This is officially the longest I've ever maintained a blog. So I'd like to look back for a minute and sum up things to date:
1. This blog is a pretty good combination of my life and my business, and I'm happy with sharing the things I share.
2. A year ago this time, I was feeling the heat that I was failing professionally, and strongly considered getting a cubicle or retail job - the clients were infrequent, the checks moreso and I was really unsure of what the next steps were. (Note: Some people will step in here and say they are the cause for my upswing and success, and I want to take this sentence to thank them for their support. They were helpful, and I do not minimize their efforts, but I also don't maximize them either.)
3. My personal life has been...well, an adventure. And right now, I'm in some pretty intense therapy. So if you're wondering why I'm handling things differently, thank my therapist, my psychiatrist and the support group. They've helped me figure out more about myself in 2 weeks than a whole load of experiences and failures over 2 years. I look forward to keeping that up and going onward and upward.
4. I cannot claim to be cured, or in remission, but I can tell you that who I was a month ago and who I am now are not the same person - this isn't because I'm conflating things and posting bravado, this is because I finally had no other choice but to stare myself in a metaphoric mirror and get a handle on my shit. Not easy, not fun. But progress.
5. Where this blog goes for the next 100 posts, I don't know. I've got classes I want to teach in the fall. I've got Conventions I want to travel to, people I want to meet, and I'd like this blog to be my record of that.
Now, onto the message of the day.
I want to thank all the editors, writers and publishers I have come to know and work with this last year. I had toyed with mentioning them by name, but felt that such a list was grandiose. I then tried paring down the list, but thought that it was too exclusionary. I have since settled on this statement --
To everyone who has met me, talked to me, shared their ideas with me, hired me, retained me, and paid me, thank you so much for making me one thousand million percent sure that what I'm doing as an editor and consultant is the absolute best course for my life.
To everyone I have spoken with, carpooled with, been to your homes, read your manuscripts, exchanged emails with, laughed with, played games with, ran games with, been supported by, confided in, shilled for, helped, listened to, consulted, advised, amused, chatted with and been introduced to, thank you so much for making my life better.
I know that what I do sometimes becomes more than just my job; that it is a passion and in part an identity, and that I'm not known for my thank-yous or recognizing my friends, peers, employers and colleagues, but I'm making an effort to change that, and I hope that you all can forgive me for how I was, and understand that I'm doing all in my power to get better. For me, for once.
I know that I've not always been the best sort of guy - my tone still sucks, I can be a real jerk and an ass, and that I haven't always been the kind of person people want to be around, or that I haven't always wanted to be around people. To the people I've hurt, I am sorry. I will not air out my laundry for everyone to see, but I will say my apologies publicly - I am sorry that anything I did or didn't do upset you. I'm sorry I lied, I ignored, I stayed quiet, I boasted, I bitched....all of it. I know that for some people this is just more hot air from the jerk, and I know that I'm not going to be trusted or liked and that every word I'm writing is another nail in the coffin that buries me. Whatever. See above statements about being different now. I cannot make you believe it, that's up to you. All I can do is work on being the best me possible.
Editors, thank you for letting me work alongside you, for you, with you and under your expert tutelage. I am a better editor, writer and enthusiast of craft because I can point to the lessons you've taught me. I learn new things every day, and am so lucky and grateful to have the opportunities to do so.
Publishers, thank you for taking a chance on me. A year ago, I was just another guy in a room who happened to know a thing or two about getting books into peoples' hands. (That post is coming...wait for November) And now my name has been on projects, some people even know who I am, and I finally have a use for all these thousands of business cards. Without you, I'd be...well, probably making $35 a week teaching how to write query letters.
Writers, it is to you I owe the greatest thanks. You have brought me such joy, such happiness, such moments of clarity as I face down my preconceived notions, biases, shitty attitudes and nonsense en route to finding and refining my core value of "Help tell the best stories". I am so lucky to count some of you among not only my clients or acquaintances, but also my friends. All three of those things, I didn't have too many of last year. Again, what a difference a year makes.
I really have been #livingthedream this past year. Thank you all for it.
For those that don't know, my birthday is Tuesday. I have to be honest and tell you I don't quite know how I'll feel or what to do, but I can tell you I'm treating it like any other Tuesday (weather permitting) - I'm going to get up early, walk a few miles, then go to therapy and come home and work. There's also a dinner-thing happening. If you see me online Tuesday, please feel free to say hello.
