You’re planning to write a story, but you don’t know whose point of view (POV) to tell it in. Author K.M. Weiland wrote a wonderful post on the subject, and I suggest you start there. I’ll wait here while you read that. The rest of my post supplements hers.
Credit to www.perchance.org for the images
List the Contenders
Weiland’s 6-step process starts with identifying the contenders. You could choose any character in your story, or even select an omniscient, god-like POV.
Winnow Down the List
Next, Weiland suggests you think about which contenders matter least to the story’s drama. For example, a servant or guard who rarely speaks and whom you’ve only included for authenticity—a ‘spear carrier’ in literary lingo—makes a less useful POV character.
Rate the Stakes
In the next step, you consider each character’s stakes. What do they lose if they don’t get what they want? You’ll get more dramatic impact from characters with the most to lose.
What Type of Narration?
Choose from among first person (I/me), second person (you), third person (she/he), and omniscient (god-like). I’ve written about these before.
Pitch Your Tense
Most writers chose past or present. In past tense, she ran, she sat, she said. In present tense, she runs, she sits, she says. More stories use past tense, but you may choose either one.
Final Auditions
After going through the above steps, you might still face a choice between more than one possible POV character. Weiland suggests you write a few paragraphs of the story in each of the remaining contenders’ POVs. They don’t know it, but they’re auditioning for the POV role. Choose the one with the most interesting voice, the one who tells your story best.
One More Consideration
The post by K.M. Weiland addresses all the above points better than I have, but I’ll add another thought. Nothing limits you to one POV for an entire story (though in flash fiction, you should restrict yourself to one).
You might choose a different POV for each chapter, or even each scene. As you do so, use the same six-step process mentioned above in selecting the appropriate character.
Also, make transitions between POV characters clear to the reader. In the first sentence of a section with a new POV character, include a thought, or a feeling, or both, from that character. That alerts the reader about the POV shift.
Of course, throughout the literary world, experts agree the very best point of view is that of—
Imagine the joy of blazing a trail in your stories, writing about something nobody has attempted before. Consider the electric thrill when you’re creating, in fiction, a new type of vehicle for your characters (and, by extension, for your readers).
Vehicles hold a special place for all of us, don’t they? The machines that transport us also shield us from the harsh outer world while cocooning us in comparative comfort. They move along at our command, heedless of distance or obstacles, and some of them convey us through places in which our frail bodies wouldn’t survive.
Today I highlight the pioneering fiction vehicles, the ones first taking readers through a particular environment. Look elsewhere for a list of the most popular, or the coolest-looking, etc. Here I’m focusing on the first, the pioneers, and we’ll proceed in chronological order.
First Flying Vehicle
The Hindu text R?m?ya?a, dating from between 600 BCE to 200 CE, mentions gods and demigods flying around in Vim?na. These vehicles take various forms, including flying palaces and chariots. I found no evidence online that these vim?na carried mortal people, or that they traveled in outer space. Still, a flying palace seven stories high sounds great to me. Not all gods owned them, apparently, and some of these vehicles lacked anti-theft devices. Ravana stole one from Kubera, but Rama recovered and returned it.
First Underwater Vehicle
The same character—Alexander the Great—piloted the next two vehicles on my list. Though a real historical figure, Alexander also got fictionalized in a series of tales now called the Alexander Romances. Widely read and translated, they originated in Ancient Greece before 338 AD, but spread across Europe and Asia, changing with every retelling over hundreds of years. One of these tales took him underwater in a glass diving bell lowered from a ship. I’ve written my own fictional account of this trip in my story, Alexander’s Odyssey.
First Flying Vehiclefor Mortals
Alexander the Great also flew in the air, according to another tale from the Alexander Romances. He harnessed two griffins to a chair in which he sat. He steered the craft by tempting the griffins with meat on skewers so they’d fly in his intended direction. You can never find griffins when you need them these days, forcing us to fly by airplane.
