Over and over, I encounter this phrase (or something very similar): A character says or thinks — ‘I don’t know what to do’ or ‘She didn’t know what to think.’ Let’s explore some pro tips on how to eliminate this type of author summary because it doesn’t serve the story if your goal is deep point of view.
Confession: the fiction novel I published in 2018 with the goal of writing entirely in deep POV — isn’t. I had three different paid edits by professional editors to help with the deep pov, but those edits focused on “telling,” POV shifts, and obvious author intrusion. Now, of course I use telling in places, and the author voice in places — because sometimes that’s just the most expedient thing to do.
But on a recent reread the author summary jumped off the page at me. (Do you ever go back and read your published works?) I’m constantly asked here for more examples, more rewrites, and I’ve just no interest in doing that to anyone’s work but my own here on the blog. So, let’s dive into what I’d change now and the thought process that helps me get closer to the level of deep POV I’m trying to teach students who take my course now.
The Sneaky Pervasive Author Voice
The goal with deep POV is to completely remove the author’s voice (also called psychic distance) so that the character is living out the emotional story journey in real time directly to the reader. I’ve written about removing the author voice here and here and here and here.
Author intrusion includes naming emotions (he loved, she was anxious), using filter words (saw, heard), and thinking words (thought, wanted, imagined, dreamed). But more insidious and harder to rout is where the author voice slips in to summarize, explain or justify what’s going on. Any time a voice slips into the narrative that doesn’t come directly from the POV character, that’s the author/narrator voice.
Going Deeper With Author Intrusion: Summary
Author summary is sneaky because it does serve the story. We summarize actions and movements, thoughts, feelings, priorities, motivations, regrets — all the things for our characters. We summarize past events, memories, and descriptions. This function of the author voice helps maintain pace, remind readers of details we need them to know, and be efficient with the word count. So, I want to be clear here that these are valid and important functions. It’s not wise to eliminate every instance of author summary, but if the goal is to be as immersive as possible, being very selective about using that device is essential.
Two Rules To Spot Author Summary
I apply two “rules” of a sort (to my own work) to decide if a) this spot has author intrusion and (b) whether it can stay or go.
A) Would this character think this to themselves, with this wording, at this place in the story — if they’re alone in their own head? Be honest!! If the answer is no, it’s author intrusion.
B) Does this summary sentence/phrase/paragraph move the story ahead, maintain the pace, or is it redundant? Can that sentence/phrase/paragraph be removed without changing the meaning of surrounding paragraphs? Am I summarizing what a character thinks or feels instead of writing it out? Red flag rhetorical questions because this is often a workaround that doesn’t… work around.
How To Fix: When A Character “Has No Idea” What To Do
I’ve pulled this one example out, but I see this in my own work and the work I critique. This phrase has a few variations, but usually what’s happening is that the author hasn’t explored or gotten curious about the thoughts or emotions driving the character’s decisions.
Fight to instill rebellion in the hearts of the women. They didn’t ask much. How did she inspire women to want more for themselves, to believe themselves entitled to more, and challenge the patriarchy, without saying a word or outwardly acting towards that goal? Tavia had no idea.
Can you spot the author summary? Arguably, the whole paragraph is author summary. However, the sentence I’m focusing on is: “Tavia had no idea.” That’s the root of the summary. If I apply my own rules to the example above (would the character think this to themselves at this point in the story, with this wording, if they’re alone in their own head) the answer is clear. No, she wouldn’t. This is obviously coming from a voice (me – the author) outside the story.
Questions To Help You Go Deeper With Deep POV
Applying the second test helps answer whether it can stay or needs to go. Because “the fight” in question is a major plot point, understanding clearly why the character makes the choice she does is pretty important. The story is better served by being curious about what options she’s considering and what limits she’s grappling with (either placed on her by others or herself).
What is the character feeling in this moment — what blend of emotions is at play? Is there an action or gesture that might capture the dominant emotion for readers? Is there a missing emotional reaction or transition? What’s at stake?
