Writers in the Storm

by Lori Brown

Hypothesis: an idea or theory that is not proven but that leads to further study or discussion

merriam-webster.com

My tenuous relationship with Deep POV went like this:

Q: What's Deep POV?

A: I can't tell you, but I know it when I see it.

This worked well enough—until it didn't.  So I got busy trying to get to the bottom of it.  Nail it down. Carve it in stone. Cement it immovably amid the legendary constancy of the English language.

I'll wait till you stop laughing.

You can sort of follow the progress of this endeavor by the history of the titles I tried out:

• A brief definition of Deep POV
• Deep POV: Cracking the Code
• Deep POV: Cracking the Code. Maybe
• Deep POV: Legend, or Myth? [wait, those are the same thing...]
• Deep POV: Is it really a thing?

as well as some of the discarded verbiage I left behind along the way (see strikeouts).

Deep POV is all about eliminating reducing managing distance between the reader and the story, and immersing the reader in the story. I knew intuitively how to use Deep POV (see "I know it when I see it," above), but when one of my editing clients needed me to explain it, I realized I didn't have a clear enough understanding of it to define it universally, without resorting to customized examples every time. I wanted something that would travel well from one manuscript to another. Something I wouldn't have to re-create for each author or student I worked with.

What I found—and didn't find

The struggle is real: nearly every website I visited had a slightly—or sometimes not so slightly—different definition, and Deep POV has yet to be covered by the likes of The Chicago Manual of Style or merriam-webster.com.

So you can see my dilemma. Someone had to do it. (Oh, the chutzpah.) (In my defense, I had significant prodding from a writer and publisher whose idea this column was in the first place.)

So, clothed in nothing but sheer, naked hubris, I tackled this slippery eel of a question: What exactly is Deep POV?

Disclaimer

This is a work in progress. It speaks to a specific situation—and maybe to others. But I began where my client needed help—sussing out what constitutes Deep POV and how it relates to third-person limited POV, with a specific focus on internal dialogue.

After reading a lot of online definitions of Deep POV, I came to a realization: I was looking at it wrong. I was thinking of Deep POV in terms of internal dialogue alone.

Math and logic have a baby and name it Literature

The fog began to clear a little after that. Let the record show, hand to God, that I got there using math. (Don't run away yet.)

I took what I was thinking and turned it into an equation. (And you thought that if you became a writer, you'd never need to use algebra again.) Here was my first hypothesis:

• third-person limited POV + Deep POV = Deep POV
• third-person limited POV + Deep POV – Deep POV = Deep POV – Deep POV
  (Stay with me; we're just keeping both sides of the equation balanced.)
• ∴ third-person limited POV = 0

Highly illogical. Thank you, Dr. Spock. My hypothesis was disproven.

So I tried this hypothesis instead:

• third-person limited + inner dialogue = Deeper POV 

And the lights came on. I'd been crediting a literary device (internal dialogue) as the sole alchemy that magically turned one point of view into the gold of another, and mentally equating the two—internal dialogue and Deep POV—as essentially one thing. But it was adding the literary device of internal dialogue to an existing point of view that took the reader deeper into experiencing the story.

So, I had gotten this far in organizing my thoughts, most of which are obvious, but bear with me; I was fighting my way out of the deep underbrush here. I needed visuals.

• Third-person limited* is a Point of View (POV).
• Internal dialogue** is a literary device.
• Using both in a story creates a deeper variant of third-person limited POV.

What I was actually looking at was the convergence of one point of view with a literary device that made it deeper, thicker, like cornstarch thickens broth and turns it into gravy.

So far, so good. BUT, for those of you holding your breath or yelling at your computer that I'm just wrong, wrong, WRONG, and I wouldn't blame you at this juncture, here it is:

My hypothesis was much too limited. I needed a new hypothesis—and a fresh perspective.

What if …

What if, instead of a specific destination you arrive at, a coordinate on a map you can GPS your way to, something you can plot on a graph, Deep POV is something fluid? Something that can move at will, penetrating its environment like a mist? And what if this mist drifts in and out of that environment, morphing through infinite degrees of intensity, from a thin veil to a heavy fog?

This is the new conclusion I came to: Deep POV is an enigma. Fluid and changeable, as hard to grasp as a fistful of fog, and just as hard to measure accurately…but you know it when you see it.

There are many varying degrees of Deep POV.

And you, the author, get to manage them.

