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Writing Excuses 20.34: Deep Dive into "All the Birds in the Sky" -- Using the Lens of Who

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-34-deep-dive-into-all-the-birds-in-the-sky-using-the-lens-of-who

Key points: Who? What makes up a character, what makes up our experience of them? History and community, motivation and goals, stakes and fears. How do they react to things? What is our proximity to them?

[Season 20, Episode 34]

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 20, Episode 34]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] A Deep Dive on "All the Birds in the Sky" -- Using the Lens of Who

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] So, what we wanted to do is take this… These things that we've been talking about, the who and the way there and why the when, and take one work and look at how a single work is deploying all of these things. Last season, we took different works to represent different concepts. This season, we're taking one work, because, in reality, when you're writing, you're doing it all in a single work. We're going to start with this lens of who, and I'm just going to briefly remind you of some of the tools that we were talking about. When we were talking about the lens of who, we were talking about, like, what makes up a character, what makes up our experience of them. There's the idea of history and community, motivation and goals, what their stakes and fears are, how they react to things, and then there's also our proximity to the character. Are we looking at them in first person or third person, third person omniscient? Those are the kinds of things that we're thinking about. There's the mechanics of it, the… Which voice we're using. But there's also the… Their… Our experience of them as a person. One of the reasons that I pitched this particular book to the group, All the Birds in the Sky, is because it takes a look at our two main characters, Patricia and Lawrence, at three different points in their life. There is their childhood, when they're like six years old. Then we see them in middle school, which, as we all know, is a brutal time. And then we get to see them… Actually, I guess it's four different times. We get to see a little bit of their teenage years. And then we get to see them as adults. So, one of the things that I liked about it is that there is this opportunity to talk about who and talk about… And we see the impact of their history as we move through the book. So I think one of the questions for me for you all is, when you are thinking about how these characters move through this book, I'm taking things kind of sequentially, when we think about history and community, how is Charlie Jane using those to shape our understanding of the characters through the book?

[DongWon] I love that we're starting with the lens of who, because to me that is the primary question of this book. Right? This book, more than anything else, is a character study about a relationship between two characters. And using the time jumps is such a beautiful way for us to get a sense of how things that happen to them in early childhood influenced the adults they became and the choices that they make. Right? So, seeing these lenses evolve over time is, to me, the joy of reading this, of this deep commitment to asking questions about who are these people and why are they the way they are. Which starts with… At home… It starts with their family lives. Who are their parents, who are their siblings? And the community that they're embedded in from the very, very start.

[Howard] There's a tendency for readers to… Just because this is the character who is my point-of-view character, and because these two characters have had a moment together, as a reader who is reading a thing that the author has just given me this moment, I will inflate the importance of that moment way beyond what in the real world that moment might be like. And that's one of the reasons why I so love a point later in this book where Lawrence and Patricia are talking, and they've kind of been… They've been apart and they realize they have a very different perspective on some of the things that happened as children. As a reader, I'm like, oh, that was hugely formative, that's critically important to the rest of the book. And one of the characters is like, ah, that was just this thing I did one time. And then someone else says that was the most important thing that you… You saved my life.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] And I love that, because it grounded me in my experiences of growing up. I have memories of things that were super important to me, and the other people are like, oh, that was just a Tuesday.

[Erin] Yeah. I also think, though, one thing that I find very interesting about this book is, like, picking… What you're talking about, Howard, is like picking the moments, also, as a writer, what are the moments in your characters' lives that you choose to dramatize. And there's a moment later in the book in which… I can't remember which one of them says something like I realize that may be, like, I recontextualized my entire life through the lens of this relationship. And this entire book is that. The book actually recontextualizes their lives through the lens of this relationship. There are whole periods of their life that are really important that either get told way later, or, like the schooling part, like all the interesting parts where they were growing their separate selves, and instead, it's the moments when they are together which tell you what's the arc of the story that we're trying to read. And so, there's so many things that happen in your characters' lives that you can focus on, but this book knows what it's about, and therefore picks the specific moments that make that point.

[DongWon] Yeah. 100 percent. And then this also plays into the unreliability later in the narrative. Right? When they're young adults out in the dating world trying to build relationships, there are a couple moments that I really loved where someone would break up with the character or the character would break up with somebody. I'm thinking about this with Patricia and Kevin, I think his name was, the guy that she was seeing. Where she was like, yeah, I don't know what this relationship is. Is it a relationship? We keep trying to talk about it and not talking about it. And then he breaks up with her, being like, hey, I tried to talk to you about this so many times. You wouldn't talk to me about it. And just seeing that inversion, and… Because we have all this context of where she comes from, we understand why her communication style is like this, we understand the trauma that she went through, this like rupture she had with her best friend who was the only person who saw her, and then ran away. And just her fear of commitment makes so much sense. And being able to put us in the moment of that inversion, of her having to step back and be like, oh, no, I see it now of what happened here. I think would have been a hard trick to pull off if we'd just been in this story about adults. But because we know what her relationship with Lawrence was like as kids, we can see the echoes of that reverberating throughout that. And Lawrence's relationship with his girlfriend, that he like puts on a pedestal, which is like a little bit how he related to Patricia when they were children. And, like, all of these different elements. And it just creates all this really rich, interesting context for us to understand relationship dynamics of young twentysomethings in San Francisco in whatever era this is. I don't know. That really, really works for me.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And there's something that Patricia says when they're in their middle school years. In narrative, this was a metaphor for how it was with Lawrence, Patricia realized. He would be supportive and friendly as long as something seemed like a grand adventure, but the moment you got stuck or things got weird, he would take off. And it is… I don't know that that is necessarily true of Lawrence all the time, but I think that that is how she has assigned him in her brain. We…

[DongWon] It makes the heartbreak later makes so much sense.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. The other thing that struck me as I was reading was that both… Because I had read the book initially, and then I was doing a reread to prep for this. And one of the things that I was struck by was that both kids have this incredibly special moment when they're little, when they're six, where they feel… Or not six. Patricia's is when she's six, Lawrence is a little bit older. But where they feel like they belong. And that they are seen and they're understood and that they have a gift and that they are special. And then they spend the rest of their life trying to get back to that place. And that is frustrating, like watching the frustration and how that manifests and they're both… They both are pushing against it in different ways because of the… Who they are, but they're both pushing against it… Pushing against the same kind of thing.

