Tag Archive | pov

Importance of voice

Dec4

Especially in dialog.

Took a family trip to San Fran and the beach yesterday. It was lovely.

And personally I found it HILARIOUS that not one of the 3 iPhone users remembered a charging cable. We had 3 for androids and only 2 in use.

But the van had a dvd player. I was sitting up front so I didn’t see the movie, but I could hear it. And after a while, you learn to tell the difference between characters because of their voices. But also the way they speak.

In writing, we don’t have the audio playing but we have to get it playing in the readers imagination. There’s the “she hissed” and “he growled” type tags, but…

Maybe the point is to make the dialog read like you imagine it sounds. Like a person is actually speaking. So if someone is hissing, you’d put in many s words “Sadies still not stopping?” (Which is off the cuff and horrible but you get the idea.)

What is we took that sentence, and gave it some action? “Sadies still not stopping?” Melanie whispered, grabbing my arm.

Eh, not quite there. But closer. The point is, each character is going to talk differently, have different rhythms and patterns to their speech. Just like us lol.

Character Voice becomes especially important when you write first person from multiple POVs. If readers are to believe that these are from different perspectives, we have to put in the work. A psycho, musician, a businessman and a soldier of fortune will all not only speak differently but think differently as well. And if they don’t, then the author has to stop and evaluate why there are two characters instead of one. If they think and talk the same…. They are the same to the reader. They won’t be able to differentiate between them so the characters will get lumped together.

Funny story — I started this blog post over a year ago, when I still lived in California. We had just left the beach (my farewell tour lol). Back then, I read traditional romance and speculative fiction. Now, I read across the spectrum, including non-traditional romance including poly romance (RH) where making characters have distinct voices is imperative. Otherwise, they are related to only being in the mix because of a need for their body parts.

We need to make sure that every character who gets screen time (POV scenes or chapters) has the personality and individuality to pull it off.

Bookish Thoughts: A Tale for the Time Being

Sep26

I’m thankful that I found Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being during my last tour of Barnes & Noble. In addition to being a great story, it made me think about writing and reading and the relationship between them.

First off, just in case you decide to drop everything and buy it: this book should have trigger warnings. Intense bullying, attempted rape, suicide attempts.

The books I think of myself as reading have none of those things. And yet this Buddhist magical book sucked me in and kept me enraptured. This book is dense and playful and all the things I love about reading and the things I hate. Alternating POV and perspectives, appendices, foot notes and the conversation between reader and writer and what it means to walk in the world.

One of the things that caught me off guard was the way the author is inserted into the narrative. She’s in the book- Ruth– and if my reading is correct the one doing the footnotes. The Ruth parts, interestingly enough is written in 3rd person, while the alternating narrative is the diary of a teenager in Japan. What tipped me off was one of the jacket blurb said it was a blend of fact and fiction.

Here is an interview and questions for the author on the publishers website. I couldn’t find mention of it anywhere else which surprised me.

Because I love the way things are pushed and pulled in and out of view, even what type of book you think you’re reading. I found it tragic, funny, lovely and lonely. And when it was over it made me want enough to leaf through the appendices.

Ch-ch-changes

May29

I mentioned a while back ago that I had unpacked my boxes of books and got them up on a shelf. In no particular order, but up none the less. This gave me a chance to open up and try to read some of my old favorites. Books I have read at least a hundred times, possibly two.

Books that I have hung onto for… gosh…. 20 years.

20 years? Really?

No, really?

Yup. First edition (and yes, this particular romance author’s books are almost always in print) and I checked the pub date after I huffed in indignation.

Huffed. Because I  couldn’t stand the book. Those heroine’s that I thought were so cool when I was in my twenties… They struck me like a teeney bopper. Not merely someone young of years, but someone annoying with it.

Another thing I noticed was the tendency to go from head to head to head. Sometimes within the same paragraph. It drove me batty!  It can be done, and done well… but not, apparently, by her. Then again, I’m holding a book that was written decades ago up to today’s standards.

And I’m a little heartbroken that they just don’t stack up, so to speak. It’s a matter of principle. I brought those dang books through the depths of hell with me. Although, tellingly, I did not read them while going through it.

So. Bottom line. That book that you LOVE SO MUCH that you can’t let it go even though you’ve held onto it for 20, 30 years? Try reading it. If you can still stand it, if you still feel like you’re going to visit old friends, keep the books.

And there are books that do that. They’re called classics for a reason. (As an aside, I’ve noticed that Fantasy– Sword and Sorcerey in particular, seems to fare well with the passage of time, too).

If you’re like me with this author’s books… Pass them on. Because you will make someone, somewhere, extremely happy. And, as an extra special bonus, you will get to have more room for more books.