DPOV 3

Writing DPOV means using words and expressions the character would habitually use. They won’t explain what they already know
It stops you writing of another character: "She was stupid," because your DPOV character can only guess that the new character is stupid. But there are ways around it. Characters have body language and facial expressions, so your DPOV character can read those as well as the reader.
Introspection or internal questioning is a temptation in DPOV and sometimes I take some of it out when I re-read, because its way too easy to go on too long and become boring. No one wants to be boring, do they!

That’s about it for DPOV from me.

As a taster for the next topic, which will be on accent and dialect, if I can manage it, here are some starters…
"There's a difference between Geordie vowels and words, and Tynedale or mid Northumberland, and north Northumberland," says Kim Bibby-Wilson from the Northumbrian Language Society.
"So you get "dinna" for "don't" up on the Scots border and "dinnit" further south. You get "divvent" in most places."

Deep Third continued

A friend thinks using Deep Third POV would make for a larger word count, and in some ways she’s correct. But DTPOV does wonders for characterization because it’s like being inside a character’s head and their perception of the world colours everything the reader sees. You then don’t need to describe the character’s personality (words saved right there!) because it’s coming through, in the character's own words, in a painless way.

You do need to know your character well so that you can express his deepest thoughts/reactions. Usually I go back over a chapter more than once, and every time I put in another layer. If the surroundings have changed recently, I let the character describe them. Second time around, I'll see where to deepen the conversation. Third time around and I’ll find I can pin-point a character’s reactions to what’s happening. If you don’t know what they feel first time around, don’t worry. By the third trip, you’ll have it.
Not everyone starts writing with a fully-fledges character in their mind. I certainly don't. They grow with the writing, so if you need to get to the end of the story before you truly know your characters, then don't let it worry you. You can always go back and add stuff later.
Expressing things through a character means you need to keep track of them and their thought processes in your own mind (or a little black book), but it is an easy way of revealing why the character does things. If they like or hate someone, enjoy food, or feel insecure, it can all come out in their internal dialogue. Here’s a little example of my own: the opening paragraph of Treason, currently doing the rounds of agents.

Matho’s hands clenched. Though he’d bathed in a barrel yesterday morning, cut his thick red hair and cleaned his nails on the point of his dagger as would any man of fortune seeking advancement, Sir Thomas’s steady grey gaze unnerved him. Snatching his brown felt cap from his head, he rolled it in his suddenly damp palms, gazed shiftily back at the great man and dipped his head. ‘Sir Thomas.’
‘Good day, Spirston. Come forward.’
Matho pressed his sword flat against his hip to avoid chipping the chair at his side and moved up to the vast desk standing like a challenge across the centre of the room. He wasn’t going to grovel like a dog after scraps even though Sir Thomas wielded power enough to make most low-born men wary.

Pic is of one of the vehicles used to pick up passengers from the railway station on arrival in Zermatt.

Deep Third

On Friday I got into a discussion with a couple of writer friends over Point of View, and we wondered why Deep Third had suddenly become so popular. I ventured the opinion it might have something to do with television, where sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, we are made privy with every detail of the protagonist’s life. A new series has begun with Rufus Sewell as Aurelio Zen and slowly, week by week, we are picking up on his past life and how he thinks. Not that he tells us; but television has many techniques at its disposal: dialogue, pictures, flashbacks, gossip and dreams to name but a few.

Is it like writing ‘I said, I ran, I thought’ all the time? asked one writer. Well, yes, it is - and no, its not. It’s a mixture of the two. Third and First Person are written in a way that requires dialogue tags and verbs such as see, notice, understand, feel, realize and think. All of these words come under the dreaded term “Telling” as opposed to “Showing.”

Compare the following passages. a) I ran across the bridge thinking I could hear footsteps behind me, and regretted wearing my wonderful new high heels. I hadn’t gone far when my heel jammed in the pavement.

b)Jane turned onto the bridge. Footsteps followed her. Imagination? Possibly, but that nasty-looking teenager at the corner might have followed her. She walked faster. Damn this tight skirt. And these heels were killing her already. If only she’d waited for David instead of flouncing off in a huff. She snatched a swift glance over her shoulder, and caught her heel in a crack in the pavement. Her heart leapt to her throat. Oh, Lord. The shoe was stuck fast.

Deep Third might take more words, but the effect should grab the readers’ attention by making them feel they are one with Jane, stuck with one expensive shoe rammed into the pavement and a possible stalker approaching. Deep Third is not unlike acting. The writer must imagine themselves into Jane’s position, become her and then describe what she sees and feels. Some might say it's vicarious pleasure, fright, adventure.

But at least in this world, it is safe!

(And the pic is the hotel at the top of the Gornergrat railway, 10,000 feet up in the mountains)