Distorted POVs

Posted on December 29, 2022 by knlistman

It amuses me when people ask which point of view is best. But, I probably chuckled more when a new writer asked if it was okay to describe what a character was thinking when writing in the third-person POV. 

 “Can’t thoughts only be included in first-person?” 

 “Of course not. It’s okay to include thoughts in the third-person. Simply put the thought in italics, and you don’t even need to say your character was thinking.”

Only, it’s not that simple. The convention of using italics for internal thought does not always come across to readers. Some of them get confused as to whether a person was thinking or speaking. If the thought occurred in the middle of a conversation, readers even wonder whose head they are in. So, I started attaching a tag with a thinking verb, such as “he thought,” “she mused,” or “the old lady wondered.” This confusion can occur even if the author doesn’t head-hop but stays with one person’s viewpoint for an entire scene or chapter. 

If characters viewed through the third-person POV lens couldn’t reveal their thoughts, I’d hate to see the other option—a book in which all the characters were written from the first-person POV. Then, I recalled that I had seen one recently. Not everyone told their story using “I,” but at least eight of them did. I can’t tell you the total number of characters who did this because I stopped reading well before the end of the book. 

However, this wasn’t the first time I encountered a book like this. William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying has 15 different accounts by first-person narrators. I recall being intrigued rather than confused when reading it in American Lit class. Each narrator has their own chapter/section of this story to tell about the dead woman who they  transported to her final resting place. Even this kind of convoluted POV can work well if the author understands the intricacies of multiple first-person accounts.

The omniscient third-person point of view can describe all pertinent events as if viewed by one all-knowing being from a distant point or can express the thoughts of different characters. In some instances, this POV may tell you what an entire group of people is thinking, such as the voice of an entire town in Emily Rose. That novel is also by William Faulkner who liked to play around with point-of-view. 

Using the omniscient view requires the skills to create tension in your story so that the reader cannot easily guess what will happen. However, no author relates everything that is going on with every character in the story, because that is too overwhelming. In the distant third person POV, the author only indicates what is occurring that can be observed from the outside of the characters. Dialog can give insight into a people’s mental states. Still, this view puts the reader in charge of interpreting facial expressions and actions to determine if the characters really mean what they are saying.

I have no preference for first or third person. I even enjoy reading novels written in the stream-of-conscious style—similar to what is known as “head-hopping.” The few stories in the rare second-person POV intrigue me. The more complex POVs are harder for authors to master. But if they can, it is usually an excellent novel.

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Elusive Elaboration

Posted on December 22, 2022 by knlistman

My friend bubbled over with excitement about her new concept for a river adventure story. She had all the characters, the settings and the basic ideas in her mind. However, as she began writing out scenes, some of the escapades shrank into a few paragraphs. This was just too monumental of a plot for her to relegate it to a short story. But, where was she going to get enough ideas to fill up a minimum fifty thousand word manuscript?

I tend to look around at other authors and refuse to write anything that resembles their work. All of this comes from a desire to be different, no matter how well certain types of genres sell, such as murder mysteries, tales of suspense and romance stories. When studying creativity, I encountered the research of Robert J. Sternberg who identified this trait as doing things contrary to the crowd. This idea resonated with me, so I continued to read his studies. One of his theories was that creative people use the idea of buying low and selling high, a technique for buying stock that has been around for a while but is not particularly valuable at the time and waiting until it is in demand. In literature, this means reading old work, books that often seem outdated because of the archaic language. Then, reworking those old ideas and techniques into something new for a novel, which the modern reader may not have yet encountered.

My friend with the river adventure could have borrowed incidents from Huckleberry Finn’s travels on the Mississippi, even though the major plot is still well known. The escaped slave would have to be replaced with some other likable fugitive from the modern period. She could have adapted bits of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to embellish her book without many people recognizing the similarities to his account of traveling up the Congo to find an aging rogue. There are more obscure books to choose from as well as nonfiction accounts of life on a river by authors such as Peter Lourie and John Hildebrand. Even as a contrarian writer and nonconformist I find no problem with this as long as she put her own unique spin on these events.

When I have an inspiration for a story, it seems to glow in the distance, beckoning me like a rising sun. But, as I think of all the possibilities to reach the end I enter a maze where the walls shift without warning, blocking any logical way to the end that I originally envisioned. My problem is not expanding an idea by looking at different viewpoints but collecting all the scattered ideas into one cohesive viewpoint. Still, I catalog all these rabbit trails in case I end up finding that there’s not much to the paths that I’ve chosen to take for the story.

