annastan

Last week I looked at how POV affects character, specifically in first person and third person limited narration. Today I wanted to do one last post on point of view, focusing on third person omniscient, specifically involved omniscient POV since detached omniscient is pretty rare these days. (See my post on choosing a POV for an explanation of each.)

In The Lost Conspiracy, Frances Hardinge uses omniscient POV in a slightly different way. For most of the story, we follow Hathin who is our main character. However, the story is also about the world in which Hathin lives and the conflict between its different communities. By going from a third person limited POV to an omniscient one, Hardinge is able to convey this overall world to us while also making us care about Hathin's story. 

In my experience, omniscient POV works exceedingly well in "big" stories, ones that need to be told through more than one person's POV. The narrator is almost like a film director, showing us what we need to see in order to understand the big picture. It's not enough to focus on the general, however. As in any story, we need characters we can care about. Even if we don't get to know them as well as we might in a different POV, we still need to care what happens to them. Shusterman and Hardinge both succeed in this sense; they create larger worlds that make us think, but they also give us characters to root for.

This balance between larger story and individual characters is one of the trickier aspects of omniscient POV. We might love the omniscient narrator's voice, we might be interested in the world, but if we don't care what happens to the characters then the story won't feel complete. This is when high stakes are especially important. In both stories mentioned above, the stakes are exceedingly high for the characters from the very beginning. Even before we know too much about them, we know they're in danger. We read to find out what's going to happen next, and in that process we get to know the characters more and more.

Ultimately, omniscient POV isn't for everyone. It requires keeping track of a lot of different things, and it also means orchestrating a story in such a way that we're never confused about whose head we're in, or which character we're following. It requires precision and clarity and a very wide view of the story. But when done well, omniscient POV can also create a unique and satisfying storytelling experience.

We've been talking a lot about story beginnings in my writing classes this semester. Last week, I had my students read this excerpt on opening scenes from Hooked by Les Edgerton. He makes lots of great points, but the one that really stood out to me was about opening lines.

Spend an awful lot of time on this sentence. In fact, more effort should be expended on your storys first sentence than on any other line in your entire story. No kidding. The first sentence is the first thing the readers will see when they open the door of your manuscript or story. Make sure its a good un! One that will create a strong impression. My own favorite is one I used in my short story The Bad Part of Town, which begins: He was so mean that wherever he was standing became the bad part of town.

The opening line is SO important because it has the power to pull you right into the story. It shouldn't feel gimmicky, but it should make your audience want to keep reading. That's a lot of pressure for a single sentence, but doing it right can really pay off.

-The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

-"If I was going to kill the Prophet," I say, not even keeping my voice low, "I'd do it in Africa."

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

-The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of my car.

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

-It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport."

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

-We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.

Feed by MT Anderson

You know when you've been working on a WIP for so long that you start to wonder if it's even any good? That's where I am with my NaNo book right now, and that's a big sign that I need a break from it. Once I finish this round of revisions, I'll send it off to another beta reader and happily work on something else for a little while. Then when my NaNo book comes back to me again, I'll be excited to see it and ready to get back to making it better. (Or at least that's the plan.)

How are the rest of you doing with your WIPs? Anyone else in need of a mini WIP vacation?

Last week I did a breakdown of the most popular types of POV and stressed how important the right POV is to a story. Today, I wanted to elaborate on that a bit more, specifically on how POV affects character.

First Person

You may have noticed that a good percentage of YA is written in first person. I think this is true for a number of reasons. We tend to see adolescence as a very self-centered time, so it makes sense that characters would want to tell their stories in their own voices. Also, having a teenage character telling you what "really" happened makes the story feel that much more real and relatable.

First person can make us feel like we really know the character. We experience the story with her, and she tells us her jokes and her intimate thoughts. Once we feel connected to her, we'll root for her to achieve her goals, and we'll want everything to work out for her in the end.

The tricky thing with first person, however, is that we need to like, or at least sympathize with, the main character. If we find her whiny or hard to relate to, it might turn us off. That's why some characters are better told about in third person. Emma-Jean Lazarus is a great example of this. She's a very intense character, to the point where it might be distancing to be directly in her head all the time. But told in third person limited, her personality comes across in a sympathetic (and hilarious) way.

Third Person Limited

Although third person limited can function very similarly to first person, you don't quite get that same connection to the character. You're still aware that there's a narrator in between you and the main character, even if that narrator is practically invisible. As I said above, this psychic distance can be a bit of a relief when the main character is particularly strong. Can you imagine if Sherlock Holmes were to tell his own story, for example? I can guarantee we'd feel a tad lost in his first person narration.