I like to ask myself these questions to see if something stirs an idea or clarifies the character’s emotions or priorities. Because it’s not true that she had no idea what to do. What’s more true is she’s weighing her options, the stakes, and the consequences, and the reader needs to be be privy to WHY she made that decision. What is she willing to risk?
CAVEAT: I prefer to make readers lean in and think, to engage with the story and figure things out. That’s not a choice every writer makes or every reader prefers. This is a stylistic choice that may or may not align with your author voice or story preferences.
The Fix:
Fight to inspire women to want more, to believe themselves entitled to more. She divided her hair, pulling each section taut and keeping the plaits tight as she braided. But at the same time, don’t challenge the patriarchy too hard. Rebel and show them how tough you are, but smile pretty and if necessary use cleavage to keep the peace.
She buckled her sword around her hips, slid her seax into its sheath on her thigh, and tucked her garrote inside the belt. No. Other women didn’t have a choice, they had to keep the peace to survive. But nothing would change if no one stood up to them. Tavia would fight with everything she had. One way or another, she was never coming home again.
Don’t shortchange the reader by avoiding the harder work of identifying the blend of emotions, the stakes, the push-pull of consequences by summarizing with: he/she/they don’t know (what to do/what to think). Most of the time, the character knows what they have to do next. Share that thought/emotions process with readers. That’s how readers become immersed in the emotional journey of the story.
How To Fix: When A Character “Doesn’t Know What To Think”
This is a similar but slightly different example from the first one. The same rules and solutions apply so I’m not going to restate the rules I use or the questions I ask myself.
Last night he’d said he also believed in the old stories. She didn’t know what to make of that.
These two sentences are both author summary of different sorts. The first sentence is summarizing something that was previously written out in a scene readers were a part of. It doesn’t serve the story to rewrite the whole exchange so that bit of summary helps keep the story moving. I’ve decided it stays (deep POV purists might insist it go).
The second sentence is also author summary, but this is not wording that the character would use if she was alone in her own head. This is a voice coming from outside the story to summarize what the character is thinking/feeling, and it doesn’t serve the story to summarize here as it’s “showing” the character’s motivation towards an important plot point. So, let’s dive deeper.
Things were moving too quickly when this bit of dialogue was said for her to think about because of the tyranny of the urgent. A sequel was built into the pacing to create a space for the reader to take a breath from the tension and the character to reassess things. I don’t want to slow the pace here, but I do want to go a bit deeper. This one’s tricky because it’s a moment’s pause between two actions scenes.
First – she DOES know what to make of Fin’s (the other character mentioned) statement and the consequences of it. What’s complex (and I didn’t bother to explore) is what decision that information helps her make. The WHY. She only has a bare moment to decide so going deep into all the emotions at play doesn’t serve the pacing.
How To Choose The Emotional Blend In A Scene
The emotional blend at play here would include: surprise, interest, respect, confusion, suspicion, and doubt. To take your fiction to the next level, work on having multiple emotions at play instead of a one-note emotional scene.
I talk about the kids at the table as a way to visualize the process of identifying the emotional blend in a scene here. Basically, picture an old-school board room with chairs around a large table. At each of the chairs is a younger self who’s had a situation come up that’s similar either in the emotions at play or the stakes involved, or even just thematically similar. Each of those younger selves have an emotional concern, and insist that the way they navigated their situation in the past is the answer here. And the conversation can get quite heated because each of the younger selves are convinced they are right.
Someone has to sit at the head of the table and make a decision. Either one of the younger selves takes the head chair, or the adult sits at the head and makes a considered decision after listening to each of the emotional concerns.
Tavia, as a rule, is more likely to suspect betrayal or subterfuge than honesty, but divulging this information comes with significant social and political risk for Fin. Vulnerability is foreign to her. The kids at the table are scrambling, no one has context for this. And that’s as far as the initial process for this scene went. There’s no consensus. There isn’t one easy emotion to capture, so I summarized.