Elaboration is the hardest part of creativity. Awesome ideas in our heads become fairly simple as we record them. I have seen lists of ideas for adding excitement, mystery, or suspense to plots so often that I don’t bother to read them anymore because I’ve heard them before. Other previously heard advice also comes back to haunt me—good ideas are a dime a dozen. They seem cheap because they are easy to generate. Building something out of them is the real work.

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In My Head

Posted on December 15, 2022 by knlistman

As a child I made up stories in my head, mostly about people’s pets. The majority of them were entirely descriptions such as fur color, number of spots, eye color and size. When I bemoaned the fact that these just weren’t real stories, an older person (probably all of twenty four) told me that my pets needed to run into some problems, and then figure out how to get out of them. My next story about a pony, who jumped the fence when frightened by a huge dog, then ran away and became lost, was better. The terrified pony never did figure out how to get back home. So, the story ended with “and he never returned.” Perhaps learning to survive in the wild could have been a decent ending. But, I just didn’t know enough about how horses did that.

However, my story writing improved with advice. So, we can ditch the idea that writing novels is a skill that cannot be taught. This is countered by the fact that not all people seek to be creative when writing fiction. Instead, some people assume whoever is making money has figured out the one best way to do it right. So, they follow the style of famous authors and do not attempt to create their own individual one. When studying creativity, I encountered the idea from more than one researcher that creative people go against the crowd. It is their nature not to conform to what most of society is doing.

Writers can learn about the aesthetics of style by studying the work of other writers and still make their own choices. Instead of parroting proscriptive lists of things that one should never do as a writer, I try to seek out authors who have done those forbidden things and still produced beautiful work. I recall the anti-hook at the beginning of War with the Newts by Karel Čapek. This rambling paragraph-long first sentence came out of the mouth of a tipsy steamer captain. Hardly an invitation to jump in and read. Yet, it intrigued me and so did meeting a new set of characters with each of the lengthy chapters. They were more than chapters; they were stories in the continuing saga of the large sea dwelling salamanders as they began to compete with man to rule the earth. 

Writers who want to be creative tend to experiment. They seek advice from writers that they admire. These other writers realize the differences between individual styles and don’t attempt to force everyone into their type of writing. There’s this lovely proverb about “nothing new under the sun,” which lets us off the hook from creating something completely original. My writing is based on my experiences and imagination blended with what I’ve learned from others. It needs to reflect the part of me that makes me feel different and a bit out of place when around other people.

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The Real Adventure

Posted on December 8, 2022 by knlistman

My parents sometimes claimed that I spent my entire childhood with my nose in a book. But, I didn’t learn how to read until I was five. Before that time I chose books with intriguing pictures in them so that I could make up the stories in my head. Essentially, I withdrew from the world into books every time my family moved to a new location, which was almost every other year.  As I grew older I found my hours spent reading were only as good as the materials I read. I recall perusing our set of World Book encyclopedias and checking out library books as often as I could. 

However, the real reading adventure occurred when we moved to another state. What kids thought was cool in one place, was no longer cool in the next location. We leased the house of an education professor, and I found his personal library on the enclosed porch. The limerick book was amusing for a while. Gulliver’s Travels was a bit of a challenge. I understood most of that book but did not discern the politics it portrayed. 

Soon I learned to expect more from reading and to enjoy a well written factual book as much as fiction. There are only so many fiction plots, which means I now demanded more creativity from them. I discovered that many of my favorite authors suffered the same fate as I, either being confined by illness in their youth, or moving to distant places so that books became their companions. 

Later I heard the theory that creativity involved taking ideas that were no longer in fashion, and modifying them until they become something new, which made perfect sense to me. The more that I read, the more that I searched for that kind of novelty. My idea of a quality book has changed over time. Realism became more attractive than the exciting, yet predictable adventures that I read as a young adolescent. 

In college, I dabbled with writing poems and fables. However, the best story turned out to be very similar to my brief infatuation with a promising music student who would never become a great musician despite his ability. In my late twenties I started writing a novel based on my own experience in art school and faltered for lack of a cohesive plot. My life simply did not have the exciting people and events that I thought interesting books required. When my children were young, I started writing short stories. I soon discovered that plots ripped straight from my own life were still the best.

