• Confrontation comes from an opposition character who is stronger than the Lead.
• A knockout ending satisfies and creates resonance.
• Mythic structure is solid and has stood the test of time.
• The essential elements of structure are the beginning, middle, and end. They are stitched together by the disturbance and two doorways.
• A gripping plot has death overhanging (physical, psychological/ spiritual, or professional).
Reread a favorite novel with the LOCK System in mind. Analyze:
• how the author establishes a bond between you and the Lead
• how the author establishes the objective and makes it super important to the Lead
• how the author creates confrontation and opposition that is stronger than the Lead, thus creating tension
• the elements that go in to making the ending a satisfying one
Perhaps in the book some of the above points will be weak. Can you identify them? How would you do things differently and better? Don't be intimidated by the last question, just by exercising your brain on this you'll be working those craft muscles.
Watch one or more of the following movies and analyze the structure:
• Star Wars
• High Noon
• Sunset Boulevard
• It Happened One Night
• Wall Street
• Willow
• True Grit
• The Wizard of Oz
• Spider-Man trilogy
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Note in each where the disturbance occurs in the first act, and where the two doorways come into play. What moves us between acts? If a film or book seems to drag, it's usually because it is off structurally.
[ POINT OF VIEW ]
Among novelists there seems to be a continual confusion over point of view. Even veteran writers sometimes get in a fog about it. Writing teachers constantly catch their students in the dreaded "point of view violation"—or "head hopping" as it is sometimes known.
Readers, however, don't seem to mind. There aren't a flood of e-mails streaming into publishing houses or author Web sites asking for money back because of a POV lapse.
Still, it's readers we must care about. Because what happens when POV isn't handled correctly is that, in a subtle and almost subconscious way, the impact of the story is diluted. At the end of the book a reader might say, "Hey, that was a pretty good yarn." But he may not experience that "Wow" factor we're going for. Why not? The reason comes from the central concern of any POV, and that is bonding with the characters through intimacy.
There is a range of intimacy in POV. The most intimate is first person, where the narration is coming from the head of the character. We get the closest possible connection to the thoughts and feelings of the Lead.
By way of contrast, the omniscient POV is usually the least intimate. While the omniscient narrator can roam freely and go into any character's head, that very freedom prevents the close focus on one character.
Between first person and omniscient is third-person POV, which comes in two forms—limited and unlimited. Limited means you stick with one POV throughout the book. You don't stray into the perceptions of other characters. Unlimited means you can switch POV to another character in another scene.
Finally, a variation on the omniscient POV is cinematic, rarely used except in some genre fiction. Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is the prime example of this style.
(By the way, I'm not even going to mention second-person POV, which is as rare as the blue-footed booby. My advice is not to try it at home, or anywhere else for that matter.)
Most literary novels choose first person these days, for good reason. Since character internality is the motor of literary plots, using first person is a natural choice.
Third person is most popular for commercial and action-driven books. But this doesn't mean there is any one right answer. The answer for you is what best fits your book.
Let's have a look at your alternatives.
OMNISCIENT
The omniscient POV is the least intimate because you, the author, take up the burden of telling the story.
Being omniscient, you are free to float over your story, describing things, telling us what's going on in any character's head or heart at any time. Note the word telling. When the omniscient voice tells us what a character is feeling, the intimacy is diminished because we don't feel along with the character. That's a danger with the omniscient voice—it tempts you to take shortcuts.
This is not to say you should never use the omniscient POV. For historical novels and sweeping epics, it can be a very good choice. It was good enough for Charles Dickens. In chapter one of Bleak House, after describing the foggy and muddy streets of London, Dickens continues:
With the images of mud and fog in place, we move into the slow, ponderous motions of the Chancery court. The scene itself, even the way the characters speak, feels like slogging through mud. And the depiction of the law as an enterprise of obfuscation rather than clarity is itself a fog.
A little later, the action of chancery court is detailed:
"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says the Chancellor with a slight smile.
Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a piano-forte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity.
"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a settlement one of these days.
Only an omniscient narrator can tell us what eighteen lawyers have in their possession, and what all eighteen look like as they "bob up."
A little later in the scene:
Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he is a cousin."
Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him.
In chapter two, Dickens introduces us to two characters, Lady Dedlock and her husband, Sir Leicester Dedlock:
Sir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady, and is happy to see Mr. Tulkinghorn.
"It would be useless to ask," says my Lady, with the dreariness of the place in Lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has been done."
Within the scene, Dickens drops into both "heads" and tells us what's going on there. Dickens, of course, used all the tools of his craft to compel interest in his tale. And he was writing to an entirely different audience. Today, omniscient POV is not as frequently employed.