[Erin] I think that's a really interesting lesson to maybe take from this is that… We've talked before, I believe, on the podcast about sort of essence expression, like what something is at its core versus how it's being shown in the world right now. And I think sometimes it can be really easy as you're trying to make a story or a book go forward to get really focused on expression. What is the character's goal in this moment? What are they trying to achieve, did they achieve it? Did the thing blow up? But why they are doing it is really interesting and also, like, should be really consistent, I think, or have a real reason for changing. And so I think sometimes, like, the character arc can become an arc of action as opposed to an arc of reason for action, and what's interesting about this is this book really focuses on all the things they do are, like, watching a friend, like, make the same kind of mistake, but differently. It's like if you know a friend who has a specific, like, dating habit. They date different guys, but it's like the same thing. You're like, oh, you're doing this again, but in a slightly different way.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] Like, you learned this lesson, but not the underlying lesson.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] And I think that is the thing that's really interesting to focus on, and to take away as a writer.

[Mary Robinette] There's another thing that Charlie Jane does that I thought was kind of subtle and interesting. And I will talk to you about that when we come back from the break.

[Mary Robinette] Welcome back. There's this thing that she does where there are multiple times where Lawrence and Patricia define, even though, like, one is fantasy and one is science-fiction, where they define the thing that they want is the way the other one moves through the world. So there is the example of this is I wish I could sleep for five years and wake up as a grown-up, except I would know all the stuff you're supposed to learn in high school by sleep learning. So that's a science-based solution for her problem. But then Lawrence has a magic based thing, I wish I could turn invisible and maybe become a shapeshifter. Life would be pretty cool if I was a shapeshifter. And it's the idea of, like, even though they are very different people, they are the other… They want what the other one has. And they both see the other one as you have it figured out. I wish I could have it figured out like that.

[Howard] I think one of the most powerful things that Charlie Jane accomplishes with these two characters, and it relates to what you just described, in the world building, these characters have to see the magic, see the science-fiction. And the way they are differently embedded in that universe is… I found it very, very immersive. From the first chapter, where Patricia is in the woods, I was there. And I think that's… That use of POV in order to communicate the world building was very, very well done.

[Mary Robinette] Let's actually talk about that a little bit more, because that's one of the other lenses that we use, is that proximity to the character. That's something that I think Charlie Jane plays with a fair bit through the thing, that there are places where we go omniscient and all the dialogue is reported. And then Patricia said… Not and then Patricia said. And then Patricia told him about everything that had happened. But there are other times where we do go deep into it, and we live it, and we have all the tactile experiences. What do you think about the ways that that's being manipulated?

[Dan] So, one of the things that impressed me the most about this book was the way that she was able to immediately, in one or two sentences, tell me exactly who the side characters were.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Dan] Even though we never really get close proximity to any of them. This is so focused on Patricia and Lawrence, and to a lesser degree, Theodolphus. But I remember being so delighted early on, in like the first or second chapter, when she illustrates this beautifully that both kids are messed up by their parents, and have a terrible relationship with their parents, but into completely different ways. And if I remember correctly, it's Lawrence's parents are kind of distant and don't pay a lot of attention, whereas Patricia's parents demand perfection. And we just get that in, I think, one sentence each. And it's so powerful when you immediately know exactly who these characters are, and why they are problematic for our leads.

[Erin] Well, I also wonder… It's funny, thinking about POV, like how… Like, if you were an outsider, like, looking at these parents and kids, like… There's something very childlike in the way they perceive the punishment. Like, do they really send Patricia to her room for like 18 years and only passed sandwiches under the door? Maybe they did or maybe… But that also sounds like something like a kid would say. Like, and then for like a year, I had to like only eat sandwiches with one bread. And, like, how much of that is in the POV of a child…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] And how…

[Howard] Lady, that was 15 minutes.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Laughter]

[Erin] Exactly. You had to go to your room for half an hour. It was not like… But I don't know. Because…

[Howard] Yeah.

[Erin] We're so in the POV that we so get the other characters through this specific lens. And I think that's why they come through so clearly. Because the characters, the main characters, have such a very specific point of view on their parents or on the adults in their life that it comes through super clearly whether or not it's objectively true.

[DongWon] Well in… This goes back to the thing I was talking about earlier, in terms of the inversion around understanding what their relationship was. Because that's a tool of proximity. Right? We're zoomed in so close on each of their experiences of this relationship that we're getting this, like, 20 something I don't know how to date kind of perspective.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] And we're embedded in that until suddenly we get that revelation, and then we zoom out. Right? Everything just sort of snaps into focus in this relationship in a very cinematic way where we can look back on the relationship that's been described to us and then, like, oh, yeah, that is how she's been treating that guy, or oh, yeah, he's doing this thing to her, and her experiences of what the hell is happening the entire time. Right? And so I think that is such a masterful use of proximity and creates this feeling that I couldn't shake throughout the book where I wasn't, like, experiencing characters, but, like, I was like, oh, these are like my friends, was this feeling that I had throughout, which was, like, an interesting sensation, and they felt like people I was in community with rather than people I was learning about. And I think it is a little bit of that, trying to parse the thing that your friend is telling me, they were like complaining about their relationship, and you're like, but this is your fault, though? You know what I mean?

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Like that little bit of a thing, of trying to be like figure out how to help your friend, and I'm doing that same math with like how to help Lawrence with this situation? How do I get him to chill out about this girl that he's dating so that he doesn't ruin it? And you're like, my gosh, he's going to ruin it. And the only way he's going to figure it out is by ruining it. So…

[Erin] And, it's funny, is I also see this about the entire world. So we'll probably talk about this more in one of the other lenses, but what I think is so… What I found really interesting and what I highlighted the most in this entire book were all of the horrible things that were happening in the world…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] That were asides to the characters' lives. They're like, and then that thing in Haiti, and… I don't know, the thing and the heat and the… And they would just mention it among, like, things that were impacting… They're like, I can't go on a date here because, like, I have to remember to not flush the toilet because of that water crisis…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Back to my date. And so, it's so hyper focused in some ways on their own lives as we all are, that they let the broader parts of the world, which we mostly get in omniscient kind of asides go, until they cannot let it go anymore because it intrudes on their worlds.