Now, I hear people extol the popularity of mysteries, suspense and thrillers or whatever one calls an action packed book where the hero tracks down a murderous villain while dodging dangers. There are parts of these stories that I like, but the tendency to repeat the same plots has made them not as desirable for reading. 

So, decades after I started writing in college, I realized the wonderful, imaginary things I wanted to put in the stories didn’t work as well as real life situations that took on a new perspective of the world. Character-driven stories are time consuming and not easy to write, or easy to end as the major villain to conquer is the character’s own weaknesses. Sometimes writing itself becomes a sacrifice, but still provides enough joy for me not to give up on it.

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Asking for Ideas

Posted on November 24, 2022 by knlistman

Writing a well-crafted novel is hard labor, like going through a struggle harder than childbirth. Some authors want to seek out a short-cut, a sure thing, or a fully fleshed-out plot that has been used successfully in the past. However enticing this short-cut seems, when people write stories based on another person’s plot, they soon find that the tedious part is writing out the individual scenes. 

As an unknown author who does not receive the support of professional editors and writers, creating an excellent book is difficult and time consuming. But, if the idea is my own I have an investment in my work. This personal idea provides motivation to continue working. If the book is based on someone else’s idea of a good plot, I might simply give up when writing becomes too difficult. After all, how can I fix the problems with someone else’s concepts? 

There is a tremendous amount of work involved in moving a finished piece to the next level, so it is ready for publishing. Often writers are tempted to dispose of their first effort after an extended time of struggling to write it. Advice to new authors often repeats the idea that the first novel is going to be bad. Should I finish writing it anyway? Yes. This bit of folk wisdom has been disproved many times–by people such as Mary Shelley, Ralph Ellison, Harper Lee, and J.R.R, Tolkien whose first novels have remained popular for decades. (The authors in this illustrious list did have some experience writing before completing their first book.)

Of course, all authors are not created equal. Some learn more rapidly and some work at the craft for years before they offer their work to the public. The truth is that writing is learned by doing it. This means the second novel will almost certainly be better than the first. Some authors, like Jane Austen, published their second novel first, and then returned to edit their first attempt based on insights they gained from that experience. So, the first novel may be the right place to use my best ideas.

I can study other’s novels and research the latest tools for writing. However, the type of computer, word processors, editing software, and internet sites used to glean information are not the most important part. I could write an excellent article using a pen on a notepad. (Of course, that would take longer as my handwriting is illegible and my spelling leaves something to be desired.) The thought processes that go into my writing––creating characters, choosing the viewpoints, setting up the action arcs, the pacing for the plot, and the types of elaboration––carry far more weight than the tools I use. When people say that a person must write to improve their writing, they are telling the truth.

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Ending the Never Ending Story

Posted on November 18, 2022 by knlistman

When a new idea for a book grabs me, I dwell on it for a few days, a few weeks or or a few months in my spare time as I work on the kind of writing that makes money (technical training). However, soon I realize I will forget the scenes that I have dreamed up if I don’t start jotting them down. When I begin to write a novel I know how the characters are going to change by the end. But, I don’t know how this will occur. So, I usually do not know the precise ending.

Each author has their idea of how to create a fictional character, story, setting, and so on. I do not want to duplicate what has already done, so I don’t read much other fiction when writing my own books. My process is to come up with a general outline, and yet remaining flexible. I dwell on my ideas until the first part of the book coalesces in my mind. Then, I start creating a list of scenes with a very short synopsis of each one.

Writing character driven novels means the plot requires adjustments as I create the story. However, I often get ahead of myself and write scenes out completely only to realize later that they must be changed because the events are out of order. As I devise how the story should unfold, I go back and edit earlier scenes to fit with later events. Inevitably, I start moving scenes around, even if they don’t need to be. That is when I create a calendar with important dates for my novel.  

When the book is about fifty percent complete, I try to pin down a precise ending. If I don’t, the plot seems to go on infinitely. I don’t finish stories with everything settled and calm. Nothing seems to be dramatic enough to call it quits. The big event that wraps up the story often changes the world for the main character. They are heading off to college or off to a new country. Only occasionally do they return back to the place they came from to receive praise from people who ignored them in the past. It seems enticing to take my character further into this new world, but I must resist the temptation to do so.