In their book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Renni Browne and Dave King suggest the omniscient choice was a weakness in an otherwise successful
novel, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. Which shows that a great plot can overcome some minor deficiencies. But why make anything deficient?
These days, the safest bets are first person and third person.
FIRST PERSON
First person is the character telling us what happened.
I went to the store. I saw Frank. "What are you doing here?" I said.
Obviously, this POV requires everything to be seen through the eyes of one character. The Lead can only report what she saw, not what Frank saw or felt (unless Frank sees fit to report these items to the Lead). No scene can be described that the narrator has not witnessed—although you can have another character tell the narrator what happened in an "off-screen scene."
You can use past or present tense with first-person POV. The traditional is past tense, where the narrator l
ooks back and tells his story.
But the narrator can also do it this way: I am going to the store. I see Frank. "What are you doing here?" I say.
There is an immediacy of tone here that, when handled well (as Steve Martini does in his Paul Madriani legal thrillers) is quite compelling.
One can also choose to write first-person POV for various characters in different chapters. Some authors put the name of the POV character at the start of the chapter, then proceed to write in that narrator's voice.
This requires great skill, of course, because each voice must be different, each perspective unique.
The most important aspect of first person is attitude. There must be something about the voice of the narrator that makes her worth listening to—a worldview, a slant, something more than just a plain vanilla rendition of the facts.
Here are two examples of attitude from Lisa Samson. In her novel Quaker Summer, Heather Curridge is living in the lap of luxury, wondering what life is really all about and what she has to do with any of it.
Six-thirty a.m., and the forty-five minutes before I must awaken my son stretches in front of me like a sun-warmed path to beach. I'm never alone it seems, even with just one living child (and I wanted ten, but those thoughts are definitely for another day, or maybe next year). I feel so confined, as if my skin has thickened, hardened like the dried-up skin of a
past-due tangerine and inside this shell I'm fighting to be free, to be young and full of hope that I'm made for something more.
More than motherhood?
Justifiably so, the women at my old church would never understand these thoughts. Any woman who wanted more than motherhood wanted too much. But something inside me claws with puckered lips and shiny-bright eyes, believing it will drag not just me, but all those I love right along with it onto a new roller coaster with longer drops to go speeding down, but greater vistas from which to view the world.
In Samson's Straight Up, Fairly Godfrey is a New York design consultant, a widow at an early age, assuaging her grief over her deceased husband by a life of many dates:
My contact lens ripped! Right in half like a slightly dried-out Jell- 0 saucer. And I'm out of replacements. So I rolled it around on my fingers, figuring I might as well have a little of that curious fun I used to have when I was a child and the thermometer broke.
Lucky me, I may land myself in a cancer ward someday due to the effects of the mercury I allowed to skate and pill across my palm.
So there I sat at the Tavern with Braden, who said we needed to celebrate the finishing of his M.B.A. He's a Mr. Smarty Pants. Did I tell you Braden's only twenty-three? A whiz kid. My boy toy.
Man, he looked cute, that brown, curly JFK Jr. hair sweeping his brow.
Two completely different voices. The author's voice is submerged in character. That's how it's done.
Technical Note
A first-person narrator is usually telling the story in past tense, so she knows everything that has happened. Presumably, then, she could report on things that she couldn't have perceived at the time.
Let's say there's a scene with the narrator facing a bar. The door to the bar is behind her. She could say Just then Billy walked in even though she hasn't turned around yet. Why? Because she's telling the story in past tense and knows it was Billy.
But it is still preferable to write the narration as if it were in real time. This places the reader within the scene in the most organic and gripping way.
So the line would be rewritten something like this: I heard the door open and turned. It was Billy.
THIRD PERSON
Third-person POV is a good choice for most current fiction. The biggest problem writers seem to face with third person is keeping that POV consistent throughout a scene. It's easy to lapse and suddenly have the POV switch to a different character or to a perspective the character can't see.
In the limited variety of third person, you stay with one character throughout. You never take on another character's POV. Done well, this can be nearly as intimate as first person. James N. Frey, in How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, has an opinion on this. "Don't believe the pseudo-rules about what you can do in first vs. third person," Frey writes. "Virtually anything you can do in first person you can do in third and vice versa."
If you allow other characters to have a third-person POV (unlimited) you obviously spend less time in the head of a single character. You spread the intimacy around.
I recommend the discipline of "one scene, one point of view." If you need to change POV, you should start a new chapter or leave white space to signal the switch.
