Writers in the Storm

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

Hey Hey my fellow scribes *mittened fist-bump*

Most of the writers who request to join my free Facebook group “Going Deeper With Emotions In Fiction” are looking for tips and help in writing deep point of view. So, I’m always a little confused when every so often someone posts some variation of: so why don’t bestselling authors use deep point of view?

I think these questions are often rooted in frustration. Deep point of view isn’t easy to learn. It’s even more difficult when you think you’re writing in deep POV, but really it’s limited/close third person (or even more distant than that) and you just can’t see the difference.

Psychic Distance

The idea of levels of psychic distance was coined by John Gardner in The Art Of Fiction. This is the idea of how close the reader is to the point of view character’s thoughts/feelings with the gap between them bridged by the writer/narrator voice. These POV styles have been given different names over time, I’ve tried to include a few of the common ones.

With omniscient POV, the writer/narrator knows everything, at times even the future. Sometimes the narrator is a character in their own right, but mostly it’s the writer/narrator voice telling the story objectively (details, descriptions, thoughts) about any or all of the characters. The reader gets a story about one or many characters from the writer/narrator. (ie. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman)

The next level of psychic distance is known by a few names (Indirect thought, objective third person). The author is still telling a story about the characters, but the narrator tries to communicate emotion to the reader. If you’re aiming to write in limited/close third but are told you’re “telling” -- this is the style you’re slipping into most likely.

In Limited or Close Third Person POV (or direct thought), the author/narrator voice is still telling the story but they’re limited to one character at a time, and that character shares the storytelling role through internal dialogue and some internal sensations. We see internal rhetorical questions come into use. There’s more evoking of emotions and the reader gets to be inside the character’s head some of the time.

In contrast, there is no narrator/writer voice in deep point of view. The character isn’t telling a story, they’re living out the story and the reader is a fly on the wall inside the character’s head. The reader experiences the story vicariously through the character. It’s like a first-person shooter game viewpoint. There’s no psychic distance or gap between the reader and the character (hence why there’s no need for italics for direct thoughts in deep pov). This is a massive mindset shift in how story is told.

Become A True Artist

So, back to the main question – why don’t bestselling writers use deep point of view? First, I would argue they do. Overwhelmingly, deep POV is used in certain genres like romance, but in most genres most bestsellers are dipping into deep POV in a variety of different ways.

The key is to know what psychic distance is and how each POV style uses it to tell a story that keeps the reader turning pages. Each style serves a purpose and creates specific effects, so use them strategically.

Shifting Between Psychic Distance Styles

The blue text is limited/close third person, bolded is deep pov, and orange is objective or indirect point of view. This first one is written in first person, but it’s not all in deep point of view (a lot of people don’t understand that first person is not automatically deep pov).

Do you see how the different styles are blended together as best serves the story and the emotional arc of the chapter? Those last two sentences has the narrator/writer voice creeping in to bridge the gap for readers that (to me) feels a bit more distant than the opening sentences. (You might disagree with me about that. That’s fine.)

Let’s look at another example of the blending the styles:

Those two sentences in orange font are purely a narrator/writer voice stepping in to fill in the gap.

This objective narrator/writer voice is used sparingly but strategically. A few lines above, do you see how the deep POV really pulls the reader into the tensest moment in the chapter? Everything in this chapter has led to this impending conflict.

And just for contrast, here’s one written entirely in deep POV. Just head to the bestseller page on Amazon and click romance. Most of them are going to be in deep POV. Do you see how the narrator/writer voice is missing?

Even stories written entirely in deep POV will make use of the other psychic distance styles for expediency, in ways that serve the story. Rather than create some scenario in which the reader can intuit that Mariah is the point of view character’s daughter (which wouldn’t be wrong), Harlow just tells the reader who Mariah is, and moves back into deep POV.

