By Shirley Jump

You want to know how to make a book that is so incredibly compelling, the reader can’t put it down, and must stay up until two in the morning to see how it ends? It’s simple, if you understand what drives connection between the reader and the character. They want to see your character overcome Deep Emotional Wounds and achieve their greatest dreams.

The problem? Most people (and our characters) don’t want to overcome those Deep Emotional Wounds. They’re quite happy stuck in the status quo, thankyouverymuch. They run into issues when their external goal puts them in opposition with the very thing they don’t want to do. And that’s what gives the character Impossible Choices.

Impossible Choices are fantastic for raising the conflict and tension in your book because the reader is dying to know how it works out. As an author, I write by the seat of my pants a lot of times, and frankly, I’m dying to see how I work it out, too. I’m writing as fast as I can because I can’t wait to get to the end and see if everyone ends up happy.

What’s an example of an impossible choice? Sophie’s Choice—she must choose a child to send to the gas chamber and one to save. It’s a horrible, nightmare choice that drives everything Sophie does when she is working for the Nazis.

However, most of us don’t write Sophie’s Choice books. We don’t have stakes that are that high, but that’s okay. We can have stakes that are perceived to be that high, and that is what will keep the reader reading. To do that, you need to start with one major concept:

Your External Goal, Motivation and Conflict should be in direct opposition to the Internal Goal, Motivation and Conflict.

Wait, what? How does that work? Let’s dissect Edward from Pretty Woman (one of my all-time favorite movies).

Do you see how his External Goal (to have few complications and zero relationships) and his Internal Goal (to be loved as he is) are in direct opposition to each other? (If you don’t, I did some highlighting and a giant arrow 😉) All Edward knows to do is be cold, untouchable, wealthy, and successful. That’s how he has gotten through life and dealt with being “very angry with his father.” He hires a hooker, because she is the epitome of no strings attached.

Then he starts to care about her—and you know what he sees in Vivian? Himself, only in a different form. A woman who has been unloved and rejected. A woman who uses what she has to be successful. A woman who does everything she can to avoid getting close to people (“I do everything. But I don’t kiss on the mouth.”)

She is a kindred soul. She also doesn’t want to get close to him, to believe that this fairy tale could come true. But she sees his vulnerabilities and sees the man he is, literally and figuratively, under his suit. She sees his heart. And she falls in love with him.

Decisions

Over and over again, Edward is forced to decide—go for the jugular or go for love. He blows off work at her insistence, and literally takes off his shoes and tie and sets his briefcase and phone aside (being a normal man). He holds her at night, which opens his heart. He soothes her when she is treated badly. He rushes in as the hero when people are mean to her.

At the critical climax of the movie, Edward has to choose—relationships or money/success. He astounds his team when he chooses to work with the owner of the company he is buying, instead of destroying it. But he lets Vivian go, because he isn’t ready to open his heart yet. What happens then?

He achieves his External Goal. He got through the trip to LA, was successful (in a different way than he thought), and is making money off the deal.

But at what cost?

He has lost the one thing that truly matters to him—a woman who loves him as he is. He realizes what that has cost him, and in a show of love and freedom from his old buttoned-up, straight and narrow persona, he makes a grand, public gesture of love and conquers (sort of) his fear of heights to go get her.

In Pretty Woman, virtually every scene with Edward shows him being forced to choose between his external goal and his deep internal fears and needs. It’s the same with Vivian, but I only dissected Edward here. In your book, try to create a plot that has that same structure of conflicting inner and outer goals.

My advice for learning how to do this? Analyze everything you read and watch. List the external and internal GMC.

Are they in opposition? How did that impact the plot? Your engagement as a reader/viewer? The story overall?

Now go back and do that to your book 😊

About Shirley

Shirley Jump, author of Writing Compelling Fiction, is an award-winning, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today bestselling author who has published more than 80 books in 24 countries. Her most recent books hit #1 in two categories on Amazon, and her Christmas novella hit the USA Today list in November. Her books have received multiple awards and kudos from authors such as Jayne Ann Krentz, who called her books “real romance,” Virginia Kantra, who said, “Shirley Jump packs lots of sweet and plenty of heat in this heartwarming first book of her promising new series,” and Jill Shalvis, who called The Sweetheart Bargain “a fun, heartwarming small town romance that you'll fall in love with."

