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!

An old favourite

I've been wallowing in edits for a month, but the job is done now, so now I can breathe more freely, look around me and see what has been happening. True to form, I immediately plunged back into another story that needs work. At the same time I started reading Writing Romance by Vanessa Grant for the second time this month and made copious notes.
Reading it has sparked off so many ideas that I now need to begin a third edit of this unfortunate book! Now I'm investigating Document Maps and Templates on my laptop and debating buying a book on Word - if only I could remember which version of Word I have. Ms Grant tells me that it is so much easier to keep a character template alongside the ms and I believe her. I've never attempted it previously because I was always half-way through something when the idea occurred. Starting afresh, this could be the time for Templates!

I now have definitions for all those Viewpoint terms and if I become fuzzy on them sometime in the future, I shall look up Third Person Multiple and know exactly what it is. I read on Anita's blog (look on the side-bar) today that she wants to try a story in First Person POV. It seems tempting in spite of the general concensus that First Person is not liked by agents/publishers. Speaking personally, FP always seems old-fashioned, and I get very tired of seeing "I" on the page. So easy to become repetitious, and difficult to get around what is happening to other characters.
And yet, I returned The Persian Boy to the library yesterday and suddenly stopped as I write to consider that surely Bagoas told the story in the FP, and I never really noticed?

Here is the first para:
"Lest anyone should suppose I am the son of nobody, sold off by some peasant father in a drought year, I may say our line is an old one, though it ends with me. My father was Artembares son of Araxis, of the Pasargadai, Kyros' old tribe. Three of our family fought for him, when he set the Persians over the Medes. We held our land for eight generations, in the hills west above Susa. I was ten years old, and learning a warrior's skills, when I was taken away."

That's first person, all right. But then Mary Renault was a first rate author. I picked the book up with some misgivings, wondering how it would stand the test of time. It was written 37 years ago, but I need not have worried. I enjoyed it all over again, and enjoyed her style, so subtly and enjoyably different to the Dan Brown's of this modern world. (And the three enjoyables in that sentence must stand as testament to how well,... enjoyable it was!)
Now I shall look out for her other titles to be re-issued.