Thanks for reading these 100 posts. I know some of them have been more popular than others. I know some of them have been better written than others. I'll keep being awesome for the next 100, I promise.
I'll be back probably Friday to talk more writing. Happy writing.
P.S. 2 things: Make sure you thank your editors. And please for the love of Pete, if you're not sure you need an editor, talk to one first. DO NOT trust your Aunt Petunia with your manuscript. She may have cooties. Or be an idiot.
Showing posts with label get help if you need it. Show all posts
Showing posts with label get help if you need it. Show all posts
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Some Words About POV
It's Memorial Day Weekend and for most people it's the kick-off to summer. It occurred to me Wednesday that in my job (thankfully) it's almost always summer. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm just saying this because I caught sight of the passage of time. And from thoughts of what I was doing last Memorial Day, or that time I was in high school and had to play baritone saxophone in a parade, it got me thinking about point of view in storytelling.
Also, on Wednesday night at my workshop there were a few questions about POV, and I got kind of amazed that people still had questions about it, even though I thought this topic has been aggressively beaten to death. So let's talk POV. We'll start with a definition and then deal with some common pitfalls.
What is it?
Point of View is the lens through which the reader receives the story. That's it. It is NOT the lens through which the character interacts and lives the story and it is most certainly not a "gimmick" that writers do in order to get Pavlovian praise from agents and book reviewers.
I make a distinction between how the reader receives the story and how a character goes through the story, because every character goes through the story in the first-person. (Just like all of us, we're all only ever in first person). What the POV does is take those character-first-person experiences and organize them in a particular way as the story needs.
Organize them how, you mean like shuffle them around from chapter to chapter?
Oh no. No no. Super double no. Don't do that. Don't hop, skip, and jump through POVs because you 'want to put us [the readers] in different characters' heads. That's...well, that's sort of like announcing you're an amateur while waving flares and a big banner shoots up behind you saying "I don't know any better." Don't do that.
But George RR Martin does it!
First, you are not George RR Martin. (I mean you could be, but really, if actual-GRRM is reading this blog, then I'm oblivious to my audience). Second, no he doesn't. He changes the focus between characters, but never the POV. He doesn't randomly jump from third-person Tyrion to first-person Brienne to second-person guy-next-to-a-guy-with-an-axe.
When you establish a POV, you're creating a little center to the particular universe of your story. Now maybe this universe exists for the duration of a whole book, or maybe it's just a chapter, but this POV is throughout the whole created-universe, not the character. POV is not a character.
Huh?
Let's say you're writing a version of......Romeo and Juliet. And you want to make your version to what Romeo sees, his experiences, the reader follows on Romeo's shoulder, that sort of thing. So you make Romeo the narrator and tell this story in the first-person.
So anything Romeo does or thinks is going to be with an "I" involved (I did this, I think that, etc). And anytime another character does something, it's in the third-person, because this is Romeo's story, he's telling it, and we're (Romeo + reader) seeing this through Romeo's eyes.
Just because a new character comes into the scene doesn't mean we need to be in their head while Romeo's telling the story. This is the narrator's story, we see what they see, we discover what they do when they do...it's sort of the beauty of first person.
But I'm not writing first-person.
Okay, so you're overseeing a whole load of people. Then your POV is as if you're looking down from the skies onto this whole diorama of your story, and the narrator, although not a character directly in the story is relating to us what's going on. You don't have to crack open the minds of every character for the reader to understand the story.
Yes I do. How else will they know what's going on?
If you write well enough AND trust your readers, they'll figure out what's going on. Here's an example:
John sits in his office. While writing his blog post, the rain falls outside and a truck pulls up across the street. From the truck emerges a man, who brings with him from the truck a clipboard. He then checks notes and walks to the blue house. The dog barks. More rain falls. John goes back to writing.
Okay, that's not very well written, and I didn't have any character actively thinking anything, or did I? I implied that John is thinking (because he's writing a blog post) and implied the dog must be thinking (it's barking) and even the guy from the truck has to be thinking (he's checking notes on a clipboard)...but in order to tell you that story, did I have to sit down, hold your hand and explain to you what everyone was thinking? Or was there enough detail there to somewhat picture the scene?
So, the POV depends on the narrator?