First Space Vehicle
The first purposeful aerial vehicle in fiction belongs, I believe, to Francis Godwin, who wrote The Man in the Moone, published in 1638. (I’m discounting True History by Lucian of Samosata, since his ship flew by accident.) In Godwin’s tale, his hero, Domingo Gonsales, trained a flock of swans and hitched them to a framework, allowing him to fly. Unaware that these swans periodically migrated to the moon, he ended up there. Little wonder his contraption didn’t catch on—he’s sitting on a slender pole.
First Time-Traveling Vehicle
If you’d care to travel through time, step aboard the conveyance from the 1846 novel Le Monde Tel Qu’il Sera [The World As It Will Be] by Emile Souvestre. This steam-powered locomotive flew through space and time. (And you thought the flying, time-traveling locomotive in the movie Back to the Future III was innovative!) The seat looks comfortable, but it’s atop the locomotive’s boiler, just forward of the smoke-stack—a rather warm ride.
First Multiple-Environment Vehicle
So far I’ve mentioned travel in no more than two modes–air and space, space and time. But the Terror from Jules Verne’s 1904 novel Master of the World combined boat, submarine, automobile, and aircraft. The police might catch you speeding and give chase, but they’d never be able to pull you over. Not available yet for purchase, but my name’s on the waiting list.
First Underground Vehicle
If you’d like to travel underground in style, you’ll need the Iron Mole from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1914 novel, At the Earth’s Core. Perhaps you’d better wait until someone develops a steering mechanism for the machine, though. The novel’s heroes couldn’t steer it and they dug down 500 miles and found Pellucidar.
First Intense-Gravity Exploration Vehicle
When someone asks if you’d like to travel to a neutron star (if I had a nickel for every time…) just say no. The intense gravity creates massive tidal forces within any approaching ship. The character in Larry Nivens’ short story “Neutron Star,” published in 1966 (before evidence of neutron stars existed) said yes to the question. He traveled in a spaceship called the Skydiver, a transparent, spindle-shaped vessel.
First Solar Exploration Vehicle
Most of us enjoy vacations where we can get a little sun. But we draw the line at traveling to the sun. I’ve heard of hot travel destinations, but that one melts the cake. The characters in David Brin’s 1980 novel Sundiver make the trip aboard a spherical vehicle called the Sundiver, which enables them to get close enough to the extreme heat. Seems to me they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by going at night.
First Cyberspace Vehicle
Traveling to the Matrix might seem difficult, but not if you step aboard Nebuchadnezzar, the hovercraft ship from the 1999 movie, The Matrix. In case you’ve forgotten, the matrix is the “simulated reality world” fed into human minds, a sort of dream world far different from the dystopian present. (Yes, I know the 1982 movie Tron included cyberspace vehicles, but they couldn’t travel between cyberspace and real space, as Nebuchadnezzar could.)
Conclusion
If I’ve left out a pioneering vehicle, or if a vehicle predates one or more on my list, let me know. To qualify, a vehicle must travel within an environment or element no other fictional vehicle has traversed before.
If you enjoy writing about fictional vehicles, don’t despair that it’s too late to write a story about a pioneering vehicle. See my blogpost about pioneers and giants. If you can’t be a pioneer, you can still be a giant. For a discussion about how to deal with fictional vehicles in your stories, stay tuned for a future blogpost by—
With your written words alone, you can evoke many emotions in your readers. You can mystify, fascinate, dazzle, awe, uplift, sadden, and many more. But strive not to confuse.
Consequences
Confused readers might, for a short time, give you the benefit of the doubt. Your readers might slog on a bit longer, trusting you to straighten things out, enlighten, explain.
If the confusion doesn’t get resolved soon, your trusting readers will lose trust and blame you, not themselves, for the confusion. It’s your fault for not being clear, for writing poorly. Hard to win readers back after that.
Story Level
To prevent reader confusion, let’s start with the big picture. You’ve finished your manuscript, whether short story, novella, or novel. In your mind, picture the entirety of it.
Does it make sense?
Does it satisfy in some way?
Could your target readers pick out the themes?
Is your main character vivid and engaging?
Could your readers describe the protagonist’s problem, and how that problem got resolved?
If not, perhaps you should do another draft.
