POV, Part 2 & the Novel Wrapped
In Today's Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* POV, Part 2
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
"I don’t understand the process of imagination—though I know that I am very much at its mercy. ... The ideas come to me; I don’t produce them at will. They come to me in the course of a sort of controlled daydream, a directed reverie." Joseph Heller in "The Art of Fiction No. 51" in The Paris Review (via writer Dr. Harold Goodman)
"You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go." Jeannette Rankin
POV, Part 2
If you missed Part 1, please go read it first at either
As I wrote yesterday, every word of the story or novel must come from/through the POV character.
The narrator shouldn't provide any physical description that the POV character can't see, hear, smell, taste, or touch.
The narrator shouldn't express any emotional reaction, unspoken thought, or opinion of the setting or other characters that isn't filtered through the POV character and his physical and emotional senses.
If you do either of those things, that's author intrusion, and it WILL pull the reader out of the story.
So for example, if something's happening behind a barn or in another room (or is otherwise hidden from the POV character's view), the writer can't describe the physical 'sight' of what's going on.
But the writer CAN describe any sounds, smells, etc. emanating from the event that
reach the POV character through his physical senses, or
to which the POV character reacts through his physical actions and his emotional senses (thoughts, opinions, etc).
All of my Blackwell Ops novels, titled as they are with the POV character's name, conveniently lend themselves to first-person POV.
However, Blackwell Ops 10: Jeremy Stiles opens in third person. I sent Ed a PDF of the prologue and Chapter 1 so he could see how I handled that. The whole thing is a little under 3000 words.
If you'd like a copy of that PDF, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. Please put POV Example in the subject line.
I anticipate that out of around 200 subscribers, only three or four will take me up on this offer. Please prove me wrong. (See the 2nd Quote of the Day above.)
If you receive and read that example, notice that even in the third-person prologue, the narrator didn't describe anything that Stiles himself (the POV character) couldn't see or wouldn't already know, etc.
Notice also that even in the third-person prologue, the personal opinions expressed are those of the POV character.
Maybe the strongest example of the POV character's opinion is the opening of the second paragraph: "Just as if her presence was actually necessary...."
The third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of the prologue continue the POV character's personal observations (opinions) about the character with whom he shares the sound stage. Those opinions include sometimes snide little words slipped in here and there.
If you ask for a copy and read the example, feel free to ask any questions that occur to you afterward.
After Ed read the example, he asked, "Why did you choose to write the first part in 3rd person?"
But there was no conscious mind involvement. In other words, I didn't choose or decide anything. When I sat down to start typing the story, I knew only that Jeremy Stiles was an operative for Blackwell Ops and that his story would unfold.
So I put my fingers on the keyboard and wrote "On Wednesday on the sound stage in a prominent Hollywood studio, ..." and the rest of the novel (and the next novel, as it turned out) unfolded from there.
As I told Ed, I was actually surprised by the prologue myself, but it had nothing to do with POV.
Specifically, I was surprised that Stiles had such a lucrative side-gig. As a big Hollywood star (host of a popular game show) why did he want to join Blackwell Ops in the first place? Operatives seldom have full-time jobs other than Blackwell Ops.
But later in the story, all of that (why he joined BO and why he maintained such a lucrative gig) became clear. When you trust yourself and your characters and Just Write, it always works out that way. Really weird, and a ton of fun.
Anyway, re POV, in BO-10 at the beginning of Chapter 1, the character stepped in and took over in first person, and the rest is history.
As I told Ed regarding conscious-mind decisions, I might have gone back and changed the title of the original Chapter 1 to Prologue (I honestly don't remember), but if so that was the only conscious-mind decision I made through that novel and the next one, a sequel.
I hope all of this helps you get a handle on POV.
I also hope that, having been made aware of what POV actually is—a term used by critics and others who are not fiction writers to describe the deconstructed parts of a story after the fact—you'll forget about it and Just Write.
Trust yourself, trust your characters, and just write a story already.
And remember that WHAT you write—short story, novella, or novel—doesn't matter.
But if you're a fiction writer, THAT you write is essential. Speaking of which,
The novel wrapped yesterday.
So there's that. I'll start Blackwell Ops 39 today. Sometime in the next day or two I'll do all the prep stuff on BO-38 and put it up for prepublication sales. It will go live on Amazon and all the stores served by D2D on March 29.
Of Interest
Books.by This is a place to publish and sell your own PAPER books. Pricing is currently $99 per year (on sale) but they do not take a per-sale commission. I saw no mention of ebooks.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 970
Writing of Blackwell Ops 38: Paul Stone
Day 1…… 4071 words. To date…… 4071
Day 2…… 2711 words. To date…… 6782
Day 3…… 3434 words. To date…… 10216
Day 4…… 4185 words. To date…… 14401
Day 5…… 4149 words. To date…… 18550
Day 6…… 4104 words. To date…… 22654
Day 7…… 2010 words. To date…… 24664
Day 8…… 1413 words. To date…… 26077
Day 9…… 4091 words. To date…… 30168
Day 10…. 3434 words. To date…… 33602
Day 11…. 2571 words. To date…… 36173 (done)
Fiction for March…………………….. 11509
Fiction for 2025………………………. 197340
Nonfiction for March……………....... 4380
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 58310
2025 consumable words…………….. 249140
Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 2877
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 5
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 9
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 109
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 279
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
Great stuff as always! Really appreciate you diving into this topic here.