Yes. If the narrator is an active participant in the story they're telling, then the reader is going to be limited in the scope of what they read -- If I'm telling you the story of what I did over the weekend, I'm only telling you about what I did. There's no mention of what happened half the world away in Guam or what somebody in Moscow was going to do.
If the narrator is playing puppetmaster and we get to watch them pull the strings and make characters dance, there may still be a limit on what information we get at a certain time. Because the author of the story can only describe so much at a given time. (Because, in part, the author is human and even though they control the whole entirety of their story, you can't compress EVERY thought into the same sentence.)
What can I do?
Okay, let's set some rules.
1. When you set up a POV, you're tied to it. Not quite as bad as a cell phone contract, but it's not a decision of whimsy. Pick a lens, and stick with it.
2. Avoid as best you can the desire or need to switch characters (yet stay in the same POV) because it does NOT tell the story more effectively. It's does two things instead:
a) weakens your story's pace, construction and cohesiveness
Why? Because if you're locked into first-person, but the "I" character constantly changes, the reader can't follow the story easily. Let the narrator dictate how the story is parsed to readers, and if Narrator X isn't good enough, rather than adding Narrator Y and Narrator Z to the mix, make X better.
b) demonstrates that you're a weak/poor/cowardly (yeah, I said it) writer.
Why? Because switching POV is a crutch. Sure it "tells the story most completely" but does it actual make you a better writer for doing it? Sure it's hard and scary to stick with one narrative voice all the way through a story, but (in case you've forgotten) storytelling is an art and a craft, and it's not supposed to be cakewalk simple. If that frightens you, maybe you shouldn't be writing. Throw away the crutches and walk on your own legs.
3. "Bleed on a drip." That means rather than just spew forth a litany of narrative elements (clues, story development, emotions, ideas) in some great wrist-slit pool and hold out hope that the reader can navigate it all and somehow share your vision (by the way, if you call your story a 'vision' it makes you sound like a knob) at the end, you control the pace. (Note: this takes talent and practice and edits and practice and talent.) Meter out when the reader gets certain details, and use the POV as the valve for that.
4. Want to know how to fix your POV issues? Talk to an editor! If you sequester yourself away (either intentionally or worse, you cry poor and say you can't afford to talk to outside people, or out of fear that people won't waah waah like you --- sorry, that argument really bugs me. Cowards. You want to get better, ask for help) then you're never going to fix your mistakes. Sure you might bury them deep in subtext or only make them once or twice...but that's one or two times too many and certainly visible to a reader, subtext or not.
And with that, I'm hopping off my soapbox and getting ready to enjoy my Memorial Day Weekend with a stack of books at the beach house. There will be NO blogpost Monday, because I won't be near a PC until Tuesday at the earliest.
Happy writing, have a great weekend. Rock on.
Also, on Wednesday night at my workshop there were a few questions about POV, and I got kind of amazed that people still had questions about it, even though I thought this topic has been aggressively beaten to death. So let's talk POV. We'll start with a definition and then deal with some common pitfalls.
What is it?
Point of View is the lens through which the reader receives the story. That's it. It is NOT the lens through which the character interacts and lives the story and it is most certainly not a "gimmick" that writers do in order to get Pavlovian praise from agents and book reviewers.
I make a distinction between how the reader receives the story and how a character goes through the story, because every character goes through the story in the first-person. (Just like all of us, we're all only ever in first person). What the POV does is take those character-first-person experiences and organize them in a particular way as the story needs.
Organize them how, you mean like shuffle them around from chapter to chapter?
Oh no. No no. Super double no. Don't do that. Don't hop, skip, and jump through POVs because you 'want to put us [the readers] in different characters' heads. That's...well, that's sort of like announcing you're an amateur while waving flares and a big banner shoots up behind you saying "I don't know any better." Don't do that.
But George RR Martin does it!
First, you are not George RR Martin. (I mean you could be, but really, if actual-GRRM is reading this blog, then I'm oblivious to my audience). Second, no he doesn't. He changes the focus between characters, but never the POV. He doesn't randomly jump from third-person Tyrion to first-person Brienne to second-person guy-next-to-a-guy-with-an-axe.
When you establish a POV, you're creating a little center to the particular universe of your story. Now maybe this universe exists for the duration of a whole book, or maybe it's just a chapter, but this POV is throughout the whole created-universe, not the character. POV is not a character.
Huh?
Let's say you're writing a version of......Romeo and Juliet. And you want to make your version to what Romeo sees, his experiences, the reader follows on Romeo's shoulder, that sort of thing. So you make Romeo the narrator and tell this story in the first-person.
