There are Points of View till hell won’t have them. And we are going to talk about a few of them. We have been discussing character building, settings, symbols and
images. We discussed dialogue, subjects and subtexts. On Sunday we hit on Action.
We can probably all agree that when it comes to Point of View, head hopping within the confines of a single scene is a major mistake. I think as writers, we have
all tried it in our notebooks and discovery drafts a little head hopping has a valid place. We might head hop to get a feel for who a scene belongs to. Then we choose the best and leave the rest in a file somewhere on our computers or in our notebooks. These explorations are never a waste of time. These efforts are practice and practice is the best teacher.
Point of view, or POV, has to do with the narrator’s relationship to what’s being said:
Is the narrator a participant in the events being told, an observer of those events, or someone reconstructing the events from a distance?
Does the narrator announce its presence openly or try to remain invisible?
Is the narrator seemingly dispassionate and detached, or does the narrator have a clear opinion of, or stake in, the story?
Is the narrator qualified to tell the story in terms of access to information and the ability to provide that information to us? And do we trust what’s being said?
Take about twenty minutes to read the guest post on Janet’s page. Join us in the Chatroom on Wednesday at 8PM EST
Terry's hand trembled. One final keystroke and there would be no taking it back. No alt z. No backspace. No delete.
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover played over her phone. Terry hated that ringtone.
A subtle clunk from the keyboard marked the beginning of the end. The start of a new world order. Terry waited.
Everything felt the same.
"51 ways," Terry whispered.
___
Sunday's topic is Action.
We've talked about scene set ups and dialogue.
Action can be huge or it could be one more pebble in the hiker's shoe. For every action there is a reaction, even if the reader doesn't see it. Reaction may
pile up.
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Action in your novel is what characters do. What they do to each other, to objects, to the landscape, to animals, and to themselves.
When you write action, you are not only moving the plot along, you are also providing clues to character motivation.
You use action to reveal character. (Robert J Ray)
In a novel, dialogue is two characters talking with a purpose. You use it in your fiction writing because it is efficient. With a few lines of well written dialogue, you could build character, advance the plot, convey information, and create tension lurking beneath the surface of the spoken language, which we call “subtext.” Dialogue is the shortcut to conflict. Conflict makes drama.
Robert J Ray
We have talked a bit about building character, okay, we talk about it often. We have also talked about building scenes. This week we will talk about dialogue.
One of my favorite selections of dialogue comes from William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay
Dying.
The section is called Cora and it is far too long to include here. I do hope you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed teaching it during my home-schooling days. My son and I still talk about the cake.
This is a small sampling of the dialogue..
"She ought to taken those cakes anyway," Kate says.
"Well," I say, "I reckon she never had no use for them now."
"She ought to taken them," Kate says. "But those rich town ladies can change their minds. Poor folks cant."
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