[DongWon] The one that really stuck out to me was in the moment where Patricia and Lawrence are like, finally, like connected and they're in the middle of that sex scene… That's very intense and we're in their experience. There's a sideline about the, like, and on the television they're talking about how superstar whatever the name of the star was obliterates half of the East Coast. And I went, damn, that's a really broad way to phrase that. And then forgot about it, because of the intensity of this scene. And then she gets the call that her parents are, like, trapped and dying in this, like, thing. And it's like, oh! Obliterate was used literally and intentionally. They just weren't observing this catastrophe that was happening outside their window. And it's like you feel the heartbreak of experiencing joy while the world is falling apart around you.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And that is… Again, that use of coming in and back out again.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] With the proximity is so interesting. Before we wrap up, I did want to touch about the motivations and goals and the stakes and fears, because… And I realize that I am wrapping like three lenses all into one…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But it informs the way they are reacting through the whole book. How much do you think their motivations, goals, stakes, fears are set up in the beginning and consistent through the book, and how much do you think they change?

[Howard] Um… In the beginning of the book, these were kids who were trying to figure out how to interact with the world, how to survive the world, and they arrived at two completely different toolsets. By the middle of the book, I feel like they've both figured out the world is broken and there are things that they can be doing to help. And they have completely different toolsets. And the fact that they have different toolsets and blind spots… The inability to see what someone else's toolset might provide leads to the conflict at the end where these two characters, who are both the good guys, are each other's antagonists.

[Mary Robinette] All right. I think what you said about how they… One of the things for me was that they… It sets up that they are trying to survive N, and that that's something that they are constantly trying to do. But in the early part of the book, because they are children, their reactions are not how do I survive this thing that is happening to me. And that as we progress through, their reaction becomes how can I influence things so that those things don't happen to me or anyone else again?

[DongWon] I think my one critique of the book, or my major critique of the book, I think comes to some of the stakes questions. Right? Because we have these world stakes in terms of the world is getting worse, and we have this sort of tech bro attitude of, like, I can save the world, in which… The Sam Bankman-Fried kind of perspective…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Which we've seen the flaws of. And we have this other perspective from her coming from this more holistic magical thing. Sometimes that felt a little… Like, there's a version of this book that I would have really enjoyed which is a contemporary realist novel about these two kids growing up and then living in San Francisco and experiencing this tension that is really core of what's going on in this city and has been going on in this city, especially when this book was written. And so sometimes, I felt a little disconnected to me from the supernatural state. Right? Because we have this thing where the tree at the beginning of the book asks this question, and that it establishes as a major stake. We have the AI that he builds in the closet. That's established as a major stakes. And so by the time those two things come back in, I've been thinking about them this whole time, and kind of wondering where they are, and knowing in the back of my mind that those are the stakes that are going to matter at the end of the day. But there a little disconnected from the moment to moment action. Right? And, like… They are connected to the characters motivations in that they are central to the questions that they are interested in in terms of conductivity, community, helping people, in terms of Patricia, and these technological solutions and sort of abstract ideas in terms of Lawrence. But in the specificity of those two things which are important for the end, they disappear for a very long time. But because they're highlighted at the very beginning, I never forgot about them. So there was a little bit of friction around the stakes of the story in that way. Even though the emotional stakes were so well rendered and so established, the plot stakes felt… I felt a gap…

[Howard] I agree. I look at that problem and I think, dang it, Charlie Jane Anders wants me to read smarter than I want to read.

[DongWon] Yeah. I think that's true in so many ways. What I loved about the way the character interaction works in this book feels very queer to me in a specific way, because it is about holding empathy and understanding for the characters, while also holding them accountable for the things that they're doing. Which is a thing I think we strive for in the queer community. I think we strive for it in a lot of communities, but it's a thing that I observed, and something about the way the dy… Social dynamics work and the way the characters talk to each other felt so familiar to me in a certain way that I really appreciated about this book. Because I think she is asking a lot of us to hold in our heads, here's who this character was as a child, here's who this character is now, and keep that empathy, while also holding them accountable.

[Mary Robinette] [garbled] So what's interesting, and I see that Dan has something…

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] That he wants to say, but I'm just going to slip this in. One of the things that I particularly liked about the tree and the AI was that both of them were things that would be explained away as childhood make-believe. Because I remember Eliza, the computer, and the way ChangeMe is described at the beginning does not seem any different than Eliza. Right? But they are pretending that she's… That this is real and this is… And so I liked the tension.

[DongWon] For the context, Eliza's one of the first chatbots which was used… Claimed to be used as a therapeutic tool because it was responding in a humanistic way, but it is just canned responses.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, it's just… Yeah.

[DongWon] So… Wish [garbled]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Also, ChatGPT. That it gives the illusion of intelligence, but it isn't actually intelligent. The thing that happened to her as a child could have been a dream that she had.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And so I liked that… You describe it as stakes, but for me it falls back into the history thing. It's that there's an imaginary friend that they both had that is shaping a lot of the decisions that they make. But then it turns out maybe not so imaginary.

[Dan] Yeah. So, I'm glad you brought up critique. Full disclosure, I did not love this book. I'm kind of the dissenting voice here on the podcast to an extent. But specifically talking about what the stakes were, one of the realizations that I had partway through, and maybe this is a very different interpretation than some of the others had, is that what was going on in the world was really kind of beside the point. And a lot of the stuff with the tree and all of that, those stakes were there, but the real core of it was just who they were as people. And every time I would say this book is so boring, nothing is happening, I would have to stop and say, no, actually, there's a lot happening. It's just all internal to who they are. This is not a book where there are big action scenes. There are action scenes in it. But it is a book where… Like, the breakup with Kevin was a really big deal. And these kind of smaller moments were actually, for me, the real stakes of the book is who these people are, and what are the milestones of their progress on to becoming somebody different.