One potential difficulty of third person limited is finding the right balance between internal thought and narration. In first person, you can get away with more "telling" without it being obvious. But in third person limited, too much emphasis on what the characters are thinking and feeling can feel overdone. With third person limited, often less is more. When in doubt, remember to show through action!

All right, I think that's enough POV analysis for today. But I don't think I'm quite done with this topic yet. I've read a couple of books recently that used third person omniscient very well, so I'll discuss those in an upcoming post. Happy writing!

I'm veering from my regular blogging schedule for a fun announcement. This past week, the lovely Heather from Edited to Within an Inch of my Life gave my blog the Silver Lining Award. Thanks Heather! Now it's my turn to pick five favorite blogs and bestow this award on them. Decisions, decisions! All right, I choose:

As I've been reading an ARC of Carrie Ryan's The Dead-Tossed Waves, sequel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, it's been making me think a lot about what Donald Maass stresses in Writing the Breakout Novel: the need to create tension on every page.

The constant threat and presence of danger makes every scene filled with tension, even those without any major action, because we know things are bound to go very wrong very soon. It's interesting how creating such a menacing world automatically creates tension, even before we know anything about our main characters. We can't help but read on, with one eye closed, knowing things are going to get pretty scary pretty soon.

Choosing the best POV for your story is an important step, but often people's definitions of the different POVs vary so it can be tricky to know what you're choosing and why you're choosing it. Here's my attempt at a simple breakdown of the most popular types of POV, with the pros and cons of each.

First Person

The story is told directly by a character (I) who is one of its central figures, someone who is present in all the key scenes. We experience the story as the narrator experiences (or experienced) it, and are privy to the narrator's intimate thoughts. We are limited, however, by what the narrator knows or doesn't know. If there is information the narrator has but doesn't share with us, there's a good chance we'll feel betrayed.

I looked at the elephant, wondering why it was so tiny.

Second Person

The story is told by a voice that appears to be speaking to another character or to the reader (you). While the viewpoint can function much like first person, it is more difficult to convey the narrator's thoughts and feelings, especially if they're nothing like the reader's thoughts and feelings. Unlike first person, second person can make you feel distanced from a narrator (which can be both a pro and a con). When used sparingly, this can be a surprising and effect POV.

You looked at the elephant, wondering why it was so tiny.

Third Person Limited

The story is told in third person (she or he) and features a character whose thoughts are known to us. Overall, this is the least intrusive viewpoint because it can be nearly invisible to the reader. Like first person, third person limited can show us a character's intimate thoughts, but it also keeps us within the bounds of what the main character knows. Generally, a third person limited narrator can withhold information more easily than a first person narrator.

Sara looked at the elephant, wondering why it was so tiny." OR "Sara looked at the elephant. Why is it so tiny, she wondered.

Third Person Omniscient Involved

The story is told from a viewpoint that may shift throughout the story. The narrator may show us the internal thoughts of any of the characters as well as his/her own. Often, the narrator's voice is stronger than that of any of the characters, and we get the sense that the narrator is leading us through the story, showing us what we need to know. This viewpoint often keeps us at a distance from the characters, but it can be an effective way of underlining the themes and ideas of a story.

Sara looked at the elephant, wondering why it was so tiny. The elephant looked at the girl, wondering why she was so big. Neither saw the lion, eyeing them both hungrily.

Third Person Omniscient Detached

The story is told from a viewpoint that is uninvolved in the story. We see only the actions of the characters but are never privy to their internal thoughts. We observe the events of the story and are forced to guess at the characters' motivations . As in fairy tales, characters are defined by their actions. There is no psychology and we must draw our own conclusions about the story.

Sara looked at the tiny elephant.

Ultimately, in choosing POV, the writer needs to decide how much the reader should know about the characters, about the story, and about the narrator. It's also important to find the best POV for your type of story. For example, putting a story in first person but giving us none of the character's internal thoughts most likely won't work; the story would probably be more effectively told in third person.

For more detailed information on POV (including some not outlined here), I recommend Ursula Le Guin's Steering the Craft or Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint.

In unrelated news, make sure to check out this great interview with Kristin Cashore on The Enchanted Inkpot!

Over the weekend, the husband and I headed down to Newport, RI for a change of scenery. Winter is actually a good time to visit this adorable town since it's not nearly as busy as usual, and there's still a lot to see and do. We'd already gone to the most famous mansion during our last visit, The Breakers, so we decided to see another estate this time: The Elms.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photographs inside, but you can see from the outside how beautiful this mansion is. It was modeled after a French estate and is an interesting blend of classic design and modern technology. But what I found the most enchanting about this mansion was its somewhat odd history.

