How to Engage Your Readers using Deep Point of View

I'm over at The Kill Zone blog today, where I was a regular contributor (every second Monday) for three years. Here's the beginning of my post there today, with a link at the end to the rest of the tips.

Tips for Deepening the POV in Your Fiction

by Jodie Renner, editor & author

Most of today’s popular fiction is written in first-person POV (I) or third-person limited point of view (he, she), both of which show us the story mainly from inside the character’s head and body. These narrative techniques engage readers much more emotionally than the more distant third-person omniscient, which was popular in previous centuries.

Current popular fiction, although a long way from the old omniscient style, still employs a variety of narrative distances, depending on the genre, the target readership, and the writer’s own comfort level. There is a whole spectrum when it comes to narrative distance, from plot-driven military or action-adventure novels and historical sagas at one end to character-driven romantic suspense and romance at the other.

Today’s post focuses on close or intimate narrative distance – how to engage readers emotionally, bond them with your character, and draw them deep into your story, so they can’t put it down. And how to avoid interrupting as the author, which some readers might even find akin to “mansplaining.” See a great post here on TKZ by bestselling thriller writer, Robert Dugoni, “Hey, Butt Out! I’m Reading Here!”

Most female readers (and apparently females make up about 70% of readers of novels) prefer to identify closely with the main character. The reading experience is more satisfying when we connect emotionally with the protagonist, worrying about them and rooting for them.

What is third-person limited POV? As Dan Brown says, “limited or ‘close’ third point of view (a narrative that adheres to a single character) … gives you the ability to be inside a character’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations, which can give readers a deeper experience of character and scene, and is the most common way to use point of view.”

(For an introduction to point of view in fiction, especially deep point of view or close third-person POV, see my articles here on TKZ: POV 101, POV 102, and POV 103)

From third-person limited, you can decide to go even deeper, into close third person or deep point of view to create an immersive experience where readers are more emotionally invested, feeling like participants rather than observers.

As David Mamet says, “Deep point of view is a way of writing fiction in third-person limited that silences the narrative voice and takes the reader directly into a character’s mind…. Deep POV creates a deeper connection between readers and characters.”

In deep POV, the author writes as the character instead of about him. The character and his world come to life for us as we vicariously share his experiences and feel his struggles, pain, triumphs, and disappointments.

As editor and author Beth Hill says, “deep POV…is a way of pairing third-person POV with a close narrative distance. It’s a way of creating the intimacy of first-person narration with a third-person point of view.” (And without all those I – I – I’s.)

Depending on your personal style, you could decide to write in a deeper, more subjective third-person point of view for a whole novel or story or reserve this closer technique for more critical or intimate scenes.

Assuming you write in third person and want to engage your readers more and immerse them in your story world, here are some tips for getting deeper into the psyche of your character, starting with more general tips and working down to fine-tuning.

~ First, decide whose scene it is. ...

For the rest of this post, go to 

Tips for Deepening the POV in Your Fiction

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized and edited two anthologies. Website: https://www.jodierenner.com/, Facebook, Amazon Author Page.

Concrete Tips & Examples for "Showing" Rather than "Telling"

by Jodie Renner, editor & author   

"SHOW, DON’T TELL" -- This phrase has been repeated to the point where you might feel it's hackneyed and you can dismiss it--NOT! No matter how many times you've heard it, this concept is still critical to creating fresh fiction that captivates readers and garners great reviews. It's also one of the most difficult concepts for new fiction writers to grasp, along with deep point of view. (The two concepts are inextricably entwined.) Understanding and mastering these two interrelated concepts will make a huge difference in the quality of your stories by engaging readers emotionally and keeping them turning the pages.

Showing instead of telling your story brings your characters and scenes to life. Using this technique will suck your reader into your story world and right inside your protagonist, experiencing her fear along with her, feeling the sweat on her brow and her adrenaline racing, pulse quickening right along with hers, muscles tensed, ready to leap into action.

~ Don’t tell us what happened – show us what happened.

To clarify what is meant by “show, don’t tell,” think of it this way: Which would you rather do -- go see an exciting movie in a theatre with a big screen and surround sound (“show”), or hear about the movie from someone else afterward (“tell”)? That’s the difference we’re talking about here.

