More on that Deep Third

Moody winter scene

Sorry to bang on about this, but I got a tad confused with my last post. There seemed to me to be some places where I wouldn’t want to use Deep POV; never mind wouldn’t, think couldn’t use it. Try opening a novel or a chapter in deep and it doesn’t always work.

So let me recap what I know about this: the deep third viewpoint character does not need to tell his readers that he’s thinking or hoping or seeing or feeling. (It’s basically the same as getting rid of the narrator type tags—felt, saw, watched, thought and so on.)
Get rid of those tags and the reader is so much closer to the character – gets more involved in what’s happening in the story and deeper into the character’s mind and heart.

But it worried me that being always in a character’s thoughts and emotions for the length of a story might be OTT (Over the top). I want to draw back sometimes, and look at the characters as though from a distance. I like the idea of opening a new chapter or scene as if from a great height and I didn’t want to give that up, because I think it gives something to the story. Puts the characters in their world, perhaps, gives the story a different perspective. Perhaps it comes from watching films, or perhaps it’s because I have a visual sort of mind, but anyway, I tried it and it works for me. From there, it’s easy to spiral down and climb back inside the character – whichever one it is.

Viewpoint characters can change, ought to change. A single character’s viewpoint risks becoming boring, and if, like me, you prefer to write of several major characters rather than just one, it’s intriguing to work out their thought processes just as you would have tried to make their dialogue personal to them. But I stick to one character, one scene, and don’t headhop. That would confuse me, never mind the reader.
I puzzled over using italics and have decided that I don’t need them unless my character suddenly decides to think of himself as I. He might. I sometimes do it myself, as in I don’t like that comment, or that dress or I simply hate the skins on tomatoes. (It’s true, I do.) If he goes for a first person sentence, then I’ll use italics for that sentence.
So now I think I’ve finally got a grip on Deep Third POV.  It isn't as restrictive as I first thought, and that's good. Phew!

To smile, or not to smile?

Usually I agree with writing tips, but I fell across this one the other day and I wondered…

"a reminiscent smile rose to his lips". No! He can't see himself smile. He can only feel the reminiscence, and if he smiles, he smiles.

I let it simmer on the back burner for a couple of days. Often time allows a different perspective, but not this time. Surely the character can feel himself smile and most of the time knows what kind of stupid, goofy or reminiscent look he exhibits to the world? He uses muscles to smile, throw a punch or shoot a filthy look at an enemy. We all put on a mask for the world, and we use it knowledgeably.

If the POV character observes another character he may assume he knows the reason for the reminiscent smile. He may be wrong, of course. We all pick up signals from another’s body language and friends who know each other well can usually tell why one of them is reacting in the way they do.

Like everything else, there are always exceptions to every rule. Perhaps it is time for writing tips to be written in a less dogmatic way, or else readers should interpret them more loosely. I can’t remember if I’ve written any that are so black and white, but I hope not. But certainly, I disagree with the paragraph in italics above. What do the rest of you think?

Pic: Durham Castle and Cathedral (World Heritage site)

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.

Chart Wizard

I like using chart wizard, and after I read Anita Burgh’s blog I started thinking about using a chart to demonstrate how my multiple viewpoint characters were showing up in the wordage stakes.
Now if you don’t like using spreadsheets or think they’re simply too much hassle, you could be right. But if your mind ticks over like mine, then you may enjoy the process. First of all you need to be prepared to count the words in each chapter. And list them in a spreadsheet. OK.

Then you need to count how many of those words were in which character’s viewpoint. It’s all easy enough to do using Highlight and the Word Count option under Tools. Three cheers for computers!
If you have three or so viewpoint characters, count their wordage and enter it in columns in the spreadsheet. You’ll end up with something that looks like this:

Chap Matho Harry Meg Lennox Jane
1 500 200 300 70 50

(I have a nasty feeling blogspot is going to render the numbers in one line, but I assure you they are supposed to be in columns - Matho 500, Harry 200, etc.)

Obviously you’ll need to do this for every chapter you do, so it is definitely easier if you start as you begin a new work. But an hour can have the biggest novel licked as long as you persevere. Once you get to the end, command the totals for each of the character columns. You use the formula =SUM(and between the brackets insert the line numbers you want adding) and lo and behold, Excel adds them all up for you.

Then once you’ve done that for each character, highlight the whole spreadsheet and click on Chart Wizard and you will have the info in graph form. Splendid! You can do this just on simple totals, or you can really drill down and see which chapters are hogged by which character. Watch out, or you’ll soon be hooked.