Ending the never-ending story is a challenge that I’ve face with most of my works that are more than short stories. There is always one loose end to tie up before the last word. I’ve learned to identify my major conflict and make sure it is resolved. I’ve learned that all loose do not need to be explained. I can even acknowledge that the main character will never know the answer to certain questions. Leaving parts unknown does not stop the end of a book.

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The Pleasure of Rereading Books

Posted on November 10, 2022 by knlistman

As a child I used to read Black Beauty repeatedly. This book sat open on my lap when I was supposed to be taking a nap with my head on the desk in first and second grade. Each time I reread it, I wanted to get the same sensation I had before. But, it’s actually a difficult book for a first or second grader to read and comprehend all the finer points. So, I learned new things each time. Honestly, I didn’t understand the cab driver’s political comments concerning blackguards until I was much older. However, I was so impressed with this book that I decided to search for more works by the same author. Unfortunately, it is the only book that Anna Sewell wrote.

One of my more enjoyable times as a mother was picking up a book that I enjoyed as a child, and reading it to my children. These were not just short books but lengthy ones like The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. I felt like I had a legitimate excuse to laze around with my children and reread old favorites.

I read through anthologies for a taste of works by newer authors. I find that I am more demanding when reading a novel by an author with a reputation. I acknowledge that the lesser known ones may be starting out, and there is still the possibility of growth. Finally, I tend to seek out far more stand alone novels than series, having accepted the mournful fact that only one of the series will be my favorite. This sense of disappointment is intensified  after I have discovered that it is the first one in the series.

When I choose an unfamiliar book author, I take the risk of discovering that I ‘m not fond of it. Then, a decision has to be made. Is it good enough to keep reading just to find out what happens? Will I regret the decision as I will never get that time back? So, I teeter back and forth trying to decide if my new venture in reading will pay out or not. Usually, if I find the book not to my liking, I continue to read for a few more chapters. If it still does not interest me within that time, it is added to the did not finish pile. If I am rereading an old favorite book, I don’t have to worry about that. So, now I am rereading To the Lighthouse years after I first encountered Virginia Wolff while attending college.

Illustration by J. S. Duverger – Wikimedia commons; Photo by K.N. Listman

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The Artist’s Hierarchy of Needs

Posted on November 3, 2022 by knlistman

Have you ever seen the “Artist’s hierarchy of needs?” It is based on Maslow’ structure; however, the basic need for a self-actualization, or achieving one’s full potential including creative activities, is the point at the bottom on which the whole triangle balances. Creativity comes first, the food, water, shelter and sleep are at the top, or the last needs to be fulfilled.

If you are planning to use November to write a 50,000+ word novel that is suitable for publication without many months more of rewrites, you will need to abide by the topsy-turvy hierarchy of needs for this entire month. Participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge, may mean that time spent cooking, cleaning, sleeping and even bathing will have to be curtailed in order to find more time to write.

However, over the years I’ve found ways to increase my written output. So, I do have some advice for those that want to attempt this impossible challenge. The easiest way to create content in the least amount of time is to write what you know. Your own life story may not be that interesting, so don’t feel confined to the truth. If better ideas spring up, or you decide to appropriate events that happened to friends or celebrities, remember that you are writing fiction, not a real autobiography. With a word processor you can use the search and replace feature to alter names and appearance of the people after you are finished. This also relieves the fear of being shunned by family members who don’t appear in the best light.

However, even when writing a novel based on your own life you need a plot. There must be a challenge that you face or a problem to overcome; whether you succeed, fail, or just accept your fate..The story line found in Cinderella is often used. It starts out with recalling an event that shifted your life from pleasant to some degree of miserable. Then, after three nights at a ball—make that three different attempts to overcome the problem—you encounter one last disaster, run away and prepare for defeat. However, your fortune shifts due to someone’s gallantry or pure grit on your part.

Your idea for a novel based on your own life still will need embellishment. To complete this within a month will require planning. The initial troubling event, each of the attempts to overcome the problem, and the final triumph each require multiple scenes. Perhaps you wish to write a scene each day. The number of scenes covering the first two sections will have more for the last section with the resolution. There might be 10 scenes introducing the problem, and 16 scenes in the attempts to solve it. Then, for the ending stretch, when fortune shifts, only 4 scenes would be required.