A common mistake among aspiring fiction writers is to describe or narrate (or worse, summarize) important events as if they took place at some point in the past, instead of putting the reader right in the middle of the action and showing critical events as they occur, in real time, along with the characters’ actions, reactions, inner thoughts and feelings, and actual words (direct dialogue in quotations).

Bestselling author Janet Evanovich considers “show, don’t tell” to be one of the most important principles of fiction: “Instead of stating a situation flat out, you want to let the reader discover what you’re trying to say by watching a character in action and by listening to his dialogue. Showing brings your characters to life.”

~ Cut back on narration, description, and exposition.

Effective, engaging storytelling is definitely not about relating the events after the fact or interpreting for the readers. Keep the story moving and the characters interacting. The author stepping in to describe or explain things to the readers jolts us away from the characters and their plight and can be distracting, boring, and irritating for readers.

~ Don’t get in the way or interpret for us.

We like to experience things for ourselves, not hear about them from someone else. Think about being subjected to photo after photo, or even videos, about your neighbors’ vacation. Yawn. In the same way, readers of popular fiction don’t want to be kept at arm’s length, to be told what’s happening by an intermediary narrator. They want to experience the events firsthand, to see, hear and feel what’s happening. They want to sense the character’s fears, hopes, joys, and worries and draw their own conclusions.

As the late, great Jack Bickham said, “Not only does moment-by-moment development make the scene seem most lifelike, it’s in a scene [with dialogue and action and reaction] where your reader gets most of his excitement. If you summarize, your reader will feel cheated – short-changed of what he reads for – without quite knowing why.”

It’s through characters interacting that a scene comes alive, so be sure to put us right there with the characters, in the middle of the tension and conflict, using “live” action, dialogue, sensory details, thoughts, and emotions.

~ Use deep point of view.

Avoid omniscient point of view, which is distracting and distancing. Use close third-person (or first-person) POV  to put us right into your protagonist’s or other main character’s head and skin. Show us her thoughts, reactions, and plans, his inner fears, hopes, resentments, anger, confusion, tenderness, relief, and joy. Don’t keep the reader at arm’s length by describing your hero or heroine from the outside, using omniscient or distant third-person point of view.

~ Evoke all five senses.

Showing means presenting the story to the reader using sensory information. The reader wants to feel what the character is feeling, experience their fear, joy, anger, determination, and pain, know their inner hopes and thoughts, and also see what’s happening, hear the different voices of the characters and other sounds, smell the smells, feel the tactile sensations, and taste the food and drink along with them. Telling, on the other hand, is summarizing the story for the reader in a way that skips past the life-giving sensory information and just relates the basic actions and events that occurred.

~ Use powerful, evocative phrasing.

Instead of “the miner was tired” (telling), say “the miner trudged home, head bowed,” or “the miner plodded along, his boots like lead weights” or “the miner clomped over the gravel with heavy steps.” Or slogged or tramped or lumbered or dragged or shuffled (all showing).

Do a search for the word “was” – it’s often an indicator of telling instead of showing, as in “she was sad” or “he was angry.” Show their feelings instead by their thoughts, actions, words, tone, and body language.

~ Add in lots of tension and conflict.

Also, the bulk of the scene needs to be about a conflict of some kind between characters. No conflict = no scene. Tension and conflict are what drive fiction forward. As Jack M. Bickham said, the conflict part of the scene “draws readers out through a moment-by-moment drama, extending the scene suspense with pleasurable agony.” If you have a scene where everyone is getting along great, revise it to add more tension.

EXAMPLES OF SHOWING, RATHER THAN TELLING:

Telling: Jake’s words spooked me.

Showing: The hair on my arms rose when I thought about Jake’s words.

Telling: George was disgusted and angry.

Showing: George pounded his fist on the table and swore at her, his lips curling. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Telling: Janie was bored at her Grandma’s.

Showing: Janie wandered from room to room, trying to find something to do. She wished it wasn’t raining outside. She looked through Grandma’s old books but nothing interested her.

~ Also, no need to “tell” after you’ve “shown.”        

