The Solitude, part 8

As you all must be tired of reading, last summer I was driving through Canada thinking about what my actual process was for writing a novel - and then I did write a novel, ironically. So I wrote out my process and have been sharing it step by step this year during my stay-at-home solitude. In the previous post here, we covered the agonizing revision and editing steps. Now comes the most difficult steps of all, which I must share before I can go on my summer staycation.

Step 9

A lot of people think it's finished now. A lot of people think it's finished when the first draft is complete (haha), but then the revision and editing begins (mwah-haha). So even now, there is still much to do. The most difficult thing to do is write a blurb. That short copy is often more daunting than the 100,000-word book it's about. 

The blurb is a short description of the story intended for the back cover of the book but also may be used for advertising purposes. The trick is to suggest the main points without giving away the story. If this is for an agent or publisher, the blurb would be expanded into something longer often called a synopsis, which does include everything, spoilers and all, because the people you work with need to know the complete story.

The blurb, however, is only about 200 words. In submitting a book manuscript to a contest, for one purpose, there is often a limit on the word count for the blurb. For the back cover, you must be aware of the space which the text takes up.

For EXCHANGE, my JFW (just-finished-work, as opposed to WIP, work-in-progress), I dabbled with the blurb well before I even reached the middle of the writing. There is a basic template which helps sometimes, hinders at other times: Introduce main character and situation/setting; mention chief problem faced; discuss why it will be difficult to solve problem or what the ramifications will be if problem is not solved; end with a question, something like "But will he succeed?"

Here is what I've been working on for EXCHANGE and continue to tweak:

Bill Masters has a good life as a high school teacher in suburbia. But that life is shattered when his wife and daughter are killed in a mass shooting. Prepared to wallow in depression and drink himself into numbness, Bill must pull himself together when their foreign exchange student arrives not knowing what has happened. Forced to try to be a good host father, Bill finds Wendy Wang from China to be both a hindrance to his recovery and a boost to his will to go on. As Bill struggles through the stages of grief, however, he must battle on-going crimes and threats to his peace, giving him a second chance with Wendy. He will protect her. This time he will not fail - no matter what it takes.

That may look like a lot of text yet it is only 129 words. In it, I have who the story is about, what the situation is, the main obstacle(s), and a suggestion of possible love-interest or foil, and the direction the story will take. As it is, it's rather clunky. Tweaking continues. 

[Note: Because the book is finished and has been published, the tweaking has stopped and a much tighter blurb made it to the back of the book cover. See image below.]

Step 10

In the indie publishing world, we hire someone to make a cover for the book. If it's an ebook such as for Kindle we only need a front cover. If it will be a paperback, we need the full front, spine, and back.

Looking at recent covers of literary fiction in my local Barnes & Noble, I see the trend to have a single image which suggests the main character, the plot, or the setting. The title and author's name is enlarged to cover much of the image. Not my favorite style but it seems the trend today, so I'm following it.

Science fiction and fantasy are known for their elaborate and evocative cover art. Romance covers usually feature a couple. Crime fiction features some prop that suggests the crime. You get the idea. But literary fiction can be about anything as long as it is contemporary.

So, following the latest "rules", I have a front cover for my newest literary novel, EXCHANGE. The image is of one  character in a provocative pose. Actually, there is nothing particularly provocative about it, but readers may find it provocative because of the way other elements of the cover come together.

Breaking the title into three lines adds drama and symbolism. The letters could be seen as prison bars, which may add a mysterious tone. For colors, I went with gray to emphasize the nature of the gun debate: there are no black or white solutions. My designer made sure her eyes were not obstructed by the letters because eyes on a face are primary attention-grabbers for potential buyers. The required phrase "a novel" lets you know this is a work of fiction and not a book of essays on gun control. My author name gets a good location. A couple previous titles being mentioned can add to my Christmas bonus; I chose two from my shelf that are in the same genre (i.e., literary and cross-cultural romance). 

For the back cover, I like how the front cover image continues, but a different cover might have different art. Be aware that the back cover will have small text on it (the blurb) so the art should not be too complex to obscure the readability of that text. Note the "Gun Free Zone" tattoo on her shoulder. Glowing quotes from readers, serious author picture, publisher logo (in gray) are other elements of the back cover - plus the bar code, which has not been applied yet to this image (it goes in the white space below the publisher logo). Always check for the readability of the blurb (contrast, size, font). Then wait for things to happen. Meantime, start at Step 1 on a new project.