Even if you hit the goal of 50,000 words, you will still be less than halfway to a new novel. The next few months will be consumed editing and rewriting until this morass of words makes sense and flows in a manner to keep the reader interested. Still, I wish you the best of luck!

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The Villain’s Motive

Posted on October 27, 2022 by knlistman

There are multiple ways of uncovering how a person can become a villain. I can look at my own life and see what others did to harm me or what I have done to them by preventing them from accomplishing what they wanted. I may think that is not like a villain because it wasn’t a horribly vicious thing. However, I assume that I deserve what is good more than others do and therefore justify my own bad behavior.

A wise person once pointed out to me that people who refuse to acknowledge their own shortcomings, become the cruelest when persecuting other people for their faults. Interestingly, we may criticize real people that perform the same corrupt actions as we do, but we will attach ourselves to fictional characters like ourselves. So the reader who constantly seeks villains who either want to rule or destroy the world may not be as common as writers assume.

Two of my favorite villains are Javert in Les Miserable in Les Miserable and Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter. Let us look more closely at the appeal of these literary villains. Javert assumed any effort to chase down a petty thief who had repaid society for his crime was justified. Chillingworth secretly tormented the man who he assumed had seduced his wife when he had been absent for years himself. In both cases the villain never confessed to reveal their motive for persecuting the protagonist. But, there was no need to. Their crime was lack of compassion. They both thought they were justified in their pursuit of the protagonists, who had fallen down into the slippery slope of a bad situation.

That is actually the mark of an excellent writer—being able to produce villains who see themselves as right, and yet the audience sees through their façade and realizes their depravity. Sometimes, this is done by having the villain be insane. But, one must really understand mental illness for this character to ring true. It is more likely that a person who seems perfectly normal has decided on a course of action that is cruel to others with an ultimate cause that they rationalize as good. However, this ultimate cause is actually self-promotion.

How does a writer make a character seem villainous? Have them do selfish things that hurt other people and show that they simply don’t care about this at all. They might have the attitude that other people aren’t really important as they are and don’t matter. Therefore, these characters see committing destructive acts as being justified. The skillful author knows how to reveal that there is no actual justification for becoming evil.

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A Likable Villain?

Posted on October 20, 2022 by knlistman

Authors sometimes seek villains that their audience can identify with because they want the readers invested in the villain. This helps to propel a person to finish a book if they really don’t know what is going to happen to the antagonist in the end. The unprincipled conformist is a character popular among his fictional cohorts. This antagonist pushes the boundary of right until he veers onto the side of wrong. What makes this character so villainous? Conformity requires that a person at least appear to follow a set of rules. A required similarity can mask the truth about a person who actually harms other people, especially those within the group.

The nature of this harm can express itself in a number of ways. One of the most common is the exclusion of people for insignificant reasons. To create a strong camaraderie, a common enemy needs to be found. There are two reasons that people do this: one is the ancient reason that wars exist–so one group can take something of value from other people. Exclusion allows this group to justify their gains at the expense of others. The second reason is to shift the blame for any problems onto an outsider who becomes the scapegoat.

In the end both of these actions destroy the group. Whether the exclusion is used as an excuse to take away wealth or credit or influence from the other person, or simply a social snub, it results in physical pain. This person who hurt will not sit there and take the abuse. The excluded people will avoid interacting with those people, even if they would prefer to fit in.[1] When this targeted person leaves the town, the group must seek out a fresh scapegoat. The villain continues to lead them in this process until his guile is uncovered, or the apparently cohesive group crumbles from the inside out. The unprincipled conformist harms others by squelching individuality. In the end people tire of being controlled and turn against the villain.

Exactly how is the unprincipled conformist brought to a demise? This job falls on the rebel with a cause, also known as the principled nonconformist. This protagonist persuades the followers who have been tricked into supporting the villain to pull out their support. The reader becomes sympathetic to the people that really do not want to follow this leader who will use and destroy them. At that point the villain becomes very unlikeable. So readers cheer at the stirring speech of revelation about the villain’s true intent. The physical fight between protagonist and antagonist may not be necessary because former followers bring down the unprincipled conformist.

[1] Eisenberger, N. I.  (2012)  Broken hearts and broken bones: A neural perspective on the similarities between social and physical pain.  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 42-47,
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