Don’t explain after the fact. The words and actions should convey what you're trying to show.

Before:

“You’re late!” the general said. He didn’t like to be kept waiting.

After:

“You’re late!” The general glared at him, hands on hips.

Other no-no examples of telling after showing:

In each case below, take out the unnecessary sentence at the end:

She moped around the house and wouldn’t answer the phone. Even TV didn’t interest her. She was depressed.

“You crack me up,” she said, laughing hysterically. Joel could be so funny.

RECAP – TIPS FOR SHOWING INSTEAD OF TELLING:

~ Show the characters’ actions as they’re occurring, in real time.

~ Use deep point of view to get right into the skin, head, and heart of your character.

~ Show us your viewpoint character’s reactions, feelings, emotions, and thoughts.

~ Add in sensory information. What are they seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, feeling?

~ Include lots of spirited, to-the-point dialogue. 

~ Look for “was” or “were” and rephrase the sentence, replacing the adjective with a compelling verb or verbal phrase.

~ Cut way back on narrative description, exposition, and lengthy explanations of the character’s past or motivations.

~ Keep flashbacks short, and show them in real time, with action and dialogue.

~ Throw in plenty of conflict and tension. 

~ Avoid telling after you’ve shown.

Of course, you can’t show everything, or your book would be way too long, and it would tire your readers out – or worse, end up boring them. You don’t want to show every move your characters make at down times, or when going from one place to the other. That’s where you summarize or “tell,” to get them to the next important scene quickly, without a lot of boring detail. 

The main thing to keep in mind is to never tell the reader, after the fact (or have a character telling another character), about a critical scene. Instead, dramatize it in the here and now, with dialogue, action, and lots of sensory details to bring it to life for the reader.

And check out these articles on Point of View on this blog:

POV 101 -- Get Into Your Protagonist's Head, 

POV 102 -- How to Avoid Head-Hopping, and 

POV 103 -- Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View. 

Click HERE for options to receive email alerts of new posts published on this blog.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICKCLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

Tips for Creating an Authentic, Engaging Voice

by Jodie Renner, editor & author   

If you want to write fiction that engages readers and sells, it's critical to develop an authentic, compelling voice in your novel. The key to accomplishing this is to recognize that voice in fiction is – or should be – inseparable from the words, thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and reactions of your main character (or other important character – villain, love interest – in their own scene).

For example, some strong, unique voices that sweep us immediately into the character’s world and the fictive dream, are Huck’s in Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield’s in Catcher in the Rye, Stephanie Plum’s in Janet Evanovich’s series, Scout’s in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Katniss’s in The Hunger Games. 

These novels are all written in the first person ("I"), so of course it’s a lot easier for the author to immerse us in the character’s attitudes and world-view – especially with such great characters! But I think we can create and maintain an equally strong, appealing voice in third-person (he, she), too, if we take a tip from first-person POV and keep all of the narration for each scene firmly in the viewpoint of the most important character for that scene – and have at least 70% of the novel in the protagonist’s point of view. 

To begin with, of course, your main character needs to be charismatic enough to carry the whole novel, so it’s critical to take the time to first create a protagonist who’s engaging and multi-dimensional, with lots of personality and openness, fairly strong views, and some baggage and inner conflict. Then show his world through his eyes and ears, not the author’s. The same goes for any scenes shown from the viewpoint of the antagonist or other important characters, of course.

Stay in character for the narration of each scene too, not just the dialogue and any inner thoughts and reactions. 

It’s your character who’s moving through that world, reacting to what’s around him. Don’t describe the surroundings and what’s going on from a distant, authorial point of view – show the character’s world directly through her observations, colored by her personality and mood. 

Look through your WIP novel. Does the narration (description and exposition) read like the main character for that scene could be thinking or saying it, or is it someone else’s (the author’s) words and phrasing? Are the descriptions of the surroundings neutral? Or are they colored and enriched by the character’s feelings, goal, mood, and attitude at that moment?

Beware of stepping in as the author to blandly and dispassionately describe the scene or explain things to the readers, as if it’s nonfiction. Besides being a less engaging read, that approach yanks us out of the character’s mindset and world – and out of the fictive dream. 