[Erin] And I think when it comes to stakes, one of the things that I took away from it was the idea that, like, you want to think that your life is so important and maybe it isn't. Even though these characters are in fact important to the world in some way, they felt like they were being… It felt, for me, for a lot of the book, that they were tools of greater movements they didn't understand. They were tools of people who had big plans that they would never tell them, and so they were just trying to, like, do the best they could to get from moment to moment of happiness, because everything they were doing was at somebody else's behest. Like, both of them were working for organizations they didn't fully understand, doing things that they didn't fully get, until it was happening. And so, I felt like in some ways maybe it's like… And there's all that thing about aggrandizement and, like, whether or not you're supposed to think you are the driver of the story or not in a story that's so focused on two characters. It's like this interesting contrast between how much does one person change the world and how much are they just trying to remain in the world as it changes around them.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think that one of the things that worked for me was that I did come in reading it as a character story. And so, because there were so many other things in the world that were happening in the background, the fact that other… That action that I was interested in was also happening in the background, just kind of felt like part of the texture. That, for me, this was two characters who both just wanted to belong, and they also wanted to stop feeling insignificant.

[DongWon] One thing that… And I think Dan and I are sort of coming at the same critique from different directions. I think we had different eventual emotional responses to it. But one simple rubric I have, and this is very reductive, so don't yell at me, but, like, is the distinction between literary fiction and genre fiction is often around this idea of literary fiction being primarily about portraiture, and genre fiction being primarily about building out a model. Right? It's about asking a question and answering it. Right? And this novel is, I think, attempting to do both. In that it is writing the literary and genre line in a certain way, and I appreciated its instincts to try and do both, but I think there's a little bit of friction between those, in terms of the overall question of how do we solve world problems. It's about connection, it's about integration, it is about, like, organic [garbled] network kind of things, which is the eventual… hybridizing community approach and technological approaches. Right? That is sort of the thing that she's arguing for at the end of the book. But then the substance of the book is primarily about character portrait and relationship portrait of two people feeling and bonding and coming together in this thing. And that becomes the metaphor, that becomes like the synthesis in this dialectical approach of these two different things. That relationship encompasses those two things. But what I loved about the book was primarily the literary project of portraiture.

[Mary Robinette] I'm just going to say that I wonder now how much of that is intentional. Because what you just described is actually what's happening in the book.

[DongWon] Yes.

[Mary Robinette] The conflict between fantasy and science fiction, the conflict between two genres of understanding, the technical and the touchy-feely.

[Dongwon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And with that, I think it is time for us to give you your homework.

[Mary Robinette] So, for your homework, since we are focusing on the lens of who, and one of the things that I found most compelling about these two is how they are shaped by the other person. Who does your character envy? And why? And what action can they take to act on that desire?

[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 20.14: Third Person Limited

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-14-third-person-limited

Key points: Third person limited. First person, I. Third person, he, she, names, pronouns. Metaphor, the camera. Limited versus omniscient. Moving POVs, head hopping. Slide, don't hop. Inner thoughts or not? Threshold between first person and third person very close, very limited? Internal thoughts. Third person offers separation between narration and character. Third limited close is the default for commercial fiction. Third limited allows shifting POVs and distance more easily than first. First may be more visceral. Distancing words. Some books jump between third and first. Perspective shifts can be useful!

[Season 20, Episode 14]

[Mary Robinette] Hey, guess what? The 2025 Writing Excuses Cruise is over 50% sold out. During this week-long masterclass, I'm going to be leading writers like yourself through a series of workshops designed to give you the tools to take your writing to the next level. Space is limited, but there is still time to secure your spot. We're going to be sailing out of Los Angeles from September 18th through 26. Regardless of where you are in your writing journey, this event is your opportunity to learn new skills while exploring the beautiful Mexican Riviera. Whether you're revising a story, reworking a character arc, or revitalizing your plot, you'll leave more confident in your current story and bolstered by a new set of friends. Join us on board at writingexcuses.com/retreats.

[Season 20, Episode 14]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[Erin] Third Person Limited.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Erin] I'm really excited to talk a little bit today about the third person limited point of view as part of our little mini-course, mini-set of episodes on proximity. One of the reasons I'm like most excited about this is I feel like this is one of the terms in writing that is used the most and understood the least.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Like Othello, a moment to learn, a lifetime to master. So I'm...

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Going to attempt to explain, like, at its very basic, like, what do we even mean when we say third person limited, and then I'm going to invite all of you to tell me what I'm missing and why I'm wrong.

[Laughter]

[Erin] So I figure… So, on its, like, very basic level, when you use first person, you are using I, you are using, like, the pronoun I to describe everything that is happening. When you use third person, of any type, you use he, she, somebody's name, they… You're using a pronoun that is the third person, that is why it's called third person. So instead of saying, "I watched as all the podcasters stared me down, waiting for me to finish speaking," it would be, "Erin observed the other podcasters as da da da da…" And limited is that you are limited to a specific point of view at any one time. Unlike omniscient, which we will get to in the next episode, you can't see everybody's thoughts all at once. You're sort of following one particular person at any distance that you want. We'll get into that later. But that's what I think of at the very basic. What am I missing? Why am I wrong?

[DongWon] I'm not going to tell you why you're wrong, but I am going to ask you a question.

[Erin] Yes.

[DongWon] Which is, do you think third person limited and third person close are the same thing or is there a distinction between those two things?

[Erin] I would personally say that there is a difference. So I think that you can be at any distance and still be limited. I mean, it's…

[DongWon] I see.

[Erin] At a certain point, it's hard to be limited. Like, if you get… a lot of times, the metaphor we use for third person limited or third person close is the camera.

[DongWon] Right.

[Erin] So it's like you're the camera behind the shoulder of whatever character. But you can be right up on their shoulder or you can actually get a little bit of a distance away. Like…

[DongWon] It's like third person action game versus Mario. It's like that…

[Erin] Yeah. Exactly. [Garbled]

[Howard] Third person limited contains third person close.

[DongWon] Right.

[Erin] Exactly.