Scene Level
Next, look at the story scene by scene. For every one, ask a few questions.
Have you provided enough description for each important person, place, and object?
From these descriptions, can your readers form a good mental picture?
Do your characters stay in-character? That is, do their words, thoughts, and actions make sense in the circumstances, and are they consistent with previously established motivations? If not, have you provided a reasonable explanation for the change in the characters’ behavior?
Do your characters choose the easiest or shortest path to achieving their goals? If not, have you provided a convincing explanation why your character takes the more difficult or longer route?
If some answers are ‘no,’ consider editing those scenes.
In her post, Ms. Steinemann lists several punctuation and word phrasing errors that can confuse readers. Her post includes examples of each along with ways to correct them.
One section deals with word order, and the examples of poor word order remind me of the old Groucho Marx joke—“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”
Overall
The best technique for preventing reader confusion lies outside all the levels I’ve discussed. Ms. Steinemann mentions this technique in her post as two things, but I’ll combine them since they’re related: Let your manuscript rest until you can edit it with fresh eyes.
In other words, leave the story unread for a time while you work on other things. How long should it rest? The longer you wait, the better your editing will be, but also the longer the reading public must wait for its publication. You pick the best compromise there.
Exceptions
No writing rule stands unmarred by exceptions. Are there times when you may want to confuse readers? Yes.
You can get away with confusing them for a time, but only if you resolve their confusion with an ‘ah-ha!’ or a ‘ha-ha!’ You might present a confusing situation such that both character and reader get confused, as in a mystery, then solve the mystery for both character and reader. Ah-ha! Or you can make a joke as in the Groucho Marx example. Ha-ha!
Conclusion
In general, you’re not aiming for confused readers. If they can’t figure out what you mean, they won’t read the rest of the story, or any others written by you. They might tell their friends not to, as well. If this post confused you, then the only one to blame is—
Two separate legal battles, over two different creative works, may prove instructive to the writers among you.
Recently, I blogged about the Julie and Julia Formula, where you transform a passion of yours into literary success. A workable formula, true, but you must take care to avoid the legal peril of copyright violation.
Copyright
In concept, copyright strikes a duration-specified balance between respecting the right of a creator to profit from creative work without competition, and providing the public unrestricted access to all ideas. Our nation’s founding fathers set that compromise at 14 years. Over time, Congress lengthened it to either 95 years after publication or 70 years after the author’s death, whichever comes first.
That lifting of a restriction arrived far too late for Dan O’Neill, who, in 1971, attempted to profit from his comic book, “Air Pirates Funnies,” which featured the famous mouse. Though Mickey is just a mouse, the Disney lawyers must have seemed to O’Neill like some larger and more voracious animal.
Tolkien
The other recent event concerns JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Tolkien got his book published in 1955, so it’s still under copyright. A writer going by the name Polychron published an unauthorized sequel in 2022. An army soon attacked. Not an army of Orcs, but, worse, an army of lawyers hired by the Tolkien family heirs.
Temptation
What might we learn from these two cases? The obvious lesson—don’t infringe on someone else’s copyright.
Easy to say, but that lesson doesn’t say it all. Often, we take up writing because we’ve fallen in love with another author’s work. We love that author’s world and characters. We immerse ourselves in the book. We imagine other adventures for those characters. Ideas for sequels and prequels spring to mind.
We write a new story out of love, enjoying every minute of the project. We adore the finished product. What’s the harm, we think, of making a few bucks? The character’s original creator is dead, the family is wealthy, and our work is a tribute, after all, not some crass satire.
The Other Side
To see the harm, picture the matter from the other side. No matter what you think of the 95/70 years rule, it’s the current law. Imagine you dreamed up a memorable character, one the world fell in love with. Your book became a best-seller and the resulting movie a blockbuster. You’ve made a well-deserved fortune and you’ll die knowing your heirs will live in financial comfort.
Along comes some upstart, a writer who couldn’t be bothered to create an original character in an original world. This thief steals your work, your intellectual property, and seeks a profit from it. (Here, I’m not referring to anyone in particular, just to a hypothetical copyright violator.) In such a case, you’d hope the lawyers fight for the rights of your heirs.