Learn the rules, learn how to make these point of view styles work FOR YOU, and then break the rules! This is what bestsellers do very well, this use of psychic distance, so well that readers often don’t even notice. Deep point of view is difficult and doesn’t seem intuitive until you really understand this idea of psychic distance. You pair this with the techniques of deep pov aimed at removing psychic distance and creating immediacy, and the differences become very clear. Now you’re ready to use deep POV as you like in any style, because you know how to use each tool to create specific effects for readers.

Do you prefer to write in deep POV, limited/close third person, or some other style? What style do you most prefer to read in? Do you have any questions about writing in deep POV, or examples to share? Tell us about it down in the comments!

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. 

By Tiffany Yates- Martin

The first time my husband read something I wrote, I eagerly awaited his feedback. “What did you think?” I asked breathlessly.

“It was good!”

“Say more about that…” I prodded.

“I liked it.”

“But what did you like about it?”

“I don’t know…it was good.”

My then-new spouse wasn’t trying to be opaque or difficult or euphemistic (though it took a few days of pouting and grousing for me to figure that out), and I wasn’t (just) seeking more praise (though it took a few days of bewilderment for my hubs to figure that out).

I needed clear, objective input on exactly what was and wasn’t working so I could figure out how to fix it. I needed specifics.

What kind of specifics?

Just as we as writers can’t address the possible weaknesses in our stories until we understand exactly what they are, readers can’t fully engage with those stories without a clear, concrete, granular sense of detail.

Yet one of the observations I most frequently make with authors’ manuscripts in my editing work is that key elements may lack impact because they feel vague or generalized. Not only does this prevent readers from grounding themselves in the world of your story, it can also result in ambiguous writing or a lack of clarity that may frustrate them, lower stakes, and reduce the effectiveness and immediacy of your story.

Example #1:

My dad died of a heart attack, and I don’t want to die having never really let myself live like he did.

versus

One day my dad trundled in to work—eight fifteen on the dot, just like always—worked until six, then went to sleep on the two-hour train ride home and never woke up. Heart attack, the doctor said. Just like that—while the rest of our family was being a family, he worked and worked and worked and then one day he died. I don’t want that to be me.

Both these passages convey the same idea, but one does it with generalizations that offer the reader little context, that create no concrete picture in her mind.

In the first passage we understand the point the character is making, but it’s intellectual, not visceral; theoretical rather than real—vague rather than clear.

In the second example we get enough specific details that we have a concrete image in our minds:

• We can paint the rest of the picture for ourselves—which is what creates that magical synergy between author and reader that draws readers directly into the world of the story and fully brings it to life.
• We get a fuller idea of the narrator’s father—that he was a man of structure and routine, perhaps a workaholic.
• We get an idea of the protagonist’s feelings about him—that his dad wasn’t around for their family, in fact didn’t fully feel part of it to our narrator and that maybe he resents it.
• And we have a much more direct, visceral feeling for how that affected his own goal not to live his life that way.

The author doesn’t spell out every tiny detail—just enough to create a concrete suggestion of these story elements and give the reader rich raw material to build on in her own imagination.

Example #2:

She fled an unhappy marriage.

That certainly conveys some information about the character’s past. But as Tolstoy famously said, “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” An unhappy marriage might suggest any of a broad spectrum of issues, from incompatibility to abuse.  It leaves out nuance.

Look what even a few strokes of specificity add to this simple line:

One day she packed a bag and walked out and never looked back, vowing no one would ever make her feel invisible or small again.

Now we can fill in more of the picture from our own perspective:

• We may never have been in a verbally abusive or belittling marriage, but most of us can relate to the feeling of someone making us feel inadequate in some way.
• We can viscerally understand the emotions and reactions and impact of that based on our own firsthand experiences.

This is what I mean by the specific invoking the universal: The more concrete and granular a picture the author creates, the more it may resonate with each reader’s direct experience of the universal feelings attached to these situations and events.

Example #3:

Despite perhaps wildly differing personal experiences, we can understand feeling minimized, unseen, unhappy, etc., by reflecting on times when we felt those things ourselves—albeit perhaps for different reasons.