So anything Romeo does or thinks is going to be with an "I" involved (I did this, I think that, etc). And anytime another character does something, it's in the third-person, because this is Romeo's story, he's telling it, and we're (Romeo + reader) seeing this through Romeo's eyes.
Just because a new character comes into the scene doesn't mean we need to be in their head while Romeo's telling the story. This is the narrator's story, we see what they see, we discover what they do when they do...it's sort of the beauty of first person.
But I'm not writing first-person.
Okay, so you're overseeing a whole load of people. Then your POV is as if you're looking down from the skies onto this whole diorama of your story, and the narrator, although not a character directly in the story is relating to us what's going on. You don't have to crack open the minds of every character for the reader to understand the story.
Yes I do. How else will they know what's going on?
If you write well enough AND trust your readers, they'll figure out what's going on. Here's an example:
John sits in his office. While writing his blog post, the rain falls outside and a truck pulls up across the street. From the truck emerges a man, who brings with him from the truck a clipboard. He then checks notes and walks to the blue house. The dog barks. More rain falls. John goes back to writing.
Okay, that's not very well written, and I didn't have any character actively thinking anything, or did I? I implied that John is thinking (because he's writing a blog post) and implied the dog must be thinking (it's barking) and even the guy from the truck has to be thinking (he's checking notes on a clipboard)...but in order to tell you that story, did I have to sit down, hold your hand and explain to you what everyone was thinking? Or was there enough detail there to somewhat picture the scene?
So, the POV depends on the narrator?
Yes. If the narrator is an active participant in the story they're telling, then the reader is going to be limited in the scope of what they read -- If I'm telling you the story of what I did over the weekend, I'm only telling you about what I did. There's no mention of what happened half the world away in Guam or what somebody in Moscow was going to do.
If the narrator is playing puppetmaster and we get to watch them pull the strings and make characters dance, there may still be a limit on what information we get at a certain time. Because the author of the story can only describe so much at a given time. (Because, in part, the author is human and even though they control the whole entirety of their story, you can't compress EVERY thought into the same sentence.)
What can I do?
Okay, let's set some rules.
1. When you set up a POV, you're tied to it. Not quite as bad as a cell phone contract, but it's not a decision of whimsy. Pick a lens, and stick with it.
2. Avoid as best you can the desire or need to switch characters (yet stay in the same POV) because it does NOT tell the story more effectively. It's does two things instead:
a) weakens your story's pace, construction and cohesiveness
Why? Because if you're locked into first-person, but the "I" character constantly changes, the reader can't follow the story easily. Let the narrator dictate how the story is parsed to readers, and if Narrator X isn't good enough, rather than adding Narrator Y and Narrator Z to the mix, make X better.
b) demonstrates that you're a weak/poor/cowardly (yeah, I said it) writer.
Why? Because switching POV is a crutch. Sure it "tells the story most completely" but does it actual make you a better writer for doing it? Sure it's hard and scary to stick with one narrative voice all the way through a story, but (in case you've forgotten) storytelling is an art and a craft, and it's not supposed to be cakewalk simple. If that frightens you, maybe you shouldn't be writing. Throw away the crutches and walk on your own legs.
3. "Bleed on a drip." That means rather than just spew forth a litany of narrative elements (clues, story development, emotions, ideas) in some great wrist-slit pool and hold out hope that the reader can navigate it all and somehow share your vision (by the way, if you call your story a 'vision' it makes you sound like a knob) at the end, you control the pace. (Note: this takes talent and practice and edits and practice and talent.) Meter out when the reader gets certain details, and use the POV as the valve for that.
4. Want to know how to fix your POV issues? Talk to an editor! If you sequester yourself away (either intentionally or worse, you cry poor and say you can't afford to talk to outside people, or out of fear that people won't waah waah like you --- sorry, that argument really bugs me. Cowards. You want to get better, ask for help) then you're never going to fix your mistakes. Sure you might bury them deep in subtext or only make them once or twice...but that's one or two times too many and certainly visible to a reader, subtext or not.
And with that, I'm hopping off my soapbox and getting ready to enjoy my Memorial Day Weekend with a stack of books at the beach house. There will be NO blogpost Monday, because I won't be near a PC until Tuesday at the earliest.
Happy writing, have a great weekend. Rock on.
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