This concludes the Process posts. We hope also that the Solitude comes to an end, as well. Too much idle time makes Jack a dull boy, as they say.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Solitude, part 7

Those of you who follow this blog may be surprised that it continues. That fact is only due to the unfinished discussion of my writing process. This time last year, for example, I decided one morning that I didn't need to blog, that I could call my absence a summer vacation. Unfortunately or not, that vacation from blogging lasted deep into the winter holidays. This year, however, every week is summer vacation. 

Besides, those of you who have finished your first complete draft of something novel-like will need instruction on what to do next. So, in the interest of time, I shall post 2 steps here!

Part 7

Once I have come to the end of the story and can call the manuscript complete, it is time for revision. Getting the whole story out is fine and dandy but now the work begins. I like to describe this as a sculptor throwing a clump of wet clay on a wheel (the basic first draft) and then crafting it into something beautiful (the finished manuscript).

The first step for me is to go back to any scenes where I already know I need to do more tweaking. I usually edit previous sections during the process of composing new text, so I don't expect a major editing pass - but I still do it. After this spot checking, I'll return to the first page and read straight through to the end.

My goal in the first read-through is to fill out scenes, make them more complete by adding description, writing more and/or better dialog, clarifying any information, and sometimes cutting out material that is no longer relevant based on how the story actually finished. Not all seeds I plant come to fruition and must be weeded out. So, generally, the word count will expand during this stage.

In the second pass from start to finish, I focus on scenes as individual stories, making sure the arc is effective and the other elements fit the purpose of the scene - which should be to move the plot along, develop characters, or emphasize a point or theme which is important to the story (rarely done). Occasionally, I'll have a scene that is purely for fun, which may also serve to develop a character. I seldom "kill my darlings" but some do get a firm wrist slap.

Presently [sometime in October 2019], I'm in the third full pass of my current just-finished novel, titled EXCHANGE, and this stage involves trimming words from sentences and cutting whole sentences from paragraphs which don't seem to be needed. I may also cut entire paragraphs but because I revise as I compose, I usually don't have a lot of that - unless I decide an entire scene is no longer needed.

I don't care about reaching a particular word count, although I'm still cognizant of desired counts for various genre. Because epic fantasy readers expect a fat book, I let my EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS go to 233,000 (after editing and revision down from 255,000). But some stories have their own inherent length, like my contemporary adventure novel A GIRL CALLED WOLF, which hit 86,000. Making it longer, usually by adding scenes, would have lessened the story's effect.

Part 8

So I have gone through the whole manuscript a few times, working on the arcs, the pacing, weeding out unnecessary words, sentences, and some paragraphs, and punching up the dialog. I've stood back and looked at the story from a wider perspective to make sure it all fits together and works as a drama. I'm satisfied with what I've got.

Now I do the little dirty work: proofreading. I run spell checker constantly as I write and revise day by day. However, errors still make it through. I know a few of my pet errors, the kind of typos that a spell checker won't catch. For example, I seldom write the word "form" in a story but I do use "from" a lot, but I tend to type "form" instead of "from" so I will run a special find-and-replace for that thorn in my side (and a few others).

Other funny typos are where I've made a correction of a perfectly good word during revision so the correct word is now incorrect. I found a typo in one of my books where what showed was "he" but the correct word should've been "the".  Yes, that was so funny (not); try finding that needle in a haystack. Sometimes I write "by ear" so I'll find an error I've spelled as "won" which should be "one". It is maddening.

I have a short list of words I specifically check because I know I overuse them: all, now, then, that, almost...and so on. A lot of typos that survive scrutiny and remain in the finished book are the result of the proofreading itself: the imperfect cutting or inserting of text, where something is left behind. That includes punctuation. Cut a phrase from a sentence and put a period where the comma used to be? Done. Or maybe not. Maybe the period is next to the comma that didn't get deleted! Aaargh!