Takeaway
Rather than stealing another author’s character, be creative. Turn that love of another’s work into something different. Honor your favorite author by slanting your book down a unique path.
Or, if you must use someone else’s ideas, pick those old enough to have advanced to the public domain. If you go that direction, don’t just add zombies—I’m begging you. The ‘classics plus zombies’ mashup is cliched. If any readers harbored doubts about your originality in copying an idea freshly emerged into the public domain, you’ll only confirm a reputation as an unimaginative hack by inserting zombies.
Go write a story involving the early Mickey Mouse if you wish. But, however strong the temptation, do not copy the ideas of—
A year ago, you got excited about the publication of Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Then you learned the book wasn’t available in your favorite format, the ebook. Disappointed, you kept checking, as days became weeks became months.
Good news! Your patient wait is over. You may now purchase the ebook version. It’s available from the publisher, for the Amazon Kindle, and soon from other booksellers. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.
Those of you who prefer to read on electronic devices can now enjoy this anthology of over a dozen stories, all crafted by today’s authors. These tales sparkle with the lure of distant travel, the wonder of scientific discovery, and the drama of high adventure that typify Verne’s novels. With each story, you’ll see an accompanying illustration selected from original drawings in Verne’s works.
Two appendices close out the book. The first provides the source of each illustration. The second gives a complete list of all JV’s published works, most now available in English.
To reiterate, you may now purchase Extraordinary Visions in ebook format here and here. I’m confident you’ll delight in reading this anthology, co-edited by Reverend Matthew T. Hardesty and—
As the end of the year approaches, this seems a good time to assess writing performance. As with last year, I’m using the Writer’s Performance Review template created by the Book Coach, Jennie Nash.
I scored a bit higher this year than last—a 75 out of a possible 100. Worst scores—goal orientation and strategic thinking. In last year’s assessment I scored low in these two as well, but my score improved in industry knowledge.
Goal orientation means more than writing down a to-do list, which I do. It means assigning numeric, measurable goals for time spent, word count, etc. Although I understand the importance of such metrics, I worry about the dangers of overemphasis. I’ve found I get more of what I measure and less of what I don’t. If that’s true for you, take care in what you choose to measure.
This performance review template defines strategic thinking to include identifying and connecting with ‘ideal readers’ and their influencers. I’ll do more research into this.
This year saw some personal writing successes. My short story “80 Hours” came out in paperback and ebook form. A book I co-edited, Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne, got published. I served as president of my local writing critique group, and got a short story accepted for publication in an upcoming anthology.
Performance assessments bring anxiety, embarrassment, and self-doubt. Now imagine making your assessments public, as I do in these annual posts. You get to see a writer striving to improve, agonizing over failures, and dusting himself off, determined to make next year better.
If my struggles do no more than to inspire you to improve your own writing, then my self-examinations serve a greater purpose than mere assessments of—
You’d like to write a fictional story, but don’t know what to write about. As you cast around for ideas, you realize everything’s been written by someone else before you. There’s nothing new under the sun.
The French writer Alfred de Musset expressed your precise feeling in his poem “Rolla,” when he wrote, “I came too late into a world too old.”
Author Robert Glancy said “All the stories in the world have already been told.”
Another author, Anna Quindlen, put it this way: “Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel.”
Library shelves and bookstores teem with books you could have written, but didn’t. Now it’s too late. All plots used. All characters portrayed. All settings explored. All stories written.
If it’s true for you, it’s true for everyone. Not only have the monkeys finished, all human writers must also be done. The last novels, the last short stories, novellas, and flash fiction pieces must even now be rolling off the printing presses. This year, 2022, must mark the end of fiction. All writers must retire. All publishers must shift to reprinting old stuff.
Any day now, we’ll hear the news about the death of new fiction. It had a good run. We remember it like it was yesterday. Rest in Peace.
Any day now…
Wait a minute. I’m not sensing a slowing of writer output yet. Publishers somehow keep cranking out new titles. Writers somehow keep submitting fresh manuscripts.