Read through your fiction manuscript. Are there places where you can bring the scene to life more by writing the narration in the language of the POV character? 

Here’s one of many examples I could give from my editing of fiction, with details, setting, and circumstances altered for anonymity: 

Setup: This is a flashback, a ten-year-old’s frightened observations as, hidden behind a tree, she watches some bad guys in the woods.

Before: 

The heavyset man pulled out a knife and strode toward the older, slimmer one. The thin guy looked stunned, like he didn’t expect that. In one swift movement, the big guy plunged the dagger into the older man’s carotid artery. Bright red blood gushed out like a river. 

Jodie’s comments: 

We’re in the point of view of a ten-year-old who is observing this and telling us what she sees. I doubt she’d know the term “carotid artery,” much less exactly where it is. Also, she probably wouldn’t say “heavyset man,” “dagger,” or “in one swift movement.” And probably not “strode,” either. 

After: 

The big man pulled out a knife and charged toward the older, slimmer one. The thin guy looked at him, his eyes wide. Before he could do anything, the big guy raised the knife and plunged it into his neck. Bright red blood gushed out like a river. 

To me, this sounds more like a ten-year-old telling us this now.

Here’s an example of a skewed, dark description through the thoughts and observations of the villain of a novel, a nasty character, a murderer with no conscience. This is from a thriller manuscript by talented writer Dara Carr, which I had the pleasure of editing several years ago.

The setting is a tourist destination on the Pacific Coast, Cannon Beach, Oregon, with its much-photographed Haystack Rock. The popular seaside resort is usually described in idyllic terms in travel and tourist brochures. Not so in this character’s viewpoint and voice.

    A gusty wind drove a spray of grit and salt at the van’s pitted old windshield. He ran the wipers to clear his sightline. The condos, once white, looked shell-shocked and gray. In another year, Marr figured the entire place would turn into driftwood.

    Expensive driftwood. The condos were beachfront property. Personally, he wouldn’t pay a dime to live there. The Oregon coastline, jagged and sharp like the edge of a serrated knife, was good for one thing only: boat crashes. And the famous Haystack Rock? Plastered with bird shit. Home to Dr. Death, who’d plot the end of the world from his roost on top of the rock.

Note how the choice of words and imagery (voice) in the excerpt above deepens the characterization of the villain and increases tension while setting the scene.

TIPS FOR KEEPING NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION IN THE POV CHARACTER'S VOICE: 

Here are a few little techniques for livening up information-sharing and imparting it with attitude, from the viewpoint of the POV character involved. 

~ Use stream-of-consciousness journaling. 

To bring out the character’s personality in the parts where he’s thinking or planning or worrying or ruminating, not just when he/she is interacting with others, do some stream-of-consciousness journaling by him/her. Have him ranting in a personal diary about the people around him, what’s going on, etc. Also show his deepest fears here. Then use this stuff to show his personality more in the scenes. 

~ Write the scene in first-person first, then switch it back.

Write a whole scene, or even a chapter or two in first-person narration/POV to get the rhythm and flow of that person’s language patterns and attitudes, then switch it to third-person. 

~ Stay in character. 

Stay in the POV of your character throughout the whole scene. How is he/she feeling at that moment? Let the narration reflect their current mood, level of tension/anxiety, physical discomfort, and sensory feelings. 

So to bring the scene and characters to life, deliver those details on setting, characterization, and action through the viewpoint of the main character for that scene, in their voice, with lots of attitude! 

For more on this topic, click on this link to go to POV 103: Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View and also Captivate Your Readers.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICKCLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

Quick Tips for Avoiding Viewpoint Gaffes in Your Fiction

by Jodie Renner, editor & author   

For an introduction to point of view in fiction and especially deep point of view or close third-person POV, see my articles 

POV 101 -- Get Into Your Protagonist's Head, 

POV 102 -- How to Avoid Head-Hopping, and 

POV 103 -- Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View. 

POV = point of view = viewpoint – Who’s telling the story?  Whose story is it? or, for novels written in multiple viewpoints, Whose head and body are we in for that scene?