[DongWon] But you could be third person limited, but have this 10,000 foot view, where I have no access to Erin's interiority. I can just see her moving through the landscape and…

[Mary Robinette] Right. Raymond Chandler does this a lot.

[DongWon] Yes.

[Mary Robinette] Like, where your… You're with one character, you only see the things that they see, and the movements that they have, but you have absolutely no access to their thoughts.

[DongWon] Because the interiority of people is a mystery to his… In his books.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] The example that I use… When I'm trying to explain the difference between limited and omniscient. Erin sat across from the podcasters and Howard looked like he had indigestion. Okay? That's limited because Erin can tell that I'm making a face and she's passing judgment on what my face is. Omniscient would be Erin sat across from the podcasters. Howard was thinking about… And then you state my thought explicitly. Now, we were in Erin's head and then suddenly we're in Howard's head. That's not something Erin can be. We hope.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Yeah. Another example of that… Not necessarily a good one, but it's, like, though Erin sat there, looking at Howard's face and thought that perhaps he'd had indigestion, Howard had had 16 eggs this morning.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] As they worked their way through his system, he hoped that no one would notice.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] He was wrong.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Right. Oh, this is going to make a noise.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So I'm looking forward to when we talk about…

[Howard] That's third person omnivorous.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Oh… Howard. I am looking forward to when we talk about omniscient. But one of the things that I will say with third person limited is that you don't… I think one of the things you're missing potentially is that you can do third person limited and move to different characters' POVs in different scenes. Arguably, you can also move to their POVs within a single scene. It's when you move back and forth that I think you've shifted over to…

[Howard] It's the head hopping.

[Mary Robinette] Omniscient. Yeah. Which is not a flaw. It's just a different mode. But I'm thinking specifically of a scene in Ender's Game where the camera arrives with Ender into a scene, and then Ender leaves… We're still in the scene, there's no scene break, but we stay with Bean's character. So it's a through scene, there's no scene break, but it is still third person limited even though we haven't done that hard break.

[DongWon] I love when you do a little bit of that sliding from one POV to another and then back without dropping into omniscient…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Without dropping into the head hopping. There's an example, I think, of… From one of Robert Jackson Bennett's books, the first… Foundryside. Where a character is like sneaking into a facility, and we just slide into the guard's POV for a minute and see them sneaking past from the guard's POV and then slide back to the protagonist again. It never feels omniscient, it never feels like we're knowing more than, like, what the individual characters experience. But that fluidity that you can have in limited I think is really, really fun.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think that in that case, for me, what's happening is that he has gone to a different scene…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] But has chosen to do what I call a through scene as opposed to a scene break.

[Erin] So, follow-up question on this, because I think, like, head hopping… A lot of times when people say head hopping, they're talking about being in omniscient and going from one character to the other in a somewhat frantic way in which you don't know who you're even following or what's happening. But head hopping can also be used if you switch, like, abruptly from one limited perspective to another. I've seen that critique used for that as well. How do you make it feel like a slide and not a hop? Like, how do you actually make it feel like it's been passed off in an effective way that you can follow versus that you're like jarring the audience?

[DongWon] I really think about it in filmic terms, and I think about sightlines. Right? So the example I just gave of moving from the thief to the guard and back is because you have the thief, the thief's looking, sees the guard, now we're in the guard, guard does their thing, thief sneaks by, guard notices something has passed, and then now we're back in the thief. Right? So you need a handoff transition every time you're going to make that slide as literally thinking for me about the camera moving with the perspective of the reader.

[Mary Robinette] I have a similar framing. For me, it's about thresholds.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Which is, I think the same thing as the sightlines that it is about. For me, the distinction between that and omniscient is that there is a reason that both characters are not actually in the same place at the same time. Like, the example that I gave where one character literally leaves the room and the camera stays with where we are. Whereas in omniscient, you would be able to visit everybody's head within, who's in a single room. And you would be sign posting, and now we're going over to this person. Jane Austen does this… I mean, she was extremely good, which is why her works are still classics. But there's this one scene where two characters believe that they're having the same conversation and they're having different conversations. You only know that they're having different conversations because she goes from one character to the other and she sign posts by telling us whose head she's going into before we get the thought, but it is all within one thing, and then she also comments on other things that are outside of that room that none of the characters would have access to. So, for me, it's all about what the characters have access to and the thresholds that we cross.

[Dan] I'm wondering as well if… This goes back to our discussion of close and far perspective. But the closer the perspective is, the more it's going to feel like head hopping, because you are getting more of those inner thoughts. You're getting more of that internality. Whereas in this case with the guard watching for the thief, you're not getting a really deep examination of who they are as a person.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It's also, I want to say that this is going back, this is a fashion thing. In science fiction and fantasy, it is in fashion to either use first person or third limited. But when you go over to romance, often you do get POVs… You do get back and forth between the two POVs. I'm going to back away from what I had said earlier about that not being third limited, because it usually only two characters. The hero and the heroine, or the hero and hero, depending on the… Which slash we're in. But often you do get both of their POVs within a single scene. It's just that in science fiction and fantasy, at some point, people decided that this was bad and they put a label on it called head hopping as opposed to controlling point of view, even if you are limiting yourself to only two people. It's still a limitation, it's still not an omniscient because you're not giving the reader access to any information that those two characters don't have.

[Dan] Well, I think it's worth pointing out that this is one of those cases where anything you can make work, works.

[Mary Robinette] Absolutely. Yeah.

[Dan] Right. Like, just because the label has been given that certain aspects of this are good or bad, if you can make it work, then it works. If you can just… Excuse me… If you can jump between heads, between characters, even if it's head hopping, as long as the reader is always very clear about what's going on and they know whose head they're in and they know what perspective they're getting, then it works.

[Howard] Yeah, I don't… I don't personally use head hopping as a way to denigrate anything. I say… Unless I'm saying you're trying to do third person limited, third person close, and I think you may be unintentionally head hopping, just to describe what's going on. But I think you can head hop on purpose and make it work very well.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. We'll talk about how to do that when we get to omniscient for sure.

[Erin] Erin had another thought, but realized that it was time for the podcast to take a break.