One thing I'll admit to is when the page is laid out "justified" (the text goes evenly from margin to margin like printed books have it), I get a little OCD if there is too much spread, the gaps between words are too wide - also if the line of text is too compressed. I will often rewrite the sentence to reduce the gaps or the crowding in the line as it lays on the page just to improve the "look" of the page.

Then I will give the manuscript one final read after putting it away for a bit, trying to be a typical reader, avoiding the urge to change anything - other than a lingering typo. My finished manuscripts average 1 typo per 10,000 words, which for an old full-time English teacher with fading eyesight, is rather good. Don't misunderstand: The work done in Parts 7 and 8 is a long process requiring many reads, a lot of searches, plenty of word wrangling. It is not a one and done step.

NEXT: The hard part (writing a blurb)



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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Solitude, part 6

Yes, there's good news and some bad news. As always. The good news is that life is returning to the normal we consider normal in our daily lives. The bad news is that it's not happening everywhere and it's not quite the same for everyone. For that matter, some people don't want that same kind of same. But that is a whole other blog post. When life becomes unfathomable, I dive into a good book and swim about at my leisure.

For writers there's always a good news / bad news dichotomy, too. Oh my God! I finished! I finally finished this thing! (Good news.) But now I have to revise, and edit, and proofread.... (Bad news.) After writing several novels I've developed a process which seems to fit my lifestyle and my inane sense of story, which I use to guide me through The Process. Having just launched my latest novel, a crime drama, I can easily look back and see how I went through the process of writing the book.

First, we have to finish the manuscript. And there's no better way than having a climax. That, too, has a good news, bad news convention. If all has gone well thus far, we are at the top of that dramatic arc and ready to pull the trigger on that gun we mentioned in the first act lay upon the mantlepiece. If we have set up this moment effectively, it's a crowning achievement we can smile about for a long time. That's good news. If we have wandered about, we may still stumble upon the idea that it's about time to do something else...which would be the bad news. Ultimately, we should have planned this sooner, at least by the two-thirds mark in the story - if we even know where that is when we are at the starting point.

Note: Almost a year ago, while driving around the country, I figured out my own writing process and made it into a lecture, something I might share with young writers, my students, and anyone who asks.

Part 6

I have an innate sense of pacing when writing a novel. I keep everything in my head with very few notes, seldom more than a few Post-Its. Other writers I know create an elaborate outline with every detail in its place, but that's not for me. I write, as they say, "by the seat of my pants".  (See previous post for apologies and explanations.) So as I arrive at the two-thirds point in a book, I must survey all my subplots and see how to resolve them (if I hadn't known previously, and I often don't). As I look at my shelf of books, I know I have usually resolved the subplots just before the main plot ends.

Here is where pacing is so important. The chapters tend to get shorter, the descriptions briefer, as action takes over the story. The pace quickens. Chases, fights, desperation time. However, even as the reader feels the quickening pace, I slow down writing it. I often go to slow-mo. I think like a movie camera and a film director. I choreograph action scenes in my head, then try to describe the action. One minute of action in the manuscript may take two days to write and fourteen days to rewrite.

When I get to the climax of the book, the big scene where all is revealed to reader and protagonist, I like to gently hammer home the theme. Not in a preachy manner but still clear enough it is not missed. The theme is not a message; it is a stylistic mantra that has been woven through the foundation of the story. Theme can often be stated in a single word; I seem to write a lot about Redemption and use that as the theme in so many of my stories: people going through hell to find themselves or their passion or their reason for being or why the dragons exist at all. My protagonist carries that theme in his/her final decisions and actions. A lot depends on whether the protagonist will survive or not - which would be a spoiler. (In only two of my novels does the protagonist not make it out alive.)

I know when I've arrived at the end. I've been feeling the downhill momentum for several scenes - despite the rising dramatic arc, ironically. Some stories will have the great confrontation between protagonist and antagonist: a swordfight or a fistfight or a well-stated argument that crushes a soul or the revelation of who he/she really is! The last scene is hard to write - hard to get it right, to make it perfect. The final few lines are important. It has to end with the perfect description, line of dialog, thought or feeling. I work on the last page a lot. And by last, I do not mean the exact final page. because there is always the denouement (my favorite French word after croissant), the "wrapping up". For a TV show, it's the two minute scene following the last commercial break, a summarizing of what has transpired and perhaps, if a sequel is on the horizon, a glimpse of what may come.