Can she trust him? She needs an answer to that. NOW! Here’s the exercise I made myself do in order to dig deeper into the emotions:
- One kid is suspicious. No one makes themselves that vulnerable, he must be lying. Just ignore what he said, words mean nothing.
- One kid is thrilled that there’s another with enough passion to circumvent and even break rules and social taboos to unearth truth at any cost. She’s not all alone anymore. She needs an ally.
- One kid is angry. Men – in general – are not trust-worthy. This looks like a carrot-on-a-string bait and switch confession that will be recanted and used against her later. Men use their strength to demand, to force, to coerce. The only solution is to come out fighting.
- The new-adult has never been in a position to challenge the status quo — to challenge the injustice around her. He seems to be telling the truth. She’s never been in a situation she couldn’t work hard enough to escape.
Tavia is inexperienced in a lot of ways and at times is overconfident and arrogant, but she is fairly emotionally intelligent. She’s learned to acknowledge and consider the opinions and concerns of past experience instead of allowing her younger self to hijack her decisions. (Because, it never ends well when a five-year-old makes life decisions for an adult – am I right?)
She’s convinced by his honesty and vulnerability. That he might be aligned with her values and priorities is both thrilling and terrifying — because now she’ll be able to do something about what she’s learned and not just steep in frustration and powerlessness. This blend of surprise, distrust, respect, anger, loneliness is the blend I’m hoping to draw upon. I can’t show all of those emotions, but I’m going to pick the two or so that are really driving her decisions and drill deeper into showing that.
The Fix:
I’ve played a bit with the surrounding paragraphs because there were some gaps here also. (Learn to identify where there are gaps in ‘the why’ with your character’s motivations) , so I’ve not added much overall to the word count but condensed/moved some paragraphs to make a bit of room for this fix. I also wanted to really dig deeper with the subtext on this moment. (Read more about subtext here.) I need the words to convey the obvious meaning, but also show a silent conversation between just the two of them.
Last night he’d said he also believed in the old stories. She wasn’t alone. A flutter kicked up under her ribs, but she pounded on her chest twice to clear her mind. Think! She rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder and bounced on her toes. Heat surged into her limbs, rushing to her toes and fingertips. His public actions needed to match the words said in secret.
“Yield, Tavia. This is not how I would begin things between us.” Finan swung his arms in giant circles loosening up the muscles. His reach so much greater than her own.
The seax at his belt caught her gaze. That blade was a finger-width or so the same length as her own seax. The sword at his hip reached down past his knee, more than a foot longer than her own. With his greater reach, she’d never get near him. She threw aside her sword and drew her seax. “We fight to best one another, not kill.”
She held her breath and tipped her head to the side. He studied her, his gaze started at her boots and rose to her crown. The men around the cloaks jeered and jostled, calling out their bets on how quickly she would lose.
Finan bowed his head in agreement and traded weapons.
I’ve used her thoughts to try and show the emotional blend in the first paragraph. “His public actions needed to match the words said in secret.” Does he have integrity? Can she trust him? Instead of using rhetorical questions, write the thoughts or answer the rhetorical questions instead of the bland summary.
In the third paragraph, I wanted to show her process for testing that integrity — would he set aside an additional advantage and fight fair, or be like every other man she’s known and stack the odds in his favour? The adult at the head of the table listened to the concerns of a younger self, but didn’t follow that concern’s proposed solution.
In the second to last paragraph, I wanted to use subtext. We’re not in Fin’s head so this is tricky. Fin’s gaze communicates one thing to the men around him, but along with his reaction his gaze communicates something else to Tavia and the women backing her. I could be clearer on that — this subtext would be something I’d test with beta readers.
Of course readers aren’t going to know all of this behind-the-scenes stuff. They don’t need to. Once I learned to set aside the need for the reader to know all of the thought and research I’ve put in, it was easy to be more objective about how much of my own process to include.
Have you found yourself writing he/she didn’t know what to do or didn’t know what to think? What questions might you ask yourself to help you go deeper in those scenes? Share them below to help others!