Here are some quick additional tips for avoiding POV gaffes in your fiction:

~ First, decide whose scene it is. Who has the most at stake? If in doubt, show the from the viewpoint of your protagonist. And, to engage readers, it's best to start your novel/story in the point of view of your main character.

~ Now, get into that character’s head and body and stay there for the whole scene or chapter. Don’t flit around to the thoughts of other characters or show anything that’s going on outside of your POV character’s range or perceptions.

~ Don’t show or describe things going on behind the character’s back, in another room, or anywhere out of their sight or hearing range. Only show us what the character can logically perceive at that time.

~ To describe the setting, use the perceptions, words, goal, attitude, and mood of the POV character for that scene. Don’t describe a scene as a neutral observer or as the author talking to the readers.

~ Color your descriptions of other characters with the attitude and feelings of your POV character toward them. Avoid neutral descriptions.

~ Don’t describe other characters in a way that the POV character wouldn’t. For example, don’t give a detailed description from head to toe of a character the POV character is looking at and already knows very well, like a family member.

~ Don’t get into the inner thoughts or feelings of any other characters in that scene. Show their thoughts, emotions, attitudes and intentions by their facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, words, and actions – anything the POV character can perceive.

~ When starting a new scene or chapter, use the name of the viewpoint character right away, in the first sentence, to establish immediately for the reader whose head we’re in now.

~ After introducing the POV character, refer to him or her in an informal way, as they would think of themselves. Don't use "Mr." or "Dr." or "The director," for example.

~ Use the POV character’s name at the beginning of scenes, then use mainly “he” or “she” except when their name is needed for clarity. (The “he” or “she” is like “I” and draws us in closer.)

~ Refer to other characters by the name the POV character normally uses for them.

~ Avoid lengthy "info dumps." Don’t butt in as the author to explain things to the readers, outside of the character’s viewpoint. Instead, reveal the info from the character’s POV or as a question-and-answer dialogue, with some attitude and tension to spice things up.

~ Don’t show the POV character’s facial expression or body language (unless they’re looking in a mirror). They don’t know what’s going on with their face. Or indicate it somehow through their thoughts or fears. For example, you could say “She felt her face flush” to indicate that she’s blushing.

~ Show the POV character’s inner thoughts, emotions, and reactions constantly to increase reader engagement.  

~ Sprinkle in brief direct thought-reactions in italics, like What? to reveal the character’s true feelings and increase intimacy with the readers.

~ Constantly show the POV character’s sensory reactions to their environment, other characters, and what’s happening. Use as many of the five senses as is appropriate to get us into the skin of the character. Also show fatigue, fear, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, etc. That way, readers are drawn in and feel they "are" the character.

~ Keep the narration in the POV character’s voice. Not only should the dialogue be in the character’s voice and style, but the narration should too, as that’s really the character’s thoughts and observations.

~ Avoid lengthy backstory dumps, the author telling the readers about the character and their background. Introduce only the essential info, through the characters. Or use brief flashbacks, in scenes in real time, with action and dialogue.

~ Don’t have characters magically knowing the names of other characters they’ve never met or heard of, just because we, as the readers, have met those other characters. This is an easy gaffe to make inadvertently.

*Click HERE for options to receive email alerts of new posts published on this blog.

For more tips on using deep point of view to engage your readers and bring your characters and story to life, see Jodie’s writers’ guides in the series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction, including her latest, CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

LET YOUR CHARACTERS TELL THE STORY

by Jodie Renner, editor & author  

With all the high-quality, exciting fiction being published these days, it’s absolutely critical to captivate readers right away and keep them eagerly turning the pages of your story.

 The most effective way to really engage readers emotionally and bond them to your character is by using deep point of view to get up close and personal with your character, and at the same time, creating an authentic, compelling voice for your story, a fresh, original tone and style.

How do you do that?  First, create a strong, charismatic main character, then let that character share his or her story directly with us, with no intermediary -- or as little other narration as possible. 

The best way to create a compelling "voice" for your story is through the words, thoughts, attitudes, and reactions of your main character.   

Try to become your character(s) for the story. Make a conscious effort not to intrude as the author (or a neutral narrator) to tell readers anything or explain or describe things.  