In the early 1960s, the family could no longer keep up the mansion and decided to auction off all the furniture and artwork. However, much of it was never actually taken off the property. That's because many of the paintings on the walls and ceilings were practically cemented in place, so the new buyers couldn't figure out a way to remove them. And a giant, marble table in the upstairs hall was sold but also left behind because no one could figure out how to get it out of the house (it weighs literally tons and was originally brought into the house in pieces).

The designer of the mansion was a symmetry nut, so there are many fake doors throughout the house to make the rooms seem symmetrical and balanced. Can you imagine living in a house where every-other door is fake? I know I'd constantly be pulling on faux doorknobs and wondering why they weren't working. The service entrance to the mansion was covered entirely with wisteria, so when it was in bloom, it was possible to make a delivery to the Elms and never actually see the house. How's that for mysterious?

The mansion was actually scheduled to be torn down in the early 1960s; the land had been sold to a developer and was going to be the site of a strip mall or a housing development. Luckily, the Newport Preservation Society stepped in and bought the property, mere weeks before the wrecking ball was scheduled to do its work.

After our tour, the husband and I left utterly amused by the strange history of this place. Knowing all the quirky goings on of the mansion gave it a personality that added to its lovely decor. In fact, it seemed like the perfect setting for a book because the house itself is a character. As we were wandering the grounds, I couldn't help thinking how much more vivid places become when you know something about their history. The more unexpected and offbeat that history is, the more memorable the place becomes. Something to think about in writing, isn't it?

When I first started this website, I decided to try blogging five days a week. Amazingly, it was pretty easy to get into the routine of posting something every day (apparently I can babble on a wide range of topics). But while it's been a lot of fun blogging so much, it's also started taking time away from my writing. And now that the semester is starting up again, I've been feeling a bit like this:

So I've decided the responsible thing to do is cut down on my blogging just a bit. Instead of daily posts, I'm going to try a Mon, Wed, Fri schedule. After all, it is about quality over quantity, right? I'm hoping spending a bit less time on the interwebs will help me squeeze in some other important activities such as writing, reading, and (gasp!) housecleaning. Otherwise the dust bunnies will learn to type soon, and I'm afraid of what might happen if they get their hands on my WIP.

Have a great weekend!

As I was looking for an excerpt from a book the other day, I found something pretty interesting. HarperCollins has a new "Book Browse" feature on its website that allows you to read several chapters of certain books online.

Being able to browse inside books is nothing new, of course, but this was the first time I've seen such long excerpts available on a publisher's website. For example, you can read the first 60 pages (!!) of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book online.

Have any of you been influenced by online excerpts of books? Are you wary of having so much of a writer's work available on the internet?

Thank you to everyone who entered the New Year Book Giveaway! It was great to hear about all the things you were looking forward to in 2010 (not surprisingly, most of them were reading or writing related). I wish I could give each one of you a free book or two, but unfortunately there can only be two winners.

All right, according to my trusty random number generator, the Grand Prize Winner is:

And the Runner-Up Prize Winner is:

Jamie B

Congratulations!! I'll be sending emails to both of you with further instructions.

For those who didn't win, don't despair. I'll be having another contest sometime in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, happy reading!

The New Year Book Giveaway has officially come to an end! Thank you to everyone who entered. I plan on crunching the numbers later today and posting the winners tomorrow, so make sure to check back!

In other news, I've been making some progress with my enormous reading list recently, and I wanted to highlight a few of the books I've really enjoyed in the past few weeks. (Note: All synopses are from the Powell's Books website.)

Unwind

Synopsis: In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them. In this work, "Boston Globe/Horn Book" Award-winner Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life--not just where life begins and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive.

The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge

Synopsis: Two young sisters who live on a beautiful island soon become caught in a deadly web of deceit. Neither girl is exactly what she pretends to be, and when they are drawn into a sinister conspiracy, one discovers that the only thing more dangerous than the secret she hides is the truth she must uncover.

Known as Gullstruck Island in the UK, this was a complex yet accessible tale of a fascinating land very different from our own. I haven't read much high fantasy recently, so this was a nice trip back into the genre. The world was so well-crafted and the characters so fascinating that I enjoyed every page. There were sentences I had to go back and reread because they were just perfectly phrased. I love when writing is so strong that it seems absolutely effortless.
 