Viewpoints and tenses and devices, oh my

I had been looking at only a narrow segment of Deep POV, one that utilizes internal dialogue, taking readers inside your characters' minds to live, as closely as possible, their experience. And it's a powerful device, the rules of which are better left for another day.

But it's not the only POV or literary device that can bring the reader closer, deeper into the story. Look at this short (and not exhaustive) list of things that can also do that:

• First person can bring the reader into a story and add or remove distance, depending on what the story needs at any given point.
• Present tense can establish an immediacy that brings the reader deeper into the character's experience.
• The narrator in third-person limited POV brings a level of closeness as the narrator paraphrases a character's thoughts.
• Visceral responses, subtext of varying kinds, body language can all enhance closeness for the reader.

All these things and more create an ambience, a mood, an attitude. I am no longer even sure that Deep POV is best described as a POV.

I am increasingly convinced that Deep POV is more a state of mind. Multiple devices can bring readers closer to what a character is thinking, feeling, experiencing, and thus bring the reader deeper into the story—at a level that you, the author, can manipulate with increasing skill as you use it. You can bring the reader only as far into the story as you want them to be, at any point in your story, as it serves your purpose.

Lewis and Clark did not find a rock-solid definition of Deep POV, and neither did I

We humans love our certainties. They give us absolutes we can cling to, boundaries that are well-defined, the perceived comfort of a solid foundation to stand on and know that it won't change or give way. They feel safe. But life so often isn't like that. The world—and our writing—opens up when we embrace mystery. While some rules—okay, lots of rules (I'm looking at you, Chicago Manual of Style)—are necessary to make writing readable and comprehensible, some things are open to broad interpretation. And we should be delighted to have that freedom, to develop and use our intuition and imagination, and to discover new ways of managing closeness in our work.

You will find that some things you try won't work. Others will delight you. And yes, there are guidelines for making Deep POV work correctly—but not enough room in this column to go there. The more you work with it, the sharper that skill will become. And your writing will be the better for it.

My final hypothesis?

When we embrace the mystery that is Deep POV, exploring its depths and testing its limits, we expand our horizons, deepen our writing's dimensions, and create for our readers an adventure worth getting lost in.

You can test this hypothesis every time you write.

The proof is up to you.

How have you incorporated/managed closeness in your writing? Please share in the comments below.

*third-person limited POV: a.k.a. close third POV

**internal dialogue: a.k.a. inner monologue, inner dialogue, inner thought, inner voice, internal discourse, unspoken discourse, internal monologue,  and maybe more. Small wonder grammar sends people screaming out into the night.

About Lori

Lori has been a professional editor for over twenty years. She firmly believes that good writing can—and does—change the world, and that good editing and good writing are inseparable. She is a fierce defender of the Oxford comma and is adamant about preserving an author's voice and intent. 

Lori's work and life run on intuition (and CMOS) and the conviction that artists are our most influential prophets. She conducts editing workshops for Lawson Writers Academy and is the owner and CEO of Grammarwitch LLC, where she edits books and offers book coaching.

Connect with Lori on her website: Grammarwitchllc.com

by Joseph Lallo, @jrlallo

There are few more liberating genres than science fiction. Unfettered by petty limitations like technology or the laws of physics, a sci-fi setting can be crafted to suit the whims of the storyteller and the needs of the story. But anyone who has consumed more than a few pieces of sci-fi literature can tell you that the limitless potential of a sci-fi setting can quickly spiral out of control if care isn’t taken to craft it with depth and consistency.

Let’s go through a quick crash course on how to build a sturdy foundation for your sci-fi story.

Hard Sci-fi vs Soft Sci-fi

A good place to start when crafting your setting is the simple question of how hard or soft you want your sci-fi to be.

Hard Sci-Fi

For the uninitiated, Hard Sci-Fi refers to science fiction with firm roots in reality as we understand it now. There’s still plenty of fiction in a setting like this, but the science is as near to fact as the author can manage. The Martian, for example, is a rock-hard sci-fi story. Everything from the launch date of a Mars mission to the nitty-gritty of orbital mechanics is mapped out with mathematical detail to find the intersection of the realities of science and the requirements of drama.

Hard Sci-Fi comes with a lot of benefits.

First and foremost, the more realistic underpinnings of the setting will make for a world far more familiar to the readers. The technology is likely to look and feel like something that exists in the real world. Even when the technology is futuristic, the reader will generally be able to feel the evolutionary connection to things they work and play with every day. It also takes some of the world-building pressure off the author’s shoulders, as a big hunk of your story bible can be found in science textbooks.

