June's Monday Motivation - Deep in the Mind's Eye

Watch anybody these days. They’re in the moment, whether they’re texting, playing video games or listening to their iPod while on the computer and using any number of additional electronics. Eventually they’ll be able to wear a computer on their face and complete even more of these tasks while walking. (Check out this Google Glass demo.) After all, why waste time just walking and enjoying the outdoors when you could be multitasking? Sometimes walking and chewing gum seem like a challenge. I’m not sure how I feel about practically never disengaging from media and electronics!

However, readers who’ve been immersed in electronic media all their lives are impatient. One way writers keep them in the moment is through deep point of view (POV).  Today’s reader doesn’t want to be slowed down by she said or he thought. No more long rambling pages of narrative one might find when reading Ann of Green Gables or Pride and Prejudice. While these classics live on with loving followings, today’s editor wouldn’t likely take a second look at such historically lovely prose if written these days.

Even readers of the previous generation are used to being somewhat immersed in the life of the character through media. In television and movies, they see the character’s world up close and personal. However, they aren’t always right in the character’s head.  Deep POV allows the reader to “see” with the character’s eyes and experience with their senses.

Here are some examples:

Before deep POV: Moira watched as Tad terrorized Nathan in the cafeteria at lunch time. She thought about what a jerk Tad was when he tripped her brother and stomped on his lunch bag.

She suddenly didn’t feel so hungry any more and put her sandwich down. Anger rose within Moira and she . . .

After deep POV: Moira couldn’t believe it. Didn’t Tad ever get tired of bullying others? Nathan slammed face first into the cafeteria floor. But tripping her little brother wasn’t enough for Tad. He had to squash his victim’s lunch bag under his clodhopper feet too. What a jerk!

The last bite of Moira’s sandwich sat like cement in her throat. She stood, running toward the commotion with clenched fists. Tad’s going down!

In the second example the reader gets more of a feel of what’s going on inside Moira’s head. While it’s still written in third person, deep POV gives the reader a front row seat rather than a removed passive view of things. Once you know your character’s story arc, who they are as a character and how they react, deep POV is one of the innermost layers of character development. It takes practice, but is a very rewarding way for the reader and writer to get even better acquainted with the character. While it is a partly a narrative method, interspersed with creative dialogue, it’s a very helpful method of deepening characterization.

For more in depth information on deep POV, here’s a great article on The Editor's Blog. Enjoy!

This is a writers’ and readers’ week at Writing, Whimsy and Devotion. What's on the blog this week?

Tuesday – Weekly writing prompt.

Wednesday – Review of Kate Breslin’s debut novel, For Such a Time.

Friday – Interview with debut novelist, Shelba Shelton Nivens.

See you tomorrow!

May Monday Motivation - Character "Analysis"

Sometimes creating deeper characters requires the writer to practically become an amateur psychologist

when they study the different kinds of people there are in the world. While we often seek to understand those we love for the sake of relationship, we need to examine our characters in their environment for authenticity. Where can you find some tools?

A task-oriented leader.

A Greek physician and philosopher in the Roman Empire, Galen, used the four humors, or bodily fluids, to categorize temperaments, or personalities. To simplify greatly, the four were: choleric – tightly wound, type A and task-oriented; melancholy – introverted, deep thinker, focused; sanguine – playful, extroverted and enjoys being with people, giving energy to those around them; phlegmatic – laid back, slower to make decisions, steadfast and patient. Again, this is greatly simplified. Gary Smalley refers to the choleric as a “lion”, the sanguine as an “otter”, the melancholy as a “beaver” and the phlegmatic as a “golden retriever”.

Fun loving and friendly!

Steadfast and loyal friend.

While this is based on an older system, which developed over time, newer ways of discovering personality strengths and weaknesses, such as the Meyers-Briggs assessments, score four basic categories. However these are combined to make sixteen different types, depending on the scores in each category. This method is more exacting and can perhaps tell you more about a person.  They are based on these groups: 1) Extroversion or Introversion (E or I), 2) Sensing or Intuition (S or N), 3) Thinking or Feeling (T or F), 4) Judging or Perceiving (J or P).  Description summaries of all sixteen personality types can be found on the Meyer and Brigg Foundation website.

Focused worker.

If you have trouble bringing depth to your characters, you may find that understanding these different types may help you better decide how your character may think or act in a given situation. How will your characters relate to one another? Some more character-driven writers will perhaps have a natural intuition for this, but hard-core plotters may find help with analyzing characters by personality types, thus adding another layer to characterization.

For example, your social butterfly heroine, Gigi, is out shopping for an outfit. She’s wearing a fuchsia sweater with leopard print leggings and high-heeled boots. She wants to get the attention of your hero at an upcoming dinner party. Will she likely: a) Find a neutral colored business suit then go for coffee with a friend to discuss the merits of such a purchase? b) Find an outlandishly expensive, short red taffeta dress embellished with sequins, buy it impulsively and call her best friend on the way home to tell her about it? c) Put a smart, conservative black dress on lay away and tell her cat, Mr. Piddles, about it when she comes home, before she writes in her diary? d) None of the above.

