This year the CRAFT OF WRITING blog is focusing on Aspects of the Novel, such as Plot, Dialogue, Characterization, etc. We’ve had some great discussions so far, including James Scott Bell on Voice, DiAnn Mills on Plotting, Debbie Burke on Antagonists, Randy Ingermanson on Scenes, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi on Emotion, and Larry Leech on Dialogue. If you missed any of these, go to kaydibianca.com/blog and choose the post you want to revisit.

This month, I’m excited to welcome back Terry Odell, award-winning novelist and fellow Kill Zone Blog contributor.  Instead of an interview, Terry has chosen to write this post about Deep Point of View, the perspective she uses in her novels.

 

So come close because we’re talking intimate point of view!

 

Deep Point of View with Terry Odell Share on X

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We ran out of our gorgeous propeller pens, but this month the name of each person who enters a comment will be put into the drawing for a $10 Amazon Gift Card. (Not nearly so pretty as the pen, but still a useful gift!)

So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. I’ll post the name of the winner after 9 PM Central Time tomorrow night, so be sure to check back to see if you won. (Previous 2024 winners are not eligible to win.)

 

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Welcome back to the Craft of Writing blog, Terry, and thank you for joining us!

Thanks, Kay, for inviting me to talk about one of my favorite writing topics. When I toyed with writing a short story and sent it to an author I had been beta reading for, she sent it back with comments about my “liberties” with point of view. I had no clue what that meant, but I accepted the challenge and learned what I could. Later, Suzanne Brockmann introduced me to Deep Point of View, and I was hooked.

Let’s start at the beginning.

What is point of view?

Simply said, it’s who’s telling the story in any given scene. It’s the character through whose senses the reader experiences what’s going on. There are no ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’ but choosing the wrong POV can keep the reader from being drawn into the story. Readers need to bond with character, and POV is one tool the writer uses to develop that connection.

What are your choices?

There are variations and subsets, but these are the basics:

Omniscient: Someone outside the story knows what’s going on and reports to the reader.

Examples:

John and Mary lingered over coffee. Little did they know that outside, the Romulans were planning their first attack on Earth.

A melody she didn’t recognize as Mozart came from the room.

If she’d known what waited behind the door, she’d never have opened it.

First Person: Told from the point of view of a single person. The use of “I” can get monotonous for the reader, which presents challenges for the author.

Examples:

I went to the store.

The cloying odor of death wasn’t what bothered me as I signed the patrol officer’s clipboard and ducked under the yellow tape fastened across the door.

Second Person: This one is very rare, and also very hard to pull off. It’s commonly used in things like children’s books where the reader can choose what to do next.

Examples:

You went to the store.

You feel your heart race. The only way forward is to move your feet.

Third Person: This is the most commonly used, and it has many variations. It can be shallow, almost narrated, or deep—almost the same as 1^st person—with all levels in between.

Examples:

He went to the store

Gordon Hepler’s face ached from the smiles he’d been forced to display.

Now, on to Deep POV:

Deep POV can be thought of as writing a first person book in third person. You are deep inside the POV character’s head, providing the reader with not only the character’s five senses, but also their thoughts and feelings. Because you’re deep into their heads, your readers should feel closer to the characters than if you have an outside narrator, as is the case in shallower third person POV. A test. You should be able to replace he, she, or the character’s name with “I.”

When writing in Deep POV, it’s also important to be true to the character. What would they notice? Two characters walk into a room. (No, that’s not the start of a joke.) One’s a cop; the other is an interior designer. They’ll focus on very different things.

Pet peeves of mine (not that they’re wrong, they just pull me out of the character’s head) are in this example:

Sally rushed down the avenue, her floral chiffon scarf trailing behind her. She adjusted her Oakley sunglasses over her emerald-green eyes. When she reached the door of the office building, she finger combed her short-cropped auburn hair. Her full, red lips curved upward in a smile.

 

Is Sally really thinking about the specifics of her scarf? Or the brand of her sunglasses? The color of her eyes? I think you get the picture. We don’t think of ourselves that way unless there are good reasons. Maybe Sally just came from the salon and had her hair cut short and colored, so she might be noticing the length and thinking about the color. But that, to me, is a big maybe. And just “no” on the lips. That’s not coming from inside her head, either.

In Deep POV, just as in real life, a character can only observe and make assumptions about what another character is thinking. They can notice facial expressions and body language, but they can’t know what’s really going on in that character’s head.

Stick with what’s appropriate for the POV character. This means you’re writing in the character’s voice, not your own. In short, there’s no narrator.

Don’t show things a character can’t see or know. Likewise, don’t hide things they are seeing, hearing, etc., from the reader.

Don’t use “thought” as a speaker tag. That’s going to distance the reader. If you’re handling the POV correctly, readers will know they’re in the character’s head. I use a lot of internal monologue in my books, and most of the time, don’t feel there’s any need to italicize them. The only time I use italics for thoughts is when a character is thinking to himself—and I’ll shift to second person for those.

Example: You idiot. Why did you say that?

Compare that with: He was such an idiot. Why did he say that?

They’re both ok, but the first example is deeper. In either case, it should be clear these are thoughts and “he thought” isn’t necessary.

Use anchoring words to keep the reader grounding in the character’s head: knew, saw, wanted, seemed to be, obviously, watched, noticed.

 

Why do I prefer Deep POV?

• We live in 1^st person POV.
• Deep 3^rd is as close to 1^st person as one can get.
• It easily accommodates multiple POV characters. Most of my romantic suspense titles use two POV characters, and I use a Deep POV for both of them.
• It gives the reader an emotional connection to the character.

I’ll be checking back during the day, so if you have questions, ask away.

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

My website, my blog, my Facebook Page, and recently, my Substack, Writings and Wanderings.

 

Thank you, Terry, for being with us today.

My pleasure, Kay. Any time!

 

Deep Point of View with Terry Odell Share on X

 

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Meet Terry Odell

 

“I love getting into the minds of my characters, turning them loose in tight spots and seeing what they do. Too often, they surprise me.

My published works include the Pine Hills Police Series, the Blackthorne, Inc. covert ops series, the Triple-D Ranch series and the stand alone, What’s in a Name? — all Romantic Suspense, as well as the Mapleton Mystery series, which has been described as a blend of police procedural and cozy mysteries. My current releases in that series are Deadly Adversaries and the first three novels as a box set. It’s called, brilliantly enough, The Mapleton Mystery Novels, Volume One.

Heather’s Chase is a stand alone International Mystery Romance, which I had a blast researching on a trip through the British Isles, soon to be followed up with Double Intrigue, set on a Danube River cruise, where we toured Christmas markets last December. My mystery short story collection, Seeing Red, is a Silver Falchion award winner. I also have a collection of contemporary romance short stories.

When I’m not writing, or watching wildlife from my window, I’m probably reading.”