Then I go back to the beginning and read through the whole manuscript. I edit as I go, of course, but I do not yet enter the revision stage. Eventually, I know I must accept the bad news and force myself to switch hats from writer to editor. I often feel silly with the different hats, but they do keep my hair from blowing into a mess, and for that I am grateful.

NEXT: The actual revision tips. 

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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Exchange

Let's take a break from our regularly scheduled writing lessons to allow me to announce the launch of my latest novel EXCHANGE which was delayed because of the worldwide crisis which went viral.  The book was ready to launch when we were all ordered to stay at home for the sake of our collective health. Prior to this situation, it was gun violence which most occupied our national attention, and that is the subject of this novel.

Sure, most authors borrow bits from their own lives to stuff into stories, and I did, too. But only if you really knew me would you be able to detect those. I've never been involved in any shooting, but the mass shootings we've endured the past twenty years have still greatly affected me. Last summer (2019) there were two major incidents about a week apart. One problem with blogging, I've found, is that just when I was ready to post a light-hearted blog about nothing important, there would be some tragedy like a shooting to mar my attempt at humor. It was often difficult to post. I do not mean to say my blog posts are more important, however.

At the same time, I had been planning last spring (again 2019) for someone special to join me here - and that factored into the plot of the story, as well. So as I traveled around last summer, having not much to do while regretting that there would be no wonderful reunion after all, I put all the elements together. A what-if story! What if this happened and then this also happened? How would the people in the situation handle it? What would they do? That's got to be awkward. ...And the book was born.

EXCHANGE - from the phrase foreign exchange student, but having other connotations - is a contemporary (set in the world of today; I even set it in my own city), literary (focuses on the principal character's thoughts and feelings) crime thriller (there is a big crime to start the book and more crime that follows, leaving the reader wondering what will happen next and if the characters will survive) and romance (a subplot of flirtations and eroticism which may or may not lead to a relationship) - no spoilers. That covers everything, I think; I left out the dragons this time. 

Or, as the back blurb states:

An Unspeakable Crime.

High school teacher Bill Masters and his family

have a comfortable life in suburban Oklahoma City -

until his wife and teen daughter are killed in a mass shooting.

Overwhelmed with grief, Bill struggles to put his life back

together - or construct a new life from what remains -

even as he must combat continuing crime that threatens

him and his home.

A Second Chance.

When exchange student Wu Ting "Wendy" Wang arrives

from China for her year at an American high school,

she has no idea what has just happened to her host family.

She's a constant reminder to Bill of why his family is gone.

Yet he is determined to protect her at any cost - ready 

to use his father's gun. And he will not fail this time.

Beta readers have said it is a "slow burn" kind of story with a few 'red herrings' and unexpected twists that lead to a shocking conclusion. Just as I intended when I wrote it. Who could've known? 

Available now - finally! - in paperback and for Kindle. Thanks for your patience in waiting for it's release.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Solitude, part 5

The good news* is that some of us have been given permission to return to our usual way of life, our old habits, the normal things we are used to doing. For me, that includes the launching of my latest novel, EXCHANGE, which has been delayed because of the changing circumstances of life in general. I lovingly describe it as a crime thriller because it involves a big crime followed by on-going crimes and the main character has to keep trying to deal with the cascade of trouble. Mostly it's about the issue of gun violence in America. (More on that touchy subject next time.)

*The bad news, by the way, is that some of us haven't yet been given permission - as though we are in kindergarten and need to ask the teacher for permission to go by ourselves to the restroom!

For this week, I need to rush headlong into the next step in my writing process, a process I paid attention to while writing EXCHANGE, just so I could tell you about it.

Part 5

When I'm heading into the middle of the book, it is subplot time. Some of those are already part of the original idea, the obstacles the protagonist must overcome. Others are just some seeds I toss in hoping to harvest later in the book. Often they do not blossom so I must go back during revision and rip them out.

Depending on the genre, I might make a rough outline of events, at least chapter by chapter as I go, or I will simply press ahead and let the story unfold in whatever manner it does, almost as though I am merely taking dictation from the muses in my head. I like that feature of writing: letting it happen. If you read enough you get a sense for how a story should unfold and get a feel for the timing of things happening.

There seem to be patterns we absorb as readers that stay in our heads to shape plots and enforce genre demands. This allows me to skip a formal outline or detailed plotting. If I need to, I will slow down and write some short ideas about a scene, but I seldom do more than that. If a difficult-to-write scene is coming up, I may take a break from writing while I think it through in my head, or sometimes do some research. (I'll keep the story in my head during this time by editing what I've previously written.) Because I tend to get into the head of my protagonist and try to think like him/her (thanks Acting 101 class in college!), I feel the same emotions as my protagonist (or whichever character I'm writing), so it often takes an emotional toll on me. Yes, sometimes I cry when I've made my characters do something bad and feel proud when they do something good.

Along with subplots - which, for me, will come to fruition alternating with main storyline scenes - are other characters. Pretty standard for me: protagonist (narrator), sidekick or assistant, love interest, but I do not usually have a true antagonist or villain. I believe firmly in the antagonist being a protagonist in his/her own mind. Only in my vampire trilogy do I have a true villain bent on destroying the hero. In most of my books, what hinders the protagonist are elements of nature or other people just getting in the way, not really seeking destruction. That seems more realistic to me, even in an epic fantasy.  

So this takes me two-thirds of the way into the story - where I need to start planning how to stick the landing. Because I usually already know how the story will end, it is simply a matter of wrapping up storylines, as I do in Part 6.

NEXT: The climax. And maybe a complete explication of why I wrote EXCHANGE.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Solitude, part 4

This extended period of time wouldn't be too different from my usual summer vacation, except for not having a movie theater to visit or a bookstore to browse in. I thought initially that I would get a lot of work done, perhaps start a new novel, but like in the past, when I have a lot of time I tend to waste it while I can be incredibly productive in short bits of time, like an hour off between classes. However, I still remember my traveling lecture about my particular writing process, so I'll keep going.

After I've gotten the idea and toyed with it a while to be sure it's something that would make a good story and I've played around finding the narrator's voice, I'm ready to go. I envision the opening scene, something appropriate to the story, maybe our hero or heroine doing something typical or something out of character. It depends on the story and the genre. The first rush of key-flinging is exciting but then...

Step 4

When I get to around 10,000 words, I have to think ahead about what should happen. Because I usually have the ending in mind when I begin - or at least by the 10,000 word mark - I need to add the required obstacles and detours and dangers I think what would be logical for the story and the characters' world view as well as being interesting in their own right.

Some of my writer friends like to plan out everything in a formal manner. Not me. I like to get into the head of my protagonist and try to think as he/she would think - like an actor taking on a role - and let the next thing happen as unexpectedly for me as for my protagonist. If I do any planning of interim events, it's seldom more than a list of event keywords, like "dragons attack" or "pervy photog, Bill intervenes". I'll work out the details when I get there. When I have tried to outline in more detail, like some colleagues do, I always drift off it fairly soon and even when trying to return it just becomes a whole new outline - like there are so many versions of a story in the multiverse.

A lot depends on the genre, of course. Each genre has its own requirements or traditions. I know I must include or follow some of them, well enough to honor the genre, but if I write the same things then it won't be good - and not so interesting to me. So I always try to write a little askew from the norms. Yes, most epic fantasy crime romances go this way, so I will make a change here and twist it there to be different. I get a lot of cross-genre hybrids that way. But I don't care; if the story interests me, I keep writing.

If the story stops being interesting to me (yes, there have been a few), nobody else ever sees it. The effort to make it interesting - not to mention believable for the story's situation - is what makes writing difficult. You know where you want to go but aren't sure the best way to get there. That is my number one frustration while writing.

In my current Work-in-Progress, given the way the book opened, at the 10,000 word mark I made sure to give my protagonist new problems to have to confront. As a contemporary story, the problems are obvious and don't require me to make a list (outline). However, while driving around, for example, I may have a thought pop into my head that reminds me to add this or that. What if this happened? Wouldn't that be awkward? How would he react? Like a psychology experiment. Sometimes I must go back to an earlier scene to put it in a new predicament - the curse of not outlining before writing. Sometimes I keep a list of things that need to be added and I will put them in at a good place in the story during revision.