As the owner of JumpStart Creative Solutions, Shirley also does book building, content editing, ghostwriting, and author coaching. She has spoken all over the world about the power of narrative and how to create compelling books. A former reporter, she has a background in all aspects of writing, from hard news to publicity to fiction. Visit her website at www.ShirleyJump.com or see her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn @ShirleyJump.

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

First Person POV is not automatically deep POV. First person leans heavily on a narrator construct. Once you understand what the narrator voice is, how it’s used, and how to recognize it, you’ll see where first person POV differs from Deep POV.

Learn the rules and then break. Deep POV is not a template or box you need to fit inside, it’s a set of tools for you to use strategically to create effects for the reader.

For many first person POV stories, a few deep POV tools are used to create intimacy and pull readers into the story (remove filter words, remove dialogue tags). But the use of the narrator voice, this assumption of a reader leaning in to listen and watch, adds narrative distance that deep POV aims to remove. Neither is more right or wrong, it’s a stylistic choice.

Let’s look deeper at the main first person POV styles.

First Person Central (Narration)

This is where the I, me, we, or us of the story is both the POV character and the protagonist. The character tells a story as they experience or remember things that happen to them. They “narrate” the story for the reader.

Examples would be: Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood; Moby Dick, Herman Melville; Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte; Water For Elephants, Sara Gruen; The Help, Kathryn Stockett; The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins; Dresden Files, Jim Butcher

First Person Peripheral

This is where the I, me, we, or us of the story (the POV character) is not the protagonist. This POV character is IN the story observing, interacting, etc—but the story is really about the protagonist and the choices, goals, and decisions they make. This construct allows the writer to keep information about the protagonist hidden from the reader, and can also add a built-in voice to summarize, explain, ask questions, etc.

Authors may use a close or limited style with their POV character, but there are examples of omniscient first person peripheral where the POV character is all-knowing.

Close First Person Peripheral examples would be: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee; The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle; Room, Emma Donoghue

Omniscient First Person Peripheral examples would be: The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak; Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold; A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snickets (this also uses third person omniscient)

What Is Deep POV?

Deep POV is where the author/narrator voice is completely missing. Every word on the page (and I mean, every word), comes from or from within the POV character. There’s no external voice to fill in gaps in time, summarize, explain, theorize, look ahead or back. Zip.

The goal is to immerse the reader completely in the POV’s experience of the story, as they live out the story in real time. It’s about how things FEEL, rather than narrating movement, what is seen or heard or wanted.

What Is The Role Of The Narrator Voice?

First Person POV is about who is telling the story, deep POV is about how you tell the story.

Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that’s in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You’ve probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence.

JD Salinger, The Catcher In The Rye

Do you see how the POV character here, teenager Holden Caulfield, is narrating his own story for readers? This is additionally breaking the fourth wall, but this type of narrator voice is allowed in first person POV, it’s a feature.

How This Works in Deep POV

In deep POV, thoughts are written as though the character is alone inside their own head. To deliver this info to the reader, in deep POV, either the character needs a reason to think of it or another character can say it. Maybe the character is in the front passenger seat of a car and they drive past a billboard for Pency Prep. The character thinks about how there’s no escaping this school. Their ads are everywhere. That’s one way deep POV would deliver this information to readers.

We're standing on the deck that's all wooden like the deck of a ship. There's fuzz on it, little bundles. Grandma says it's some kind of pollen from a tree.

"Which one?" I'm staring up at all the differents.

"Can't help you there, I'm afraid."

In Room we knowed what everything was called but in the world there's so much, persons don't even know the names.

― Emma Donoghue, Room

Here, the character is a boy of five years old, narrating his own life. He experiences much of the world for the first time in the novel. There are few filter words, no dialogue tags, which are tools shared with deep POV. But, the character is narrating his life, he assumes a reader is leaning in to listen. Words like ‘knowed’ would tip us off to the narrator voice. Also, the character is telling the reader, summarizing, a conversation he had with another character the reader wasn’t privy to—this is the narrator voice.

In deep POV, time and place setting details, the history/backstory, would need to be delivered without that author voice, and instead through context, subtext, dialogue, etc. This book uses a lot of deep POV techniques really effectively, but there’s also heavy use of this first person narrator construct.