In Brit Bennett’s astonishing novel The Vanishing Half, Stella Vignes decides to abandon her mother, her hometown and community, and her twin sister to pass as white to circumvent the limited opportunities she feels her future holds as a Black woman in the segregated South, yet finds herself haunted years later by the secret she carries.

Bennett’s pinpoint-specific character and situation may not reflect the lived experience of the bulk of her readers—but they hit on universal motivations and emotions that allow readers to viscerally understand and react to Stella’s choices and their effect. They bring her story to rich, vivid, immediate life.

• We may never have faced that exact situation for ourselves, but most of us can relate to the desire to transcend strictures or limits put on the opportunities available to us.
• We can probably relate to the pressures and emotions of hiding something about ourselves that we fear others seeing—whether that’s a secret, a vulnerability, a shame or regret, etc.

Using specifics will also add punch to character motivations and goals—consider a character who “wants to find love” versus one who demands a partner who can see and appreciate her for who she is, rather than what he wants her to be (Sandy in Grease), or a protagonist who wants to vanquish the terrorists holding hostages inside a building versus the one desperate to save his wife and family so he can reconcile with them (Die Hard).

As humans we don’t deeply engage with abstracts; we crave detail, specificity, and most of all connection on a human level. We understand story through the universal human reference points we all share.

Example #4:

He was determined to save the family farm

doesn’t quite suggest the same driving need to preserve a legacy as:

His father had worked this land all his life, and his father and his father before him, their sweat and tears and blood as much a part of these fifty acres as the soil, and that strong unbroken chain wasn’t going to snap with him.

Example #5:

They even apply to descriptions: Compare the images in your mind between

 She took in his gorgeous high-end kitchen

versus

The reflections off the miles of quartz countertops and gleaming Viking appliances practically blinded her.

Notice how just from a few concrete specifics, your imagination lets you fill in more detail on your own—I’m betting your mental picture included more than just appliances and a countertop:

Did you also see the cabinets, the sink, the flooring, the color scheme?

Sparked by specific detail, you create a much clearer and more vivid picture in your mind than from the vague generalization of “a high-end kitchen.”

Enhancing your stories and readers’ experience of them with specifics doesn’t mean adding tedious laundry lists of detail. Experiment with shading in just enough nuance to bring a few details into sharper focus so that readers can engage by filling in the rest of the picture.

When you think of your favorite stories you’ve read, what details live most vividly in your mind? How do you use specifics to bring your own writing more fully to life?

About Tiffany

Tiffany Yates Martin has spent more than twenty-five years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers, and is the author of the Amazon bestseller Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers' groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers' sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, A Little Bit of Grace (Berkley, 2020). Visit her at www.foxprinteditorial.com or www.phoebefoxauthor.com.

by Julie Glover

I’m typically in the group that believes we shouldn’t think too much about Christmas until after my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving (which is in November in the US). However, this maniacal year 2020 has made plenty of people eager to hasten the holidays.

Whether you’re always an early shopper, one of those people who just needs something to look forward to, or are reading this post as a break from your amazing NaNoWriMo productivity, I’m here for you. I’ve compiled a list of 40 holiday gift ideas for writers! Add what you like to your own wish list or find something to get a friend.

1. Writing Gloves from Storiarts. Stay warm while letting your fingers do their work! Available with text from several different books, including these lovely Alice in Wonderland ones (which I own).

2. Bookstore Gift Card: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or visit and support your local indie bookstore.

3. Grammar Grumble Mugs from The Literary Gift Company. Serve a grammar tip with that cup of tea.

4. Pack of Highlighters. Good for marking up manuscripts, and that yellow one always seems to go dry just when you need it!

5. USB Flash Drive. Go for the standard or try a novelty one!

6. A ream of paper. I kid you not, this was one of the best inexpensive gifts a friend gave me one year for Christmas. Paper to print my manuscript!

7. “Chapter One, The End” Book Lover Earrings, from Little Gem Girl on Etsy. Our favorite parts to write! (Don't ask about the middle.)

8. Novel Teas, individual teabags tagged with literary quotes. English breakfast tea with quotes like "You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me" (C.S. Lewis.)