However, if its concrete basis in fact is the greatest strength of hard sci-fi, it is also its greatest weakness. Hard sci-fi is a version of science fiction that you can get wrong. And because hard sci-fi fans tend to be science buffs, chances are very good you’ll hear about it if you forgot to carry a one on that power to mass calculation. This means you’ll be doing loads of homework to get things to align correctly, and bending reality to suit your narrative can become a bit of a puzzle, teasing the laws of physics into just the right configuration to get your characters where they need to go.

Hard sci-fi also is much more likely to feel dated.

Basing it on known and understood scientific principles favors setting it in a near future. This means that as science marches on, it could trample all over your speculative technology by surpassing it in a fraction of the time you’d predicted. Alternately, you could extrapolate your future tech on a theory that could be abandoned or disproved, retroactively making your hard sci-fi much softer than you’d intended.

Soft Sci-Fi

That brings us to soft sci-fi. In short, this is sci-fi where you get to fill in the gaps between what we can do and what you want to do with physics-defying mechanisms of your own concoction. Here’s where you get things like warp drive, bionics, and assorted other forms of applied phlebotinum. Nothing is off the table, so long as you can assemble enough technobabble to convince your audience that it’s plausible within the setting.

The assets of a soft sci-fi setting are clear.

The entire setting can be a playground for your imagination. You never have to worry about a desired plot becoming impossible. Soft sci-fi is where you get space operas of magnificent scope and unbridled adventure. It gives the writer a full palette of colors to paint their masterpiece, rather than simply those offered by Newton and Einstein. It’s what many people think of when they think of science fiction.

There is a dark side to soft sci-fi, however.

Most often, it comes when a writer fails to realize that “new rules” does not mean “no rules.” A soft sci-fi writer should, ideally, be creating a universe with its own laws of physics. Sure, they allow for things like time travel or faster than light travel, but the mechanisms that allow these divergences from our reality must be consistent and believable. If exceeding the speed of light requires a Carpinelli Drive, don’t have someone crossing the galaxy in six minutes using a standard rocket unless you’ve got some really compelling technobabble to justify it.

Taking away all limitations or changing the rules at the drop of a hat will confuse and frustrate readers. In the worst case, this could completely defuse any attempts at creating tension or stakes. Why should we worry if the heroes will reach the imperiled planet in time to save the day if you’ve already established spaceships don’t have to follow their own rules?

Hard Sci-Fi or Soft Si-Fi?

So how should you handle this aspect of your story?

If you are planning hard sci-fi, do your research, and craft a plot that can be exciting and attainable within the parameters we all live in today. If you extend beyond current technology, make sure to leave the trail of breadcrumbs back to the scientific principles that would facilitate it.

If you’re doing soft sci-fi, pick a handful of limitations you’re hoping to break, define the means that those limits are broken, and stick to them. A soft sci-fi book is often just a hard sci-fi book for a different version of science. And always remember that hard and soft aren’t two positions on a switch, they’re two ends of a spectrum, and you’re free to slide anywhere in that spectrum you like, provided your readers know where you stand.

Culture

Regardless of the firmness of your science, you’re probably going to be spending a fair amount of time crafting a brand new culture. That culture may be a version of humanity sculpted by thousands of years of alternate history. Perhaps it’s an alien race with little resemblance at all to anything on earth.

Either way, you’ll need to define this strange new world and its inhabitants. When you do, keep in mind that a culture should be a whole culture, not just the convenient chunk of one that fits the shape of the story beat.

What do I mean by this?

Let’s say you craft an alien culture called the Plorps who are the villains of your tale. For the purposes of the book, they’ll be war-like, physically intimidating, and deathly allergic to ammonia. Great. What else? Do they have a religion? What sort of foods do they like? Does their world have music? Do they play games? What is Plorpian literature like?

Sci-fi is littered with single-purpose alien races, whole planets or empires defined entirely, exclusively, and coincidentally by the exact assortment of traits necessary to get your story across the finish line. But great sci-fi avoids making these races feel like cardboard cutouts by sprinkling in little elements that show a history and culture that extends beyond what we see on the page.

To be sure, no one is asking you to dump chapter-long lessons on the founding fathers of Plorpian culture or have a Plorpian birthday celebration interrupt a space battle. But defining these things for yourself, and seasoning your writings with artifacts of them, will break down the rigid walls of your story and give readers the feeling that it has untold stories around every corner. It will make your world feel more complete, and things that are complete, no matter how fantastic, also feel more real.