[Erin] All right. Back now, because one thing we talked about earlier… I think we're talking a lot about… In talking about head hopping and the difference between limited and omniscient, we're talking a little bit about, I think, slightly more distanced…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] One of the questions I now have is what is the difference, like, what is the threshold, other than the use of pronouns between first-person and third person very close, very limited? Like, is there something that for you distinguishes it or could you take a first-person piece, turn all the I's to she's and not have to change anything else in order to make that story work?

[Mary Robinette] No.

[Laughter]

[Erin] All right. Well, there we go.

[Dan] Next question?

[Mary Robinette] Yes, because I've done it. I've had pieces that I wrote, originally in third person and moved to first, and I've had pieces that I've written in first person and moved to third. The biggest thing for me is that in first person, the degree to which I get the character's thoughts is significantly higher than it is in third. I have… Like you can get away with it for part of a scene, sometimes even a full scene, but there are times when, in first person, if I do not get the character's full emotional reaction, I will feel cheated as a reader. Because that's one of the things I sign up for when I'm in first person is to be all the way in that character's head. Whereas third person, I am okay with selective access to their head. Sometimes I get a direct thought, which is either written in quotes or italics. So these are the words that exactly are what the character is thinking. Sometimes it is free indirect speech, which is where the character's thought has just been transported into being part of the narration. So, like, instead of saying Mary Robinette sat in the podcast and thought I have to remember I have to pack my luggage during our break, I would do something more like Mary Robinette sat in the podcast. She needed to remember that she had to pack her luggage during her break. And I would just put it into part of the narration. But, it does create a little bit of a… More of a distance, and that form is one of the differences between first and third is that being all the way into the character's head.

[Howard] For me, one of the big differences between first and third, beyond… I mean, everything that you've said tracks beautifully. But if I'm in third limited, it's usually because I want to follow two or more characters. And the high bar for me for third limited is for each of those narrative voices to sound different. Whereas, in first person, your narrator should sound fairly consistent, unless the character undergoes some really huge change that reaches all the way into their voice. Whereas in third limited, I like to be able to tell whose scene it is. By halfway through the book, I want to be able to tell whose scene it is without you telling me their name. Because the voice… I'm now familiar enough with that voice that you've telegraphed it to me.

[Mary Robinette] I will say the other thing that I thought about as you were talking is that one of the tools that third limited offers me that I do not get from first-person is that I have a contrast between the narration and the character. Which can be an extremely powerful tool sometimes. Especially when you've got a character that is lying to themselves or lying… That… Or is on a journey that they haven't yet figured out that they're on. That sometimes I can let the reader in on what that is in ways that I cannot do in first person.

[DongWon] So, I think third limited close is sort of the default voice for commercial fiction these days. Right? In a lot of ways… There's a ton of first-person, that's rising in certain sectors, you still see third omniscient, but, like, what we think of as transparent prose, what we think of as like the dominant voice in adult commercial fiction tends to be this third limited perspective. Especially fairly close in. I think this is kind of driven by a lot of the visual media we consume. Movies are like this, videogames are like this, it's just like your… Because we don't actually know what the character's thinking, you're just like write up on them, and sort of observing the world as they go through it as the camera follows them, literally in the case of a TV show. I think that has really sort of shaped how we think of it. And because of some of the things you're saying, of having the ability to have the narration come in and the narrator have a different perspective than the character, but still be very close to one or a very small number of characters, kind of gives the easiest lift in terms of communicating a lot of information to the reader using the fewest tools possible. That requires the least sort of, like, mental weights. There's always a… I talked about this a little bit on the last episode, but there is a little bit of a mental lift when reading first-person for a lot of readers. That, I think, is a very small threshold that people can cross, but they're sometimes reluctant to. But it's… The use of third person limited close, I think, if you're looking for where's my default starting point, it's a really useful one to at least try that and sort of see if that solves any perspective problems you're having, and then expand out from there into, oh, wait, maybe this should be first-person. I need more interiority, or I want that deep subjectivity of the character or I'm feeling really claustrophobic, maybe I should step back in omniscient and expand out more from their. But starting with third close, really, I think, is a great default position to start from.

[Erin] I love all that, and I think it's interesting for me to hear, because I think one of the reasons I asked the question is I actually find when I write that my third person limited is fairly close to first. Like I…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] I believe, I do a lot of third person limited that has, like, full interiority… And in case we've never said what we mean by interiority, it's, like, how much are you getting from inside the character's mind. My third person limited often uses the same cadences of thought that first-person would use. Like, the same… There's usually not a lot of distinction. So I was like, well, why do… What is the difference? For me, and I love everything that y'all have said and I also… For me, I'm thinking that some of it has to do with is there something… Like, is there ever a time when I'm going to want to go into another character, which I cannot do in first easily. For some reason, I find it harder to switch from one character to another in first, because first is very immersive, until I come out of it. It's like… Feels like a lot of work, like it's something you can do maybe chapter to chapter, but it's harder to do, like, scene to scene. Is there ever a time when I'm going to want to pull back the distance to explain something or note something even for a moment that the character wouldn't fully get into? Or is it, like, my intent is for you to feel like the character is being observed versus experienced? That one's a hard one, because I feel like it's very like… I, you just… It's like… You just know, like, when you know… Like pornography… When you know it when you see it. But… The infamous Supreme Court case said that. So it's, like, I'm thinking about, like, is it… Yeah, it's like is it sometimes when I want you to feel like you're within this character's mind or do I want you to feel like you are just a fly on their shoulder being like, oh, my gosh, what is this character getting themselves into, even if you're close enough to hear them whisper every thought to you?

[Howard] And to eat the crumbs off their shoulder if you're a little [garbled]

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Like the one that I took from third into first, one of the things that I was playing with in that one was… I had a character who had PTSD and I knew that I was going to be dealing with some flashbacks and not, like, a brief insertion into the middle of a scene, but a full on, like, confusion dementia sequence. Being all the way in their head so that I wasn't… As they are disassociating… It was just… It was conveying the sensation of disassociating in first person is significantly easier than it is in third. Because that distance, that narrative distance, already exists because I'm observing the person, distancing it further… It's not as visceral when you distance it further. So when I got to those scenes where he's disassociating, I wrote it as if it was third person, but used the I, so… And I used all of the reporting words that we try to avoid in third person… Like, I noticed that I was, I watched my body do this thing. And that was a technique and a tool that I could only use in first person.

