Veronica sez: I’ve had One of Those Weeks, with
some medical issues and hence little to no energy; therefore
I’ve invited author Beth Matthews to give us a guest post.
I
turned to her because she was the person who convinced me that maybe omniscient
wasn’t the one and only best way in
the world to be writing these days, and helped me transition to third limited.
That transition was back in 2010 when I first began to write seriously and hone my craft in an
attempt to become published (which happened for me in 2012, thank you, Carina
Press!) Ms. Matthews, who’d been published in multiple genres by 2010 (under a different pen name) was
very persuasive and patient! And now I love third limited and use it all the time. End of meaningful
discussion from yours truly…
In the interests of full disclosure,
I will also mention that Ms. Matthews is my daughter…
So thanks for pinch hitting and take it away, Guest Word
Whore!
Beth Matthews: (A lot of the foundation for my knowledge about POV
came from the brilliant Joanna Bourne, please check out her Technical Topics if
you haven't yet. Here's a link round up of all her blogs on POV:
Most romance novels are written in
third limited POV with chapters alternating between the hero and the heroine's
POVs. "Third limited POV" is essentially one step back from first
person. As a reader, you aren't really in
the character's head, but you still stay focused on them like you are. While
you read, you only see what they see, you only know what they know, and you
don't head hop in the middle of a scene to another character's thoughts.
The particular challenge as a romance writer when you're doing two
alternating POVs is how to make the characters different while still showing
that these people are compatible. For the romance to be credible the lovers usually
have to mostly think the same way, they have to share a world view. But you
still want readers to be able to tell whose POV they're in.
I've come up with a couple tricks
for this myself. For instance, in my latest release LOVE'S LAST CALL the hero
is an author while the heroine is a mechanical engineer. For the hero, I
deliberately used larger "ten dollar" words at times, and I was more
likely to use metaphors and other figurative language in chapters from his POV.
For the heroine, I pruned out any "ten dollar" words and simplified
the prose a little to make her sound more matter of fact, less stylized.
Another easy trick is to assign
each character certain words and not let the other character use those. One
might talk in longer sentences while the other has a more staccato rhythm.
Dropping words. Speaking quick. Bare bones delivery. (<--See what I did
there? ;P)
The more books I write the more I
realize that POV is one of the things I like to challenge myself with. Each
book I've written has had some sort of POV challenge that I've had to try and
solve. With my first book, THE BEAUTY'S BEAST, my POV challenge was the fact
that the hero spends most of the book as a wolf! I really had to think about
how that would feel, how he would communicate, how other people would interact
with him, etc. My latest WIP, THE TIME POACHERS, is only my second time writing
in first person present tense and yet I want to push myself further and use two POVs instead of the usual one for
first person. Crazy, right? (Wish me luck!)
POV is one of the most important
decisions a writer makes when they set down to write. It's the camera lens you
use to focus the reader's attention, and choosing the wrong POV for your story
can be a disaster. But even once you've chosen your POV you still have to make
sure you exploit it to the fullest extent to develop your characters and serve
your story.
Author bio:
Beth Matthews (a.k.a. E.D. Walker) is
a Southern California girl, born and raised. She’s a total geek, a movie buff,
and a mediocre swing dancer. She lives in sunny SoCal with her fiancé and two
of the neediest housecats on the planet. Veronica
sez: yes, indeed they ARE the neediest cats I ever met.
Twitter:
Facebook:
Website:
thanks for guesting today, Beth - very interesting post!
ReplyDeleteThanks to the Word Whores for having me. :)
DeleteNice post! And I will have to go look for The Beauty's Beast, I am a sucker for fairy tale retellings.
ReplyDelete