Don’t they know it’s over? Haven’t they read the obituary? What’s going on? If everything’s been written already, why are writers still writing? Why are publishers still publishing?
Looking back, we see no error in our logic, no flaw in our reasoning. And yet.
Upon further examination, we missed the end of the Glancy and Quindlen quotes. Robert Glancy went on to say, “…but our stories have not been told from every angle.” Anna Quindlen continued in her speech, “…except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.”
Maybe there’s hope for you after all. Maybe all plots, characters, and settings have been exhausted…but not in every combination. Not from every perspective. Not using every mood, tone, or style. Not with every apt metaphor, every well-worded simile. Not with your experiences and passions woven in.
Call the monkeys back to their typewriters. They have more work to do. Much more.
Come to think of it, forget about the monkeys. They’re not the ones with stories to write. You are. An infinite number of stories remain. They’re out there. Your muse whispers them to you and you must obey.
De Musset had it backward. You didn’t come too late into a world too old. You came just in time for the world to read your story.
Your story may well resemble, in certain aspects, others that came before. But since it’s yours, that gives it freshness and originality. Something new under the sun after all.
So write it. Let the world read it. Back to the keyboard you go. And so, also, goes—
Many people read in bed at night. Researchers tell you it’s good for your sleep and overall health. I disagree. Let me explain.
First, I know all the reasons people urge you to read in bed. It helps you relax, stimulates your creativity, gives you more empathy, and makes you smarter. I’ve read blogs and articles by Maddie Thomas, Lilianna Hogan at WebMD, Jodi Helmer, and Dr. Michael Breus. Molly Cavanaugh even inflicts this practice on her children.
These people have it all wrong. Reading in bed is bad. No, I’m not talking about the blue light hazard. The danger I speak of is present whether you read ebooks or paper books.
No, I’m not talking about the supposed harm of reading horror stories or other unsettling books that might cause nightmares or insomnia. I’m talking about a peril lurking for you no matter what you read.
I’ll concede that science has shown reading in bed helps you sleep. True. I get that. But that’s not the point. Those researchers have it all backward.
My concern—my deep fear—isn’t about how reading affects sleep. I’m terrified about how sleep affects reading.
But I’m not even talking about that. It’s not the amount of sleep that bothers me.
Here’s my scary theory. Our brains seem wired for pattern recognition. That skill enables us to form habits and cement them into routines and rituals.
If you read every night before bedtime, if you’ve developed and ingrained that habit, your brain has formed a solid link between reading and sleep.
That’s right. Your brain knows the pattern—seeing words means going night-night. You’ve made it a pleasurable pattern, thus a self-reinforcing one.
How do I know this? Where’s my research? Well, okay, I don’t have any studies to cite. The world cries out for experimental data on this vital subject. For all I know, researchers have tried, but as soon as they read their own paper, they fell asleep.
Where, you ask, is the danger? Who cares if your brain links reading with sleep?
Go ahead and think that, but don’t come crying to me when, during a meeting at work, you drop into slumberland when your boss displays a text-filled PowerPoint slide.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re driving, see stop sign, and pause to read it, only to fall asleep at the wheel.
Worst of all, and I can hardly bear to mention this unspeakable horror, it’s possible that, someday, you will fall asleep while reading a book written by—
When I write, I wear six hats. Well, not at the same time, and not literally. I recommend you do, too. Some of the hats may not fit well, at first, but you’ll come to like them all.
I’m talking about the Six Thinking Hats of Dr. Edward de Bono, popularized by his 1985 book of the same name. Author Mark Gilroy applied the 6 hats idea to writing in this fun and instructive blog post, and I’ll add my own spin on his ideas here.
When you wear any particular one of the colored hats, you’re adopting a specific persona, a mindset that drives your thoughts. They are as follows:
Green is for new ideas, creativity, and innovation.
Blue is for big picture thinking, management, and organization.
Yellow is for positive thinking, optimism, and hope.
Black is for negative thinking, pessimism, and skepticism.
White is for non-judgmental information-gathering.