[Erin] I love that you called out the… Those distancing… I call them distancing words, like watched, looked, she looked at versus just saying, like, what the person actually saw. Because I think that's a really interesting… They have their absolute place.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] Like, there's a time in which you want to be calling attention to the act of seeing. Whether it is disassociation or somebody who is, like, at the wall of a party and all that they are doing, noticing, is the action that they are taking.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. A spy is going to be… I watched this.

[Erin] Exactly. But somebody who's not a spy, you might be, like, well… The watching brings one more layer between you and the actual thing that's going on. Which I think is such a fun thing to play with. And another thing where I think, like head hopping, sometimes people will say this doesn't work, and I think what they really mean or should say is this has its place. Is this the place for it?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Dan] I just want to jump in really quick and point out that I have seen books, very successfully jump between third and first.

[Yes, yup]

[Dan] One of my favorite books is House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, which is about half and half. The way that she makes that work and makes it always obvious what you're hearing and what you're listening to is, it is… The first person is one specific character. Every scene that does not have that character in it is third person.

[DongWon] Yeah. In general, when it comes to these POV conversations, again, we're giving you tools, not rules...

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Is the thing to remember. I think a lot of people get so prescriptive when it comes to talking about whether using third person limited, are you… It's like your third person limited close, and then you go, you come out for a second, and they're like, oh, no, you broke POV. You can't do that. I'm like, what are you talking about? If it worked in the scene, it worked in the scene.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] You know what I mean? I'm not going to remember two chapters later that, like, you stepped 10 feet away from the character for one moment. Or, like what Dan's saying, in terms of mixing first person and third person, that's absolutely a thing that you can do. You can even jump to omniscient for a second, and then drop…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Back to third person limited. I think what we're giving you are ways in which you can use proximity to your character's perspective as tools. I encourage you to find exciting ways to use those tools, moment to moment, rather than book to book.

[Erin] And… I know we're running a little long, but I just want to… I love this point, so I just want to underline it, that some of the things that I've seen that are extremely effective in scenes are when perspective shifts.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] If you suddenly pull back the camera, like, all of a sudden, you're saying something. Like, if you're doing it on purpose, you're doing it intentionally, there's something you want us to see from further away. If you're a little bit further away and you suddenly, like, kind of zoom in to one character's perspective, maybe it's because they're having a moment of deep emotion where that's the only thing that the story can contain at that moment.

[Erin] And that brings us to the homework. Which is to take a scene that you've written and write it in the closest third person limited you can possibly stand. Get right up in there. Then write it again at a slightly more distance, but still limited third person. Look at those two scenes side-by-side, and then say, what did I do differently in one than the other? What did I emphasize? Figure out from that which perspective you want to use when actually writing the scene.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 20.13: First Person

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-13-first-person

Key points: First person. What does it do well? Direct address to the reader, the aside. Subjective unreliable point of view. Intimacy. What is first person not effective at? Clarity, complex scenes. Multi POV ensemble cast! Mirror moments, what does the character look like? Tools for first person? Avoid navelgazing by adding a activity. Multiple senses! Cadence. Why use first person? Proximity, emotion. Genres of the body, humor, romance, erotica, and horror. Tapping into emotional subjective experience. Plot reveals! Character change. Coming of age stories. What is the value of an unreliable narrator? When character's goals shift. What is the lie that the character believes?

[Season 20, Episode 13]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] First person.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Dan] We are beginning today a small cycle of episodes in which we're going to talk about the lens of proximity, how close you are to a character and how much you get to know about that character's reactions and motivations and so on and so on. We're going to begin today by talking about first person. First person feels as if it might be the most natural way to tell a story, because that's the way we talk about ourselves. Though obviously, the other persons that we will discuss in future episodes are also and equally useful, just useful in different situations. So I want to start by asking what is first-person good at? What kinds of situations do we love first-person? What does first-person do well?

[Mary Robinette] I think the direct address to the reader, the aside, where it's like, this is what I'm thinking. This is how I'm feeling in the moment. It's not just about the internal thoughts. It's one… It's a… The thing that I've found that first-person can do that kind of nothing else gets to is hang on, let me just explain this one thing to you. So that kind of direct address of here's some exposition. I think one of the things that it has is that it immediately connects it to why it is important to the character and that is it's sometimes harder to surface things.

[DongWon] One of the things I love about first-person is it's a thing that you can do in text, in prose, in a way that's incredibly difficult or artificial to do in other media. You can have first-person asides, like the aside in theater, being… Or a soliloquy, and you can sort of fake it in films through voiceovers and things like that. But in a novel, you can have it in direct access into the interiority of a character in a way that you can't in almost any other medium. So there's something really special about the ability for prose writers to use that first-person perspective to say explicitly here's what the character's thinking, here's what the character is perceiving. And when you want to root someone very much in a subjective unreliable point of view, first-person is the go to in your toolkit.

[Dan] Well, that unreliability is so fun to play with, too. Talking about this direct aside to the reader… You could do that in third person. But in first-person, it feels like there is no artifice there. It feels like you're getting it much more directly. But… Of course there's artifice there. Because you are telling this through some other person that you've invented. It's the first person. It's not actually me, it's John Cleaver or whoever I'm writing about. So there's still a lot of artifice, there's still a lot of kind of artificiality about it, but it feels truer, it feels more direct, and that allows you to be unreliable and shaky and shenaniganry.

[Erin] I also think it creates a feeling of intimacy, or it can create a feeling of intimacy between the character and the reader. Because it's like… Like the direct aside, it's like somebody has sat down and said, okay, I'm going to tell you something. I'm just going to tell you, the reader, this thing. And nobody else in the story will understand how I feel about this at the core, nobody else will know my internal thoughts except for you. One of the reasons I love writing in first person is because you can really lean into the voice in a way that I think third person can do, especially third person where it's very close, but it doesn't have that quite the same feel as, like, a friend sat down. And part of what I'm trying to do as a writer is to capture that friend's voice and how they would tell the story in a way that nobody else could.