Synopsis: Ever since her mother died and her father lost his shoemaking skills, Fortunata has survived by telling fake fortunes. But when shes tricked into telling a grand fortune for a prince, she is faced with the impossible task of fulfilling her wild prophecyor her father will be put to death.

I could be a bit biased since I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely author over the weekend, but I really enjoyed this book. The main character's plight drew me right in, and its fairy tale feel made the story even more enjoyable. I loved the strong-willed, clever heroine, and I couldn't wait to see how she was going to get herself out of her predicament. This is exactly the type of book that would have appealed to me when I was about ten, but my adult self had a great time reading it too.

What have been some of your recent good reads?

First, just a reminder that today is your last chance to enter my New Year Book Giveaway! If you want to win some free books, you only have until midnight tonight to enter!

Also, check out the fancy new search feature on the right-hand side of the page. A big thank you to my husband for making it happen.

Okay, now on to my recap of this weekend. I'd never been to ALA (Midwinter or otherwise) before, so I was in for a treat. There were books, and people excited about books, and more books, books, books! I was tempted to go crazy and grab every ARC I could get my hands on, but in the end I exercised extreme self-control. I did get one ARC, though, that made me jump up and down:

The best part of the day was getting to see people I'd only "met" online. I went out to lunch with a few members of the Enchanted Inkpot (aka Inkies). We went to the Legal Test Kitchen (which was great!) and chatted about everything from writing, to reading, to rabbits. Of course, I forgot to bring a camera, but here's a picture I shamelessly stole from Nandini's blog:

From left to right, that's me, librarian Sarah Chessman, YA/MG author Deva Fagan, YA author Ellen Booream, YA author Alisa Libby, YA author Marissa Doyle, and hopefully-soon-to-be-published Nandini Bajpai. For more pictures, check out Nandini's ALA post.

After wandering the exhibits and running into some of my lovely former students, I headed over to the ALA Tweetup. It was so much fun to finally meet the people behind the tweets. How often do you get to be completely surrounded by folks whose interests are almost identical to your own? It was pretty amazing.

At the end of the evening, I went home exhausted, excited, and a bit overwhelmed. There are SO many books out there, and more come out every month. It's impossible to read all the ones that interest you; there aren't enough hours in the day. Also, it's humbling to be reminded of how difficult it is to make your work stand out once it's published. It doesn't necessarily mean your book isn't amazing; there's just a lot of competition out there. I suppose that means you have to try that much harder, and to keep writing for no other reason than because you simply love doing it.

This weekend, Boston is being taken over by ALA, and I'm excited to join in the fun. I'll be meeting some fellow Enchanted Inkpot members, checking out the exhibits, and attending a Kid/YA Lit "Tweetup." It's promising to be a whirlwind of activity, so I'll be sure to report back next week!

In other news, I'm excited to announce my first ever blog interview! The lovely Heather at Edited to Within an Inch of my Life was kind enough to interview me for her Friday Feature. I got a chance to talk about all sorts of important things like writing, blogging, and tea-drinking. Please take a minute to stop by.

Have a great weekend!

Since I managed to crash two computers yesterday, I'm going to take a hint and stay away from technology as much as I can today. But before I go, I want to send you over to the Enchanted Inkpot, where I interviewed a middle school librarian on the fantasy reading trends in her school. As you'll see, her students tend to read the same old series over and over, and she's asking for your suggestions on other titles to recommend. Why not head over and help her out?

We all have times when our motivation is somewhat lacking. On days when it's cold and dark, it's tempting to curl up into a little ball and drink hot cocoa instead of writing (or doing something else productive). Luckily, there are tricks to staying motivated, even on the laziest of days.

1. Track Progress Visually - This is how Jerry Seinfeld motivated himself to write every single day during his "Seinfeld" days. He took a year-at-a-glance calendar and hung it on his wall. Every time he wrote, he made a large X on the calendar. When he wrote day after day, his marks eventually formed a chain. He pushed himself to keep going so as not to break the chain.

2. End on an Up-Note - You've heard of leaving your readers wanting more? Well, you can also leave yourself wanting more as you write. According to this post on The Second Act, Hemingway had some specific advice for staying productive: "The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day...you will never be stuck."

3. Focus on the Small Things - This is the way I try to approach writing (or pretty much anything else) when I'm feeling unproductive. I focus on accomplishing something manageable, like writing one scene or writing for a half hour. I find that often if I can get myself to focus on just one small thing, I keep going and get more done than I set out to. But even if I only write that one scene, that's still a few pages I didn't have before.

What techniques do you use to keep yourself motivated?