Red is for feelings, emotions, and instinct.
The theory is that only by wearing each of the hats at different times is a complete, effective solution achieved.
For a writer of fictional stories, here’s a way to think of each hat:
Green: story concepts, ideas for characters and settings
Blue: outlining, organizing your thoughts, planning your marketing campaign
Yellow: perseverance, overcoming disillusionment or loss of interest
Red: first draft, character motivation, building tension
To look at this in a different way, let’s consider different stages or activities involved in writing a story, and which hats you’d wear at each stage. I’ve listed several hats at each stage in a specific order. Since writers work alone, or collaborate with one or a few others, I don’t consider it necessary to follow Dr. de Bono’s strict methods, which are intended for business teams.
Activity
Hat Sequence
Conceiving idea for story
Green, Blue, Yellow, Black
Researching for story
White, Blue
Outlining story
Blue, Red, Green, White, Yellow, Black
Writing story
Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, White
Self-editing story
Black, White, Blue
Resolving feedback on story from others
Black, White, Blue
Marketing story after acceptance
Red, Blue, Yellow, Green
As I mentioned earlier, not all the hats will feel comfortable to you. That is, some mindsets may be difficult for you to think in. Some writers don’t plan well or do outlines, so the blue hat may pinch a bit. Others get partway through writing and lose interest or get depressed about how poor they write, and they’ll dislike the yellow hat’s style.
Whichever hat is difficult for you, that’s the one you need most. That’s the one that will help you become a well-rounded writer.
Here you go—six (figurative) hats, all in great condition. Wear them well. With any luck, you’ll write better and look at least as dapper as—
To begin the world anew, you get three books. Which do you choose? That’s Filby’s question. Let’s explore it.
At the end of the movie The Time Machine (1960), David Filby discovers his friend George has departed in his time machine, again. Filby says to the housekeeper, “He’s gone back to the future, to begin a new world. But it’s not like George to go off without a plan. He must have taken something with him. Is anything missing?”
Credit to https://filmfreedonia.com
Mrs. Watchett replies, “Nothing…” and then sees a blank space on a bookshelf. “Except three books.” Filby asks, “Which three?” Mrs. Watchett replies, “I don’t know. Is it important?”
“Oh, I suppose not,” Filby answers. “Only…which three books would you have taken?”
There’s an interesting question. If you were headed to a place where people had no knowledge of civilization, where you had to start from scratch, what books would you take?
At this point, you may be thinking the premise of the question is so unlikely that it’s not worth thinking about. True, you won’t be travelling through time to restart civilization with only three books.
However, there are many similar—and more likely—scenarios in which you might need to make such a choice. Our civilization could collapse economically, militarily, through natural disaster, or some other way. You might be the one who saves the three most useful books needed to start up again.
Besides, it’s the thought process that’s important, not the specific problem. It’s good to know how to prioritize things when resources are highly constrained.
Therefore, to return to Filby’s question, here are some book topics to consider:
Technology. You could bring a book about how things are made, how things work.
Literature. You might bring the complete works of Shakespeare, or the works of Homer. One of those books would help your civilization understand what it is to be human.
Culture. Maybe you’d take sheet music of our greatest composers, or books with pictures of timeless art and sculpture, if only to preserve them.
Governance. You could bring a copy of the U.S. Constitution or a book about various forms of government.
Religion. The Bible, Torah, or Quran. When starting a civilization, the spiritual side is important.
Philosophy. You could pick a single philosopher or a general book on the subject. Philosophers consider the biggest questions of all.
Survival. Perhaps a camping handbook or some other manual about survival techniques, growing and preparing food, etc.
Science. Maybe you’d need an up-to-date science reference so your civilization can avoid rediscovering things.
History. If you bring a history book, maybe this new civilization can learn from our mistakes.
There are certainly some categories I’ve missed. Even if you restrict your choices to the categories above, the limit of three books is frustrating. No matter which three books you choose, you’ll wish you’d brought others.
As for me, I think I’d bring one book on technology, a second on survival, and the third on systems of governance. I sure wish my time machine had room for more books!