Moving the story along to the mid-point is an exercise in mini-dramas and dramatic arc which are limited to a chapter. I like the aria and recitativo model taught to me by author David  Huddle during my MFA program. As a former music student, I understood immediately the operatic concept. The aria is a real-time scene with dialog and details that explore the situation, feelings, motivations, and develop character and move the plot forward. The recitativo is simple exposition which takes you to the next aria. It should not have any important revelations in it. String a bunch of arias together and you have a full opera.

The main idea is that writing the beginning, up to 10,000 words is a different kind of writing than the rest of the book. Then I must shift into what feels like a completely different frame of mind. At this point, I also start thinking of the story throughout my daily life. Thoughts pop into my head at random. Then I cannot keep from returning to the keyboard.

Next: Subplots.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Solitude, Part 3

Have you ever just awakened in a rush and realized you're late to write a blog post? No, me neither. But I have awakened and realized it just might be Sunday again, so a blog post would be a way to fill the morning. So once again we return to the subject at hand: my writing process. Why? Because many have asked me the infernal questions: Where do you get your ideas? and How do you write all of that stuff? So I've tried to think it through and come up with answers. Then I wrote it out for the sake of some future creative writing class I likely will never teach.

I revealed the 'getting ideas' part already (see previous blog posts). The next step is to get started. The opening scene. The first paragraph. The first sentence. Once upon a time or It was a dark and stormy night are not allowed. Start with the main character doing something in the first sentence. Or you can go with a statement about the weather or the collapse of society. Something - anything - just to get some words on the page or screen. 

When I was a young writer I was fascinated by the setting of the story, mostly because I wrote science fiction and alien worlds were...fascinating. As I later moved into contemporary literary fiction, I focused on the protagonist before the setting - because, well, the setting was already fairly well known, being contemporary and such. Here is what I thought of while driving from Winnipeg to Edmonton last summer because the road was there:

Step 3

When I get the first germ of an idea, I need a character to carry the story. In my younger writing days, I was all about interesting plots and the characters were cardboard. Then, in my graduate school days, I was ushered rather forcefully into the world of character-driven fiction. So now I have to begin with an interesting person - or, at least, an ordinary person with an interesting problem.

 To begin a novel I do some test writing. I begin with the principal character (usually the protagonist) and see where it goes. Mostly I am experimenting with the voice. How does that character speak? Can I imitate that character's way of speaking? Voice patterns, way of thinking, world view? Dialect or vernacular? Age? (In my novel A Girl Called Wolf, I wrote the main character speaking as a young child with limited vocabulary at the beginning, then as an older child, then a teen, and finally an adult.) A lot of fiction today seems to favor the 1st person point of view, especially in YA. I remember most of the stories read in my youth were in first-person. A lot depends, in my opinion, on the story (what happens) and the narrator (who tells what happens).

 If the protagonist has a unique voice, a way of speaking that is compelling or who has special knowledge, then 1st person (I, me) makes sense. But sometimes you want a little distance between the reader and the narrative/characters so 3rd person (she/her, he/him) is more appropriate. Also, if you are working with a large cast of characters, 3rd person can allow you to get into each one's heads.

 In 3rd person you can still focus on one character, as I do in my current WIP, or you can treat all the characters as actors on a stage. A "close 3rd person" still allows you to hear the character's thoughts and know his/her feelings. You just cannot know the internal thoughts and feelings of other characters. In my collection, I have only 3 novels using 1st person. One other was originally 1st person but I changed it to close 3rd to give the story more space.

This bunny has no purpose here other than to be a bunny.

Therefore, as various writing gurus have said and I have to agree, the only reason to use first-person for narration is because the speaker has a unique perspective on the story and can convey it in an interesting way. Otherwise, third-person will do quite nicely. Make it close third-person if you still want that tight perspective. 

For example, in my forthcoming novel, I keep the "camera" on the shoulder of my protagonist/ main character throughout, even though I use third-person. However, in doing so, we must be very careful not to hop into the head of another character. I cheated a bit in one scene by having her overhear what the protagonist was speaking into a phone in the next room. But I did not enter her head and reveal her thoughts; only physical action - which may suggest thoughts but not official expose them. I stayed cool, man, cool.


NEXT: The Story Takes Off


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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.