Philosophy

One of the key elements of a sci-fi setting, even if it isn’t always apparent, is the philosophy of that setting. We’re not talking about Plorpian solipsism that disregards any events not witnessed by the supreme chancellor. We’re talking about your philosophy, and the way it will shape the setting.

There are a thousand different flavors, but most boil down to cynicism versus optimism.

Whether you’re writing about a distant future, an alien world, or an alternate history, the root of what you’re doing is imaging a different world. And a key aspect of any world is how it got the way it is and why. What are the driving forces of the world?

Optimistic sci-fi often posits a world where the greatest challenges of existence have been overcome.

Food is no longer scarce. We’ve solved pollution. Energy is abundant. Poverty is a thing of the past. The science, in your fiction, was the key that unlocked the shackles of its society. Such stories can be soaring and uplifting, depicting a world that is or could soon be a utopia. It could be aspirational, inspirational and, if you’re not careful, dull as dishwater.

An optimistic setting must always keep just enough darkness and malevolence to provide dramatic tension. Similarly, it must take care not to thump the readers in the head with the overwhelming ‘correctness’ and ‘superiority’ of the people in the setting. Things should be good, happy, comfortable, but still interesting and challenging, lest we roll right past the border of utopia and end up in a dystopia.

Cynical philosophies thrive on dystopias.

Corporate futures where everything from public utilities to the armed forces have fast food logos and profit motives. Post-apocalyptic nightmares where humanity has regressed to savagery to survive. Worlds so ravaged by the darker aspects of societies and psyches that a glimmer of hope and joy can be a rare and fleeting thing.

A cynical world lends itself quite well to grim, gritty stories. Villains are easy to find, and heroes can be just as cutthroat. Such stories often feel more ‘realistic’ and ‘mature’ than their more upbeat counterparts. But stories that take this route can wear on the reader. It becomes easy to rob the story of tension not because the threat isn’t real, but because the hope isn’t real. Readers could lose empathy for heroes with too much blood on their hands, or become worlds that seem to lack the chance for redemption.

Just as with hard and soft sci-fi, one need not choose either optimism or cynicism to the exclusion of the other. Most often a healthy balance makes for the best story. When choosing to focus more closely on the extremes, just remember that an optimistic world must have enough flaws to be in need of saving, and a cynical world must have enough virtues to be worth saving.

Conclusion

Science Fiction is a thrilling genre, perfect for an author eager to craft a world from whole cloth. Stories can be told in sci-fi that no other genre could facilitate. But for a story to have impact, it needs substance. For characters to move the reader, they must feel like they belong.

You’re free to make the rules, define the culture, and set the tone. But be sure to craft each of them with purpose. You’re setting the stage for your actors to perform upon.

Have you written a sci-fi? Was it hard or soft? If you could create a sci-fi world with only one new piece of technology, what would your new technology be (and why)? Please share your stories with us down in the comments!

About Joseph

Joseph Lallo was slow to consider himself an author, even after writing several novels. Educated at NJIT, where he earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering, the world of Information Technology is where most of his bills were paid until Sept of 2014 when he finally became a full-time author. He has written dozens of novels, and novellas, including the international bestseller The Book of Deacon and the critically acclaimed Free-Wrench series.

In addition to writing, he helps run the Six Figure Authors podcast with Lindsay Buroker and Andrea Pearson. Past ventures have included the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing podcast and BrainLazy.com, and back burner projects include Weird Nothing with Adam J. Hall. He made his home in Bayonne, NJ, where he lived all of his life until the success of his books allowed him to buy a home in Colonia, NJ.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Wattpad

Top Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

by Karen Debonis

Over twenty years ago, when I decided to write a memoir, I knew next to nothing about creative writing. But I had a story to tell—the tale of my eleven-year-old son’s diagnosis with a brain tumor. After enough friends told me, “You should write a book,” I decided to dive in.

I’d already written a master’s thesis, a health education curriculum, public service announcements, and business letters. How hard could it be to write a memoir?

(I’m chuckling with you.)

I started at the very beginning; I’d heard it was a very good place to start.

My first chapter focused on my upbringing so readers would understand how I came to be the insecure mother and conflict-averse woman I was. The next chapter told about meeting and marrying my husband. Chapter three began with my high-risk delivery and ended with my healthy newborn.

Are you bored yet? 

The inciting incident—the onset of Matthew's unusual eye-rolling tic at age eight—didn’t show up until chapter 9. Like Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, I had pages and pages of exposition before the real action began.

Where should your story begin?