Here's an example of third person from David Morrell's Creepers:
Balenger's muscles relaxed. Knowing there'd be other tests, he watched the creepers fill their knapsacks. "What time are you going in?"
"Shortly after ten." Conklin hooked a walkie-talkie to his belt.
The POV character is Balenger, so we can know that his muscles relax. Another character wouldn't be able to know that about Balenger. We are also informed what Balenger knows is coming.
Conklin is not a POV character, but we can see what Balenger sees, which is Conklin hooking the walkie-talkie to his belt.
CINEMATIC
Cinematic POV is a description from the outside, as if a movie camera were set up to film the proceedings. You don't deliver the thoughts of the characters. It differs from the other points of view in that we never "drop into the head" of the character to reveal thoughts and emotions. It's all done as if looking at the physical details through an open window or on a movie screen.
Almost always the cinematic POV focuses on one main character. Here's an excerpt from Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, a novel in the cinematic style:
Spade sank into his swivel-chair, made a quarter turn to face her, smiled politely. He smiled without separating his lips. All the v's in his face grew longer.
The tappity-tap-tap and the thin bell and muffled whir of Effie Perine's typewriting came through the closed door. Somewhere in a neighboring office a power-driven machine vibrated dully. On Spade's desk a limp cigarette smoldered in a brass tray filled with the remains of limp cigarettes.
This is cinematic because if we were in Spade's head he wouldn't have been able to see the v's in his face grow longer. Nor do we get Spade's thoughts. And notice how the description of the cigarette on Spade's desk is like a camera zooming in.
BENDING POV RULES
Writers have great discussions among themselves about various writing "rules," especially on the knotty question of POV. Well, it's good to know what's what, and who's who, and keep that POV straight. But the occasional break in a POV rule, when done for a purpose, can help you. For example, a little omniscience at the beginning of a chapter, which then drops into third person, is fine. In Small Town, one of the masters of the craft, Lawrence Block, does this in chapter four:
L'aiglon D'or was on Fifty-fifth between Park and Madison, and had been there for decades. A classic French restaurant, it had long since ceased to be trendy, and the right side of the menu guaranteed that it would never be a bargain. The great majority of its patrons had been coming for years, cherishing the superb cuisine, the restrained yet elegant decor, and the unobtrusively impeccable service. The tables, set luxuriously far apart, were hardly ever all taken, nor were there often more than two or three of them vacant. This, in fact, was very much as the proprietor preferred it....
Francis Buckram saw he was a few minutes early and had the cab drop him at the corner.
Block begins with an omniscient view of the setting, which is interesting and helps set the mood. Then he gets us to the POV of Francis Buckram.
But what about dropping in a little omniscience in the middle of a scene? Block does that as well in Small Town. In the midst of a scene where third-person POV has been established, Block gives us a description of the POV character from the omniscient perspective.
He stood six-two, a bear of a man, big in the chest and shoul
ders, with a mane of brown hair and a full beard that he trimmed himself. His waist was a little thicker than he'd have liked, but not too bad.
And then he goes on with the scene. Now, a POV police alarm might go off somewhere. "Bear of a man" is the author's voice and evaluation, and the character is not reflecting on his grooming habits or weight; that's Block again. But this is hardly a moving violation. It enables Block to get the description in and move on. And it is brief.
Lesson one: Rules exist for a purpose. They work. When you know them well you can also pick spots where a slight modification might help.
Lesson two: If you do break a rule, keep it brief.
Lesson three: It's not a bad thing to strictly follow POV rules the rest of your career.
Becoming proficient at POV takes time. Relax, do the exercises at the end of the chapter, continue to get feedback, and enjoy the process.
When you do nail POV, and you will, you'll feel a command over your fiction that has heretofore eluded you. It's a nice feeling.
KEY POINTS
• Point of view refers to whose head you are "in."
• The most intimate POV is first person. Least intimate is omniscient.
• A good bet for beginners is third person.
• Don't play with POV until you have plenty of experience!
Read the following section and try to identify all the places where POV shifts or is improperly used. (Check the appendix for the answers.)
Frank ran into the room, hoping Sarah was still there.
She was, waiting impatiently. "Quick," he said, "we've got to get out of here!"
Sarah sighed. "What is it this time?"
"The cops. They're coming." Why couldn't she just do what he said? He went to the window and looked down at the street, watching for cop cars.
Sarah got up from the easy chair and said, "You're paranoid, you fool. It's your meds." It was always the meds with him, every time.
*
Indicates that answers and/or possible revisions to the exercises are included in the appendix.
Frank spun around as the first black and white pulled up to the curb.
"It's not paranoia if everyone is after you!" he screamed. "Look at me when I talk to you."
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