Let the POV character for the scene show the setting, reveal other characters, and build the story world in his or her own unique voice, with attitude, using words and phrasing that are natural to their own personality and mood and their personal reaction to the situation at that moment.

Rather than writing neutral narration, take a tip from first-person POV and keep not only the dialogue, but all of the narration (observations and explanations) for each scene firmly in the viewpoint of the main character for that scene, colored by his or her background, personality, attitudes, and current feelings (emotional and physical).

Here are some concrete tips for engaging readers and creating a strong voice in third-person point of view (“he” or “she” instead of “I”):  

~ Start with a compelling character that readers will identify with and root for.

Your main character needs to be charismatic and sympathetic enough to carry the whole novel, so it’s critical to take the time to first create a protagonist who’s intriguing and multi-dimensional, with lots of personality and openness; fairly strong views; and some baggage, secrets, vulnerability, and inner conflict. Then be sure to show his world and the events unfolding around him through his eyes, ears, and feelings, not the author’s, or that of an omniscient narrator.

~ Make sure the dialogue and thoughts are unique to that character.

Read your dialogue out loud to make sure it sounds like that character would actually talk, given their personality, upbringing, education, and social standing, as well as the current situation, how they feel about it, and who they’re conversing with. (We usually speak differently in a formal situation or to a professional than to a close friend or family member.)

~ Write the narration from the character’s point of view, too.

Take it one step further and stay in your character’s POV for the observations, descriptions, and explanations, too, not just the dialogue and any inner thoughts and reactions. It’s your character who’s moving through that world, reacting to what’s around him. Don’t describe the surroundings and what’s going on from a distant, neutral, authorial point of view – show the character’s world directly through her observations, colored by her personality, mood, and comfort level.

~ Don’t intrude as the author to explain things to the readers.

Even technical and other explanations should be presented (briefly) through the characters, perhaps in a sparky dialogue with disagreement and attitude.

Be on the lookout for where you step in as the author to blandly and dispassionately explain things to the readers, as if it’s nonfiction. Besides being a less engaging read, that approach yanks us out of the character’s mindset and world – and out of the fictive dream.    

Remember – show, don’t tell!

TIPS FOR KEEPING NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION IN THE VIEWPOINT CHARACTER'S VOICE:

Here are a few little techniques for livening up information-sharing and imparting it with attitude, from the viewpoint of the POV character involved.

~ Use stream-of-consciousness journaling.

To bring out the character’s personality in the parts where he’s thinking or planning or worrying or ruminating, not just when he is interacting with others, do some stream-of-consciousness journaling by him. Have him ranting in a personal diary about the people around him, what’s going on, etc. Also show his deepest fears here. Then use this wording to show his personality more in the scenes.

~ Write the scene in first-person first, then switch it back.

Write a whole scene, or even a chapter or two, in first-person narration/POV (“I”) to get the rhythm and flow of that person’s language patterns and attitudes, then switch it to third-person.

~ Write with attitude!

To bring the setting, scene, and characters to life, deliver those details through the viewpoint of the main character for that scene, in their voice and wording, with strong views and a controversial mindset that projects their current mood, physical and emotional reactions, and general attitude.

~ Impart info through lively dialogue.

Rather than intruding as the author to explain something to the readers, have characters arguing about it, or use a spirited question-and-answer dialogue exchange to inform the readers naturally, through character interaction.

~ Role-play.    

Read your dialogue and narration out loud to make sure it sounds natural and authentic to your characters’ backgrounds and personalities.

To summarize, for an engaging “voice” in third-person, be sure to use deep point of view and stay in the POV character’s head in the narration, too. In a nutshell, bring your fiction to life by stepping back as the author and letting the characters tell the story.   

Readers - feel free to share in the comment section below a passage from a story you've read -- or written -- depicting a scene shown through the eyes, ears, attitude, and current mood of the character.

For more detail on getting readers up close and personal with your protagonist, see my articles on point of view, here on this blog: POV 101, POV 102, POV 103, and Quick Tips for Avoiding Viewpoint Gaffes.

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For more techniques and examples for bringing your fiction to life and engaging your readers, see Jodie’s book, Captivate Your Readers – An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook.