Tags
characterisation, characterization, characters, fiction, internal conflict, internal life, manuscript assessment, point of view, published, viewpoint, writing tips
Last year 7 of my clients were contracted for the first time by some pretty prestigious publishing houses. In the current publishing climate that deserves a Wahoo! But it also warrants a bit of analysis. Why did those 7 manuscripts get across the line and not manuscripts from the other 15 clients who I either mentored or did manuscript assessments for. In a word, their strength was…
Viewpoint.
Each of those 7 ‘lucky’ authors had a strong grasp of viewpoint hold (sometimes called point of view) and as a result their characters came alive on the page. We saw the world through the filter of the character’s senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing) and were privy to the character’s internal life (thoughts and feelings) which revealed inner conflicts that upped the ante of the external conflicts the character was already facing. Each genre has it’s own formula for how much of the character’s internal life should make it onto the page. Action adventure novels at the low end, romance and women’s fiction at the high end. But wherever your novel fits into that spectrum, you do need to understand and use viewpoint to make us care enough about your characters to read a whole book about them.
I recently assessed a manuscript that had viewpoint problems and I’d like to share here a small section of that report:
To create an internal life for the characters and thus build characterization, we need to know what characters are thinking and feeling. If the majority of the novel is action and dialogue with hardly any thoughts and feelings expressed, it doesn’t help us get to know your characters. And if we don’t know him and care about his journey, why should we bother to read about it?
The proviso here is that you only give us the thoughts of the character who has viewpoint at the time. Stay deep in their thoughts, feelings, physical reactions, to help us bond with them and feel as if we are them for the period of time that we’re reading.
We need to feel the character’s fear, not just see the circumstances that would inspire fear. And I don’t mean to write He was scared. In a story written for adults you have to pull us into the character’s emotions by ‘showing’ them, not ‘telling’ us about them. Does his pulse jump when he’s excited? Does his heart slow when he’s scared? Does it thump unevenly when he’s terrified? Can he stride when he’s confident and stagger when he’s overwhelmed? Show us how his emotions affect him, and above all keep us in the loop with his thoughts. Not just thoughts about what’s happening right now. Memories, and visualizations of what you think the future may hold, both have the power to evoke emotion. You need to create a depth to the story because action and dialogue just skims the surface of the character’s experience of what’s happening. You have to make us feel if you want us to care!
Whenever I meet agents or publishers and ask them what they’re looking for, they always give me some version of “An interesting story with characters that I care about.” Every time. Interesting story (plot). Characters I care about (characterization).
Your number one tool to build characterization is viewpoint. Learn it (there are heaps of resources on the internet to help you and I’ve got one on my website here). Practise it. Get published!
Louise, this has come at the perfect time for me as I work on the third draft of my novel. Caring about the characters by including “memories and visualisations of what you think the future may hold” is something I had not thought of. Grateful author here!
You’re welcome Jeanne! Remember that anything you put in the story has to pertain to the main plotline (which is all about the character’s Goal/Motivation/Conflict) so if the memories or visualisations relate to that and move the story forward they can’t help but deepen the characterisation and the reader’s enjoyment of the story. I’m always warning writers, however, that ‘less is more’. Don’t stop the pace of the novel for a flashback. Just slip in the odd thought here and there to help readers understand why the goal is so important and worth fighting for. Then they’ll be cheering for your character and deeply satisfied by the ending you produce.
Do you think there is a maximum number of characters from whose viewpoint the story should be told? My YA fantasy has three, but I have a writer friend who had seven in her fantasy.
Hi Sharon! Thanks for dropping by. I do think viewpoint distribution should be capped. The more people you give viewpoint to, the more characterization is diluted. YA novels traditionally have between one and three viewpoints. Many are told from a single character’s perspective. Adult fantasy novels have more, and ‘boys own adventure’ types of fantasies replete with road trips, pretty wenches and lots of swordplay are often low on characterization and high on action, so they’re fine with many viewpoint characters. But if the type of readership you’re hoping to achieve for your fantasy is predominately female – readers who want to care more about the characters than the outcome of the battles, then I’d definitely try to limit viewpoint to 5 or less. There are exceptions to these rules of course. Some writers are so skilled they can give many characters viewpoint and bring them all to life. But particularly for beginner writers, I think the less characters with viewpoint, the easier it is to give us enough of their thoughts & feelings to bring them to life.
Simply – thank you. Present work-in-progress has been changed slightly. 5am tomorrow with coffee in hand the rest will be attacked. Work-in-progress will never be the same again. Thank the heavens and the newspapers and the rest. I know I knew it but your words above hit hard. It shall be done. “Failure is not an option.”
So glad to have been some help. It’s funny how the Universe sends what you need when you need it!
Fabulous advice, as always. I remember this being one of the first things you taught me. Going one step further, I’d love to know your thoughts on ‘character voice’ and how one can make each of their characters’ viewpoints different from the other. That is, how do you make a child’s point of view (or voice) different from an adult’s, or a man’s viewpoint from a woman’s?
Good question Jane! I had so much trouble with male viewpoint when I first started writing it (being a girl and all…) so I used to wear my husband’s aftershave and saunter around the house for ten minutes before I started thinking “BE the man. Be the MAN!” And when I was psyched up I’d write. I guess if you wanted to get into the head of a child you could go out into the garden and blow bubbles (although I just do that for fun anyway)
🙂
I have nearly finished my 1. novel 43ooo words, rather sexy. My 1.book was a family history ‘So Many Stories To Tell’. English is my 2.language and I need an editor for my novel. Would you be able to do that ?
Lovely to hear from you Gisela. I’m actually not doing manuscript assessments at the moment, I’m concentrating on my own projects, but I can heartily recommend Serena Tatti at: http://story-editor.com/ . She’s got several published authors as clients and one of them, Fiona Lowe, won the US and Australian Romantic Book of the Year awards with a book Serena edited. So she’s good!