Deep POV Goes Deeper Than You Think It Does

Many will advocate to leave out filter words and dialogue tags (he said/she said) from first person POV to remove narrative distance. Room, Hunger Games, The Help—these all do that really effectively and create an intimate experience for readers. Deep POV aims for the reader to be immersed in the POV character’s experience. It’s a subtle difference, but once you learn to see the differences, deep POV offers a different level of intensity and intimacy.

An Example

Sitting at Prim’s knees, guarding her, is the world’s ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the color of rotting squash. Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Or at least distrusts me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he's a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

This novel is really good at using context and subtext to create setting, tone, backstory—all the things. It’s very economical writing, in that many of these phrases and sentences do more than one job—they convey information, but also emotions, motivation, backstory, etc. But do you see where the narrator voice creeps in?

Katniss here is narrating her backstory with this cat. She assumes someone is leaning in to listen. If this was in deep POV, this would be written as though she was alone in her own head. When alone with our thoughts, we don’t remind ourselves of things we know, we don’t label things, we don’t explain or summarize, or catalogue details.

How This Works in Deep POV

One way someone might use deep POV here is to have Katniss interact with the cat to bring these features to mind instead of cataloguing the details about Buttercup. Maybe she would set the bucket of offal on the floor for the cat, reaching down to touch its one ear and the cat hisses. Maybe she leans down and whispers a promise that she’ll never try to drown it again, and the cat just flicks its tail and glares at her. Then, maybe it walks away from the bucket to guard Prim. Whatever.

Deep POV is a shift in how you tell a story.

Choose the style that will work best for the story you’re telling, the genre conventions you have to work within, and your author voice.

Do you struggle to identify the author/narrator voice in your work?

About Lisa

Lisa Hall-Wilson is a writing teacher and award-winning writer and author. She’s the author of Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers. Her blog, Beyond Basics For Writers, explores all facets of the popular writing style deep point of view and offers practical tips for writers. 

She runs the free Facebook group Going Deeper With Emotions where she shares tips and videos on writing in deep point of view. 

Top Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Kris Maze

Summertime is fun time, but it can also provide useful insights to your writing. I’m planning my next minor road trip close to home (*ahem, looking at you, gas pump) and making the most of these opportunities away from my writing desk. In past posts I’ve included tips about making your writing fresh by taking a writing vacation. In today’s post we will list ways you can take your writing on the road.

Make the most of your time and have fun researching your next novel with these tips.

Organize Your Tools

Old school notebook

One may not have access to all the digital tools you are used to inside a vehicle. Try using good ol' fashioned paper and consider keeping a few of these items near as you travel.

Keep a field notes book or notebook on your person. Have your favorite pencils or pens to capture the ideas as they come. I am a fan of Moleskine notebooks and carry one in my purse. Prepare for many as you experience new sights and scenes from each step of your road trip.

Sticky Notes

I love my sticky notes. Take down mini ideas and keep them in a notebook. Later, when you get back home, organize them and incorporate them into your working novel. What are tiny sized ideas for sticky notes? Here are some I frequently use:

• Working titles
• Poetic devices
• Rhetorical device sentences
• Descriptions of a scene, person, setting on the road
• Quotes from readings
• Dialogue or sayings unique to an area
• Any idea you don’t want to forget!

Digital Tools

Most digital tools can be accessed during your road trip with a little preparation. If you are a fan of OneNote or Evernote, or prefer to type in Word or Google Docs, you can from inside your car. Try the following ideas and dig around your current tools for some of these. You may have them at your fingertips already.

12 volt chargers

Many vehicles have regular plugs for using a standard wall plug for a laptop or other device. Try plugging in your device while the car is running and see if it keeps your battery charged and ready to write.

If your car doesn't have a regular sized outlet you can use, try getting an adaptor. I purchased one that came with a tiny blue case. And now I can pull the laptop in while working on the road in almost any car.

Wi-Fi hotspots

Consider having a hotspot on your phone to connect your laptop or iPad to the internet while on the road. Most phones offer a hotspot option. This could be an add on for as little as $10 per month. Many plans already include it and allow you to remove the service after a month or two. It may work well for you and could be something you use to write anywhere. I now use mine instead of connecting to public Wi-Fi as added security.