9. Subscription to Chicago Manual of Style. The definitive grammar/style guide for commercial writers.

10. Gift Certificate for Lawson Writer’s Academy. Learn from Margie Lawson and other terrific teachers!

11. Shakespearean Insult Bandages. For no good reason really, but FUN.

12. Extra laptop power cord. It was so much easier to get up and go with my laptop when I got an additional power cord that stayed in my bag. All I had to do with slide my laptop in and head out the door!

13. Bathtub Caddy with Book Tray. Of course you read in the bathtub. Doesn’t everyone? Well, they should.

14. E-reader, like Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite or a Kobo Clara. (Mine is an old Samsung Nook, and I still love it.)

15. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy adjustable face mask from Out of Print Clothing. "Don't Panic!" but do put on your mask.

16. Decorative file folders. So much better than manila and many options to match your personal style!

17. Label maker. So your folder labels look sleek and professional.

18. Office Supply Store Gift Card, like Staples or Office Depot. Let the gift recipient pick what they want! And office supply shopping makes a lot of writers giddy.

19. Bookmark with charms from Charm Philosophy at Etsy. I chose the Dragonfly one to show y’all as a shout-out to my 2015 Golden Heart Sisters, but the artist makes a lot of variations.

20. Mini desktop fan. Stay cool while writing.

21. Small space heater. Or stay warm while writing.

22. Baby Lit Books. Aimed at introducing kids to classic literature, these are delightful board books! Read them to your children or just to yourself.

23. Candy. Also known as Writer Fuel.

24. Personalized sticky notes. (I got mine at VistaPrint.)

25. Book charm necklace from TinyBookTown on Etsy. Keep your favorite book close to your heart, or at least around your neck. Many options, one example:

26. Coffee shop gift card, perhaps to Starbucks, Peets, or your local place. Another form of writer fuel. Though some of us—like me—prefer tea.

27. Aqua Notes Waterproof Note Pad. Get your best ideas in the shower? Now you can write ’em down!

28. Neck and shoulder pain relief wrap. Hunching over a keyboard can create tension in your neck and shoulders, which a good wrap—applied hot or cold—can help to relieve.

29. Lit-themed board game. And I just cannot do better than this 25-game roundup by The Bibliophile. Did you know there are games titled Marrying Mr. Darcy and Bards Dispense Profanity? Neither did I.

30. Do Not Disturb door hanger. Lots of options, but I liked this one.

31. Drinking Cup Holder Clip. I’m in love with mine, but it's a Creative Memories one from Too Long Ago and not even made anymore. Luckily, there are plenty of alternatives!

32. Mouse Pad. It may be time for an updated pad or one with a fun design, like this one.

33. Quotes For Writers: Inspiration, Advice, Humor & Motivational Stories From Famous Authors by Linda Davies. To educate and encourage!

34. Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist, with great-named recipes linked to books like "A Cocktail of Two Cities" and "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margarita."

35. Magnetic Poetry Original Kit. 300+ magnetic word tiles so you can create and play!

36. Book-themed socks from Out of Print. Forget t-shirts. Cool socks are the trend now (or so my 20-something son tells me).

37. One Stop for Writers subscription. Choose one month, six months, or a whole year of amazing software made for writers, along with access to all of the thesaurus books by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Wonderful resource!

38. Library candle from Paddywax. I received the Jane Austen one as a birthday gift, and it looks and smells delightful!

39. Erin Condren Life Planner. I'm not a planner person! But I love this planner that my critique partner bought me. Very versatile.

40. Time. Give the writer in your life time to write or request time away to get that book written!

Any other ideas you want to add to the list? Please share them with us down in the comments!

About Julie

Julie Glover is an award-winning author of mysteries and young adult fiction. She also writes supernatural suspense under the pen name Jules Lynn. Her most recent release is Curse of the Night, book four in the Muse Island series. (But there's a Christmas short story for this series coming soon—Gryla's Gift.)

When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.

Top image credit: monicore from Pixabay