Consider researching the class structure, daily customs, clothing, food, art, music, and religious beliefs of your character, or in general for the time period and region. In researching The King's Rose, a novel about Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII, I learned a lot about the mentality of the Tudor court just by learning how they dressed, ate, and their daily customs. What was your character's childhood like? What is her daily life? All of these details will inform your character. You won't be able to use every detail, but those you do use will enrich the text.

Some writers do a lot of research before they begin writing. While this makes perfect sense, I'm never that patient. Experimenting with the character's voice is the best part, so why wait? Try a writing exercise: describe your character doing something she enjoys, like eating a piece of fruit or riding a horse or climbing a mountain. Consider her daily routine. Have your character describe the room she's standing in. She may be standing in the middle of a grand castle, but this could be commonplace to her if she's 16th century royalty. She wouldn't be like us, poring over the tapestries and snapping photos.

Find a way to connect with this character, to make her feel human to you. That doesn't mean that she has to be just like you. She could be difficult, even despicable. But if you find some way to connect with her, to empathize with her, then that will help you to see the world through her eyes. You don't have to agree with all of her actions, but it will help you imagine her logic. What are her faults, her weaknesses, her desires? What is important to her? What does she want? These desires are what will help drive her story forward, and keep it vital and interesting for your reader if your main character has a lot at stake.

There are a lot of other important detailsa good historical chronology, for examplethat I haven't discussed here. I generally start with what I find fun and inspiring. That's the best way for me to get motivated about a project, and I develop the character's voice as I learn more about her in my research.

Alisa Libby is the author of two YA novels, The Blood Confession and The King's Rose. To learn more about Alisa and her books, visit her at alisalibby.com. Be on the lookout for an upcoming interview with Alisa!

Thanks to everyone who took part in and commented on the poll last Friday! It was fascinating to hear all the different views about posting your WIPs online. As I expected, there wasn't one clear consensus, but there were definitely some interesting trends.

Here are the results:

Though putting together the poll was fun, my favorite part was reading everyone's comments. Clearly this isn't an issue with one right answer. Here's an overview of the pros and cons people mentioned.

Pros

-The social aspect of sharing your work. As John pointed out, sharing parts of your WIP can get people excited about your writing while you're working toward the goal of publication. Cheryl gave a great example of this: reading her friend's NaNo excerpts made her excited to read the final version of the book.

-It can help you get some feedback on your writing. John did point out that he got more encouragement than useful feedback on improving his work, but encouragement is always nice, right?

-Potential exposure to agents/editors. As Beth mentioned in the comments, a sample chapter on her website supplemented her query letter and helped her land an agent. (Yay!)

Cons

-Revealing too much. As Andrea pointed out, there are some people who "firmly believe in Julia Camerons zip-the-lip theory" about sharing WIPs.

-Danger of "self-publishing." As Cynthia noted, shorter projects such as picture books pretty much can't be shared online without it being considered a form of publishing. Writers whose work is longer have a bit more freedom in this department.

And that's about it. Thanks again for all your thoughtful comments! It certainly made me think more about the different reasons for and against sharing work online. Putting your work up for others to see can certainly help spread the word about your writing and help you connect with potential readers, but it's important to also be aware of the possible negative impact that sharing your work can have, especially if you hope to have it published someday.

Make sure to stop by tomorrow for a guest post on writing historical fiction by YA author Alisa Libby.

A friend and I were having a discussion about writers who share parts of their works-in-progress online, not on critique websites and the like, but on their personal blogs and websites. While we both were amazed by the bravery of said writers who can put teasers and excerpts online for all to see, neither one of us could imagine doing it ourselves.

We decided it scared us on two levels. First, it takes real guts to put your work online for others to read when it hasn't gone through extensive editing. It's showing your writing in its raw form, which can often be far from perfect. Second, if you post an excerpt of a WIP, there's no telling how much that excerpt might change over time. In fact, that part of the story might wind up being completely cut out in a later version. (And, I suppose, there is also the fear of someone stealing your work.)

I guess I've always been a bit on the shy side when it comes to having people read my work. I can also be hesitant to share too much about a premise of a WIP because I'm afraid it might change. Even on this website I wasn't sure if I should put descriptions of my manuscripts under the "Writing" section. (In fact, one of the summaries that's there is actually pretty different from what the story is currently about.)

I know there are people who feel very differently about this subject, so I thought it would be fun to put together a quick poll and see what the general consensus is about sharing WIPs online. So, if you would, please take a minute to go to the original post and fill it out. I'm interested to hear your thoughts!