Social Media tools

You never know who you may get for an interview, and it is good to be prepared as the old Scouts mantra states. Read through Eldred Bird’s recent Writer’s in the Storm post about how to create your own Mobile Media Kit here, and always capture the moments that will inspire and inform your writing.

Map it

What is a road trip without a map? We may like to wander, but keeping track of the trip will help our writing succeed. Some writers may want the adventure of the open road, not planning the stops in advance. Others want to have the stops as carefully scheduled as they can to avoid stress and to optimize their experience.

Neither are incorrect approaches and both have benefits to your overall enjoyment of the road trip research. Whether you are a road trip pantser or planner, I recommend you keep track of your adventure so you can look back on your research and use it after summer has long passed us into fall.

Pinbox

One product I am trying this summer is Pinbox. This app works with an iPhone but can be shared with Android users. This versatile mapping tool can plan many things from errand trips to locations you have spent with family or friends.

Pinbox allows you to take pictures and notes as you visit to reference later. Another nice feature is to see the distance between each location which could be used for planning the trip. After the trip is over, it could help you write more authentic adventures as you see the trip as it unfolded.

Map Ideas to Enhance Your Writing

Many ways a map can add to your writing include:

Note the distance, time, and topography of the road between locales on your trip. Match them up to your novel.

Topography and Special Features

What special land features are common stopping grounds? What unique aspects of driving through an area stood out to you? What smells, sounds, and general vibe does an area give you?

If you are lucky enough to have someone else driving while you take notes, add these to your writing log between stops. If you are the driver (or like people in my family—are prone to carsickness if you write or read) then make stops and write in between.

Taking time to process each stop can make the setting and special parts of these stops sink in. Allow yourself time and space to absorb the details and get them down on paper. You won’t regret it later when you add them to your work in progress.

Read Other Books on Your Topic

Are there popular books about the area you are visiting? Is where you are going a known part of a novel in your genre? Read these in advance or bring the book along to absorb while taking your road trip.

How is your book like these novels? How will yours be different? What types of information are expected to make your book more interesting? What else could you find out while on the road to add unusual and new ideas to your writing?

In person Research

Find museums

There are many museums across the United States and here is a handy website to help you find the perfect one for your research. Type in a keyword or browse by state or category. The results may be road trip worthy in themselves. There are dedicated museums to ships or banjos or the Underground Railroad to name only a few. So if you want inspiration to pack up - there are interesting places to dive deep into your book research.

Find historical societies

Historical societies are prevalent throughout the world. If you are visiting outside your native country try looking up a local society in the place you are writing about. Many small towns in the United States have historical groups that are run by volunteers. You can find these with a simple search online. Try calling ahead and let them know what you are researching. This could the insights to elevate your novel.

Strike up a conversation at a local diner or shop

Visit parks and talk to the rangers or caretakers for story ideas and background information. Many shop owners are used to tourist traveling through during road trip seasons, They often know the best places to get the real local scoop.

Keep Receipts

Writers are able to deduct a certain amount of costs associated with the business of being a writer. Check with your accountant or tax specialist and see which items could benefit you the most. Potential items could include mileages, overnight stays, entrance fees, materials used to research like books purchased on your topic.

Photography

Take pictures of everything along the way. It records your adventure for future reflection and could save you money on your writing projects. Here are some uses of snapshots or profession level work (if you are lucky enough to have these talents along with writing!)

• Use them in social media. Create posts, tweets, and short videos of where you have been.
• Use them for cover art. Find the perfect backdrop for a novel? An aesthetic that conveys your book's feeling? Use your own photography.
• Use them for websites and personalized backgrounds. Even if you are used to creating with digital sources like Canva.com, using your own pictures adds your own style to your projects.

Be Flexible

Enjoy the trip. The best stories include conflict and problem solving. Most fun road trips include several stories about what doesn’t go well. Keep the messy process of a traveling in mind as fodder for good story telling. As the wheels roll down the road, may your mind be rolling into a fantastic flow of novel writing!

Are you planning a trip? Local or off to fulfil a trip you intended to take but couldn't over the last two years? Let us know your fun plans and tell us whether you plan to simply recharge during this trip or to research for a writing project.

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website.

See her new website under the penname Krissy Knoxx here.

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors.

And occasionally, she knits.