As I would later learn, the chronological beginning of a story is not always the best place to start.  In fact, beginning a story in the middle is sometimes the best place to start.

A few years into the writing, I discovered—Over My Head by Claudia L. Osborn. I decided to restructure my manuscript to align with this engaging memoir. In her opening, Osborn—a doctor who suffered a brain injury in a bike accident—recounts in breathless detail the challenges of finding her way to a recovery program in New York City. It sucked me in and kept me turning the pages to the next chapter when she goes back in time to the hospital where she had practiced a year earlier.

I want that, I decided. I want a reader to be so engaged, they can’t help but keep reading.

I moved the inciting incident—Matthew’s eye-rolling tic— to the first chapter, filled in the backstory, and proceeded chronically from there.

The name of this restructuring.

Years later, one of my critique partners said I used a technique called in medias res. (This Latin phrase means "in the midst of things.")

In medias res is the technique of beginning a story in the middle of the action--usually the inciting incident or the climax.

Since I still knew next to nothing about creative writing, I studied to understand.

Examples of Story Narrative Arc

The most cited examples of in medias res are Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. To help me remember what I learned, I created the super-simplified graphic below. 

In red is the typical narrative arc of a story told in chronological order, as my original manuscript was. The inciting incident— “the triggering event that puts the main events of the story in motion” —usually occurs in rising action.

In blue is a story told using in medias res. Starting with the climax or inciting incident entices the reader to want to know the back story, and because they’ve been drawn in by the drama-filled opening, they are now invested in learning more about it.

(Of course, not all plot lines follow these neat paths, but it’s helpful to understand the basic building blocks.)

After the opening scene or chapter in medias res, the story usually jumps back in time to provide backstory. Then, it can proceed chronically. The author will want to remind readers when they reach the point in the narrative where the opening scene or chapter naturally occurs.

However, not all stories must follow this narrative arc.  A writer has choices about what happens after their in medias res opening .

5 considerations for story openings:

1. Make your opening scene urgent and integral to the plot, with high stakes for the main characters.

2. In medias res works best if the opening is closer to the middle or end of the story.

3. If the opening comes from early enough in the narrative, the writer may not need much backstory, and may be able to provide it in dialogue. 

4. In medias res may work better for stories (in this case, memoirs) spanning many years or where the natural beginning is boring.

5. A traditional narrative arc may work best for stories (in this case, memoirs) that cover a short time period (one to five years), because:

            A. There’s less ground to cover between the chronological beginning and the heart of the action

            B. The version of the narrator at the beginning and end of the story are more-or-less the same.

Examples of Various Structure Options

Additional structure options for my fellow memoirists (and novel diagnostics, including medias res, for novelists)

I took to my bookshelves to see what other books could teach me and here are three examples of in medias res in memoir:

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The book begins with her sitting in a taxi, dressed up for the evening. She looks out the window and sees her mother dumpster-diving. After that introductory scene, Walls’ next chapter begins with her earliest memory when she was three.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The novel opens with words she wrote several days after her husband died of a massive coronary event. Then it jumps briefly to a day nine months later, then back to the year before her husband’s death.

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

This starts in the Brussels airport where her bag stuffed with drug money finally comes through baggage, then jumps back to her college graduation a year earlier.

And here are three examples of in medias res in fiction:

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The book begins when Lily, the teenage protagonist, intends to show her emotionally abusive father a swarm of bees in her bedroom. But the bees have mysteriously vanished, angering her father. Then Lily brings us back to the day her mother died ten years earlier, and tries to understand who killed her.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This novel starts in the Falling Action, when Amir, an Afghanistan emigre living in San Francisco, receives a call as an adult to atone for sins he committed as a twelve-year-old.

The Nightingale

Kristin Hannah’s book begins even later—decades after the action is resolved. Vianne is a dying elderly woman who hid her link to the French resistance in World War II. When she inadvertently reveals a trunk full of secrets to her adult son, her story spills out from the beginning.

So, although, when you read, you begin with "A B C," and when you sing, you begin with "Do Re Mi," when you write, you get to decide for yourself the very best place to start.

Do you have other examples of books that use in medias res? What about your own writing—how do you decide where to start your story?

About Karen

Karen DeBonis writes about motherhood, perseverance, and people-pleasing, an entangled mix told in her memoir GROWTH: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor they Survived, available for representation.

A happy empty-nester, she lives in an old house in upstate New with her husband of thirty-nine years. You can see more of her work at www.karendebonis.com.

Top Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay