what will make us smile, or laugh, gasp, or cry.

What’s your process for creating unique character voices in a multiple POV story?

About Aiki:

Aiki Flinthart has 14 published speculative fiction novels, two collections of short fiction, two non-fiction author craft books, several short stories in anthologies and e-mags, a romance novel, and has edited several short story anthologies. She has been three times shortlisted in the Australian Aurealis Awards for Speculative Fiction, and a top-8 finalist in the USA Writers of the Future Competition. When not writing or running her business, she teaches workshops to authors, trains in martial arts, knife-throwing, archery, and lute-playing. Every once in a while she even sleeps. Find Aiki on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

www.aikiflinthart.com

8 Ways Voice Can Show Emotional Depth

July 6, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

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?

Writing Traumatic Memories Without Overwhelming Readers

June 9, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 11 Comments

PTSD and trauma (both big “T” and small “t” trauma), affect our memory in different ways, and when writing in deep point of view, it becomes telling to label an emotion for readers. So, how do we write trauma memories realistically without overwhelming readers with gratuitous details and melodrama?

PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and trauma, either as current events or historical, are compelling elements in fiction. An essential tool then becomes backstory, memories, and flashbacks to show character arc and internal (and external) conflict.

Big “T” Trauma vs Small “t” Trauma

Trauma is a response to any event that overwhelms our ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness and diminishes our ability to feel a full range of emotions. Keep that in mind, because anything can be traumatic depending on the individual and what they can cope with.

Big “T” trauma events cause an individual to feel they’re in mortal danger. Small “t” trauma events (a divorce for instance) are overwhelming for a short time. When crafting characters, don’t think of trauma as only big “T” trauma events like natural disasters, hostage taking, kidnapping, murder, rape, war, etc. Small “t” trauma can be just as devastating, and moreso for individuals who endure repeated small “t” trauma. A series of “t” events that pile up (like being bullied) can be trauma by a thousand cuts.

How Big “T” Trauma Affects The Brain

Small “t” trauma, because it lacks the life-threatening component, may be captured differently in memory. The character might remember what they were thinking for instance, where they were, what else they were doing that day. When asked to recall a traumatic event, brain imaging scans show that some parts of the brain light up and others go quiet. To oversimplify things, the part of the brain focused on survival is prioritized and the parts of the brain focused on communication, analytical thinking, etc. are slowed or at the least not prioritized.

People may react first without really thinking about their actions when when fight, flight or freeze is triggered. I walked five miles for help, but don’t remember walking. The ground crunched when I walked, every step on broken glass, but I couldn’t think of why it the ground would sound like that (see account below). The part of the brain that labels things, that rationalizes or understands the WHY behind the things we do, shuts down. Of course there are accounts where some were able to maintain a presence of mind and think their way out of a problem, but their ability to do that in life-threatening circumstances is remarkable.

With PTSD, once the trauma memories are triggered (with or without flashbacks), the ability to remember and learn is diminished. I’ve sat through countless martial arts classes, but if I’m triggered while I’m there, I won’t remember anything that was taught. Nada. My brain is too focused on finding and protecting me from threat. I’ll be a yellow belt FOREVER lol.

Focus on particular details, specific sensory details, that you want readers to tune in to, that will create that immersive visceral effect you’re looking for. Rather than trying to capture everything.

How Age Affects Trauma Memories

When big “T” trauma isn’t experienced until adulthood, likely the character will have support systems in place, already developed the coping mechanisms and neural connections that will help them respond and hopefully overcome whatever they’ve survived. Things a child might not have access to or developed yet.

This means the trauma memories will be different between children and adults. They may have different priorities, different things may be considered overwhelming. This will affect how they remember things, and which details the brain looks to other sources to fill in. Memory can return in bits and pieces over time.

The internal dialogue around a trauma memory will be different depending on how old the character was when the trauma occurred. One place I’ve seen this really illustrated is in accounts of the Holocaust, because there’s been a large effort to capture those memories in the words of those who lived them. Those survivors who were adults when it happened, they remembered different details in different ways than those who were children when it happened.

How Trauma Memory Works

A trauma memory isn’t recorded in continuous action like a film. It’s recorded in bits with skips and blanks. Writing a memory from a trauma experience that reads like a news report will overwhelm readers and isn’t how memory works at all.

Memory is flexible and fluid. With time some elements fade and others come to the fore. This is the problem with prosecuting rape in court, because a victim might retell the experience immediately following the event one way and then have a slightly different story (leave some details out or become unsure of small points, remember new details) six months later in court which then makes the memory and the victim seem unreliable by judges and juries.

Memory Seeks Context, Continuity, and Closure

Human brains crave beginnings, middles, and ends to things. Context. Continuity. Closure. So, what a victim remembers immediately after an incident, their brain may purposely forget because it’s overwhelming. Or, details they couldn’t handle initially or weren’t initially aware of may emerge as they’re able to deal with the trauma in time.

The Netflix series Unbelieveable, while incredibly hard to watch, does a good job of capturing the effects of memory on trauma over an assortment of characters.

Author Rene Gutteridge described her experience being in/near the Oklahoma City bombings.

“The building had a gaping hole. Cars and trees were on fire. Ash-covered people wondered aimlessly like zombies. Police, fire and ambulances came rushing to the scene.”

But Gutteridge admits that asking her to describe the event has her tapping into coverage she saw after the fact, not her own personal experience of it. Her brain needed context and continuity, so the news coverage fills in the gaps in her own memory. In deep pov, we don’t want the news coverage, we want the lived experience of the event. What was it like in the moment? She then shared her memory of her lived experience of the event:

“One of the most vivid things I recall is the crunch, crunch, crunch sound of glass as I ran to the south side of the building to get around the fires. I didn’t take a step that didn’t put glass under my feet, but at the time I couldn’t figure out what it was that I was running on…I remember all that paper floating down from the sky and the urge to gather it up because that’s what you do when people lose their important papers—you gather it up for them.

Hours after the bomb went off, sirens still took up all the silence…Did I see death? Blood and gore? The most desperate moments of my fellow human beings? I did. I had to have. There was no way for me to miss it. Yet I have one or two small, vivid images of that sort of thing.”

Do you see the difference?

Recap: Trauma memory is captured in bits and pieces with gaps and skips in time. Our brains will fill in the gaps because it seeks continuity, context, and closure. Details remembered may change over time. Big “T” trauma memory may not register why the character is acting a certain way or what they’re experiencing in the urgency to escape or survive. PTSD memory is covered in part two, but it is not like trauma memory but is frozen in time.

Come back for part 2 of how to write trauma memories.

Are you using trauma memories in your stories?

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.

How To Write With Immediacy In Fiction

December 12, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 3 Comments

We’re continuing in our FAQ series on Deep POV. The question that came in was: How do you write with immediacy?

There are a few foundational rules with deep point of view and writing with immediacy and removing distance are two of them. If you don’t write with immediacy you add perceived distance between the reader and the story, which is exactly what deep pov tries to eliminate. As I considered this question, I realized that I haven’t written much about this here or in my book, so let’s break this down.

Simply put, immediacy is writing as though everything in the story is happening right now.

Is Past Or Present Tense More Immediate?

Some writers get hung up on writing in past or present tense when asked about immediacy. Are you writing He is… or He was…? With deep point of view, there isn’t a right or wrong answer here. You can write in deep pov with immediacy equally well in past or present tense.

Is First Or Third Person Better?

Again – wrong question. I see many blogs out there saying first person is more intimate than third person, but I disagree. Written equally well, a reader can immerse themselves just as well in a first or third person story. Some readers will have a preference, many writers have a preference, one or the other is more popular in some genres.

I would like to clarify that writing in first person doesn’t automatically make your writing deep point of view (or more immediate). I’ve written about first or third person here. This is a distraction in the discussion about writing with immediacy or deep point of view.

What Is Writing With Immediacy?

Writing with immediacy is capturing the story as the character moves through a scene. Think of it like strapping a GoPro to your point of view character (POVC).

If story is a car, omniscient POV puts the reader in the back seat away from the action. A limited POV puts the reader in the shotgun seat beside the driver. Deep point of view puts the reader in the POVC’s lap in the driver’s seat. They see/hear/know/learn/feel everything the POVC does, but that’s ALL they know. The entire story is filtered through the POVC as though they are living the story in real time. It’s a first-person shooter style of storytelling.