Okay, if you chose b, this is what I had in mind for the quintessential fun loving otter, who in this case is perhaps a bit artsy and flighty. Her loud every day outfit, her desire to get the guy’s attention and “why not be the talk of the party while she’s at it?” attitude hopefully bring this out. And of course, she must call her best friend immediately. The other two choices are, well, probably too tame and unlikely for Gigi. You want to keep things consistent and authentic. Think what is my character like and what would she choose or do in each situation? This helps build the layers of an authentic, three dimensional character, a person your reader will want to know better.

If you’re in a pinch to match a hero and heroine you may find the book 45 Master Characters, Revised Edition: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters helpful.  This book does a lot of groundwork for you by revealing basic male and female character archetypes. With learning more about the kinds of characters who have become classics throughout the ages, you can have a foundation for building your protagonist, antagonist and even supporting roles.

The Writer’s Journey, which I discussed in another post, is also helpful for building authentic characters and understanding the journey you want to set out for them in your story. How will your characters be influenced and affected by the world around them?

Just remember, if you’re going to be an amateur, armchair psychologist, please keep your practice to the people in your head!

Writing Prompt: I love Victorian or Edwardian settings! Take a few minutes, using this photograph of a parlor in a lighthouse to write about the people who may have sat upon this sofa together. Have fun!

Monday Motivation - Under Their Skin

Under Their Skin

Last week I wrote about how writers often choose how a character looks before they decide much of

anything else. We creative types typically picture a character before fleshing out everything else about them. So we have our shell, an exoskeleton, if you will. Analogies break down after awhile.

Underneath the skin are a lot of physical components of the human body. We can actually see some of our veins under the surface, feel the tendons, joints and bones. We can flex our muscles. Let’s think about our musculoskeletal system for a moment. Without these important parts, we would be blobs of flesh, going nowhere. 

Now, what gets our characters moving? How about motivation? What is motivating them to move forward in the story? Are they running from danger? Are they lonely and looking for their soul mate? A young man trying to escape the grip of pirates who have boarded the ship where he is cabin boy, will be different from that of an orphan looking for a family. Or will it? This could be two separate stories—or one. What if the pirates ask him to join and it’s the closest thing he’s ever had to family. Yet, he knows they’re bad people. Now we have a conflict too! Really we have both interior and exterior conflicts. He wants to get away, but they’re seeking to recruit him, make him feel like part of the gang.

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I’m only scratching the surface here. Next week I’d like to discuss personality types and tools to help make a good match. Our characters have many layers and we need to get to find out what makes them tick? What is at their core? Sometimes it takes awhile to get to know a character well enough to make these decisions, but greater depth will make a difference. You don’t want your protagonist to be a paper doll, but instead to give your reader the picture of a living breathing person who they can identify with.  We may get bored with paper dolls and put them back in the drawer after awhile, but you want to know more about real people, don’t you?

Food for thought: Think about what motivates your favorite book characters and compare that to your own characters. How can you give your characters more depth?

Monday Motivation - Character: From the Exoskeleton In

The World Book Encyclopedia of the 1960s had a fascinating clear plastic overlay of the human body. As a little girl, I loved to play with that section, rebuilding the 2D human body, layer by layer, system by system. I don’t remember the order, but I’m pretty sure the bare skeleton made up the first layer. You would add a layer of muscles, one of the cardiovascular system, different organs, etc., until I finished with a layer of skin.

Though I’m quite a visual person, I have seldom used pictures of models or actors to build my characters. Not that it’s a bad idea, in fact, it probably helps keep one’s facts straight, like eye color. But often we build characters from an outside exoskeleton in instead of vice versa. (Not that people actually have a hard exterior exoskeleton like an insect, but you get my drift.) The danger in that is we create a two-dimensional character. And somehow I picture my characters looking like ordinary people instead of supermodels.

However, we often become acquainted with real people by seeing and studying them from the outside. We see, not only how they look, whether tall or short, color of their hair or eyes, shape of their face, but how they react to the environment around them. A person’s expressions and mannerisms can tell you something about their personality for sure. You miss so much of that in a still photograph of a model made to look perfect.

Here’s a little exercise for you: Think of a character you are developing or one you’ve already created. How do they look when they’re happy? Do they have any special mannerisms? Can you describe your character’s smile or something else they do without using a cliché?  For example, you could write: For just a moment, his smile lit up his face. Instead, let’s try something different: His smile grew in increments, then quickly disappeared, as though he had a tic in the side of his face.

My sentence could still use some work, but I’m trying to convey a hesitant, nervous smile. You don’t have to describe a smile; you could describe a frown, a yawn, gum chewing, hand waving or any other expression or mannerism you want to use to give your reader a better picture of your character. Don’t take more than 10 minutes and have fun! If you're stuck, use someone from the picture below. Everyone's smile is a little different from the others. 

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Next week, I’ll talk about another layer of characterization.

How do you beef up your character's appearance? How can the outside give us a hint to the person within? Please leave a comment below. I love to hear from you!