Avoid The Narrator Voice

The narrator voice slips in particularly if you’re more familiar with the omniscient point of view style (or, I’ve found this happens among writers who, as readers, detest feeling tension when reading themselves). This is a stylistic choice that makes sure the reader knows everything is OK before the conflict really heats up. I can’t give you a template or a list of words to do a search for. It all depends on the effect the phrase creates.

Some examples might be:

Later, he would realize this had all been a dream. (and then the dream sequence begins)
If only she’d known how Brad would react, she’d have kept her mouth shut. (and then she says the thing she later regrets saying)

This idea of hindsight or looking back before the event comes off as author intrusion in deep point of view and it adds distance. Now, this doesn’t mean your character can’t second guess themselves, but it’s expressed after they’ve done something. It can also work in a self-fulfilling prophecy sense. This is a bad idea or I’m going to regret this… and then they step into the hard thing as an act of courage or whatever. That’s different than this all-knowing narrator slipping into the story foretelling the future.

Writing in this way, especially in deep point of view, undercuts the tension for readers. By reassuring readers that the character will be safe no matter what’s about to happen, the reader is chucked into the backseat of the story car surrounded with bubble wrap.

Immediacy With Emotions

Writing emotions with immediacy is an often-overlooked aspect of writing in deep point of view. I wrote about the four layers of emotional storytelling here. We usually start with the first layer, the primary emotions. These are our instinctive emotional responses – the gut reaction, the spontaneous reaction, the survival instinct, etc. Often, these emotions are quick and visceral – meaning they have a physical component to them, not a thinking component.

You show this through physiological responses, physical reactions, etc. These are not emotions we think about before we decide if we’re feeling them or not. For example, we each feel fear uniquely. Show what fear feels like to that character. What terrifies one person, another won’t even pause over. Primary emotions require immediate action and prepare your body to act.

She scrolled through Facebook with her thumb. A shadow fell across the floor in front of her. A man punched the up button on the elevator and then stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with her. She inched away. What’s his deal? She looked up at his face, his hair parted with precision and the angles of his face sharp and chiseled.

He looked down on her and winked. Her belly clenched and she glanced around the lobby. Empty. She flicked her thumb and pulled up the emergency screen on her phone. Her thumb hesitated. He wore a nice suit, a real-leather-looking case in his hand that matched his shoes, and a gold watch. But the tightness in her belly spread up to her chest, cinching and squeezing. Her heart beat faster. The elevator dinged and she flinched. The doors slid open.

This is all primary emotions, right. Now, those emotions are going to force the character to do something, because this isn’t a comfortable feeling. She takes in a lot of information trying to decide if she’s safe or not. In deep point of view, we give the reader what evidence we have at hand and let them decide what emotion the character is feeling. This way, the reader knows WHY the character makes the decision they do. Make the reader lean in to understand, to engage with the emotions in the scene.

Primary emotions are immediate, raw, and unfiltered.

Perspective Is Determined Through Immediacy

In the example above, all of the information given to the reader is filtered through the character’s perspective. Her perspective is informed by what’s important to her RIGHT NOW.

There are some scenes where a character’s emotions dictate their plans for the future. Much of the time, what our characters take in, filter, judge, assess, etc. is put through a lens of what’s important to them right now. A teen boy can overlook quite a few things when he is hungry. All the sensory data intake is focused on finding food – smell, sight, past experience, taste, etc.

Think of the example above of the woman at the elevator, how would it change the character’s primary emotions if she’d been sexually assaulted previously? How would her thinking response change if she was on her way to work, to a job she couldn’t afford to lose, and she was a little late? How would her primary emotions react if she’d just read on her phone that the police were investigating a string of recent assaults in that neighborhood? Or she’d just had a friend who was assaulted?

Do you see how immediacy can shape a character’s perception of everything around them and shape their responses? It’s all interconnected.

Have a question about writing with immediacy? This is the third post in the deep POV FAQ series, have a question you’d like to see answered – post it below!

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

November 7, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 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.

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?