[DongWon] There's something really, really interesting about first person, because it is both our oldest form of storytelling, because just the way that we tell a story is I was walking down the street the other day. I was going to the store. The dog jumped out in the street, and I chased after it. Right? Like, that is just how we tell stories, and the way people have told stories as long as they were telling stories. But as a literary convention, as a part of the novel, it's one of the newest forms. At least in a dominant way. Like, there are examples that go back. But in terms of being so dominant in terms of how it exists in the contemporary novel, it is very much a thing that arose in, like, modern days, in like early mid twentieth century. Right? So one thing that I see people struggle with, when people push back against first-person, which I still see kind of a shocking amount. But when I see that pushback, it's… There's like an artificiality to first-person that can be a tough hurdle for some readers to get past. Because you're reading a text, but the text is being told to you as if a person is narrating it. So who is narrating it to you in that moment becomes a question in certain reader's minds. So there's like a… There is both an incredible immediacy, intimacy, and familiarity to first-person, and a layer of artificiality that requires one extra jump for the reader.

[Howard] And… That's weird, because I will accept that there is magic and spaceships and vampires, but I'm really struggling with the fact that there is a book.

[Mary Robinette] I think it's not so much that it's… Like, I can think of a bajillion examples of first-person. Because the novel would often start… When you're looking at the trajectory of the novel as a travelogue. Then you're looking at Poe, who often used first-person.

[DongWon] It's like where does epistolary end…

[Mary Robinette] Right. Exactly.

[DongWon] And first-person begin is a we… The distinction that you and I are drawing here. But [garbled]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Exactly. But… But I think the thing is that one of the reasons it fell out of fashion is that people started to get hung up on the… But really did they have time to write this while they were being dragged away by eldritch horrors?

[Laughter]

[Erin] Yes. Always yes.

[Dan] Yeah. At what point in the story is this account being given? Well, I like you mentioned the kind of newness of it. It is… First person is going through a huge Renaissance right now in certain corners of the market. A lot of book tubers, books to grammars, book talkers… There's a big trend going around. I see where they will just flat out refuse to read something unless it's in first-person.

[DongWon] Huh.

[Dan] That's obviously not everybody, and it's not the whole market. But it's kind of having a heyday right now, which I think is really interesting. I want to ask the question what is first-person bad at? As long as we're talking about it, what can you not do very effectively with it?

[DongWon] Clarity.

[Howard] Avoid the capital I.

[Laughter]

[DongWon] I think first-person… It can be harder to truly communicate to the reader what's happening in a complex scene. Because you're anchored to one perspective and one understanding of what's happening in a particular moment. So there's an immediacy to that. But when you think about your subjective experience of a large event, you're not getting the full picture because you're only seeing a little piece of it. Right? So I think we think of first-hand experience as the most true, but in a lot of ways, the way we consume information about what happened is somebody explaining from multiple perspectives. So when you're limiting yourself to one POV in a story, you are removing access to a lot of tools that you have that you would have in cinema, for example. You think cinematically, all the things the camera sees are just what the character's actually seeing, what the character's seeing is very different. Right? So you're much more constrained. So if you want real true like grounded clarity about feelings, emotions, what happened in a complex scene, first-person's pretty tough to make that happen.

[Howard] Your multi POV ensemble cast…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] In a heist thing… Yeah, that's difficult to pull off in first-person.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It's also, I think, first-person… You can cheat when we get to third person, you can cheat to show us what a character looks like even when you're in tight third person, but when you're in first-person, unless they step up and have a mirror moment, which… I was walking down the hall and I stopped to regard myself in the mirror.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] I had curly red hair, bright green eyes, and was extremely buxom.

[Laughter]

[DongWon] I think that everyone thinks about themselves [garbled]

[Mary Robinette] Exactly.

[Erin] Just in that tone. Well, I agree with it. Like, clarity is part of it, and also just knowledge. Like the characters… A lot of times, you have, like, but the reader knows and what the character knows. In first-person, they get… They are the same. Because… Unless… Now there are ways to cheat out of this, but in general, you only know what the character knows about the world, about the situation, about the experience. So if there's something that you really need, like description, self-description, the reader to know, but there's no reason for the character to know that, you're going to have to figure out a workaround. Even in unreliable… Like, one of the things I really like doing in pieces with unreliable narrators is setting up a reliable outsider that is… That can be established, like, because they hold a position of authority or you see them being reliable in several scenes, and can point out through dialogue or through their own actions what's happening outside of the first-person, that character's first-person experience.

[DongWon] They can also…

[Erin] They can then misinterpret what that reliable person does, but the reader… It's clear enough to the reader, like, what happens. I think about a scene I wrote in my story Wolfy Things where the mom is crying and the sun misinterprets it that he's like…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] She's trying to salt the food with her tears. Like… Because no one's going to do that.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Like, you, as a reader, know that seems unlikely. Probably she's just crying over the soup.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] But he cannot accept that. But because it's something clear enough to the reader, it comes through. But it requires a lot of work to do that. Where is in a third person, you could probably just say, like, she's crying and then you would know.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] You could cheat that also with chapter bumps. You insert in universe material that appears at the top of the chapter, and then the first-person account either accounts for that or doesn't account for that. That can argue with the character just fine.

[Dan] All right. Let's take a moment here to pause, and when we come back, we'll discuss this further.

[Mary Robinette] Hey, guess what? The 2025 Writing Excuses Cruise is over 50% sold out. During this week-long masterclass, I'm going to be leading writers like yourself through a series of workshops designed to give you the tools to take your writing to the next level. Space is limited, but there is still time to secure your spot. We're going to be sailing out of Los Angeles from September 18th through 26. Regardless of where you are in your writing journey, this event is yoru opportunity to learn new skills while exploring the beautiful Mexican Riviera. Whether you're revising a story, reworking a character arc, or revitalizing your plot, you'll leave more confident in your current story and bolstered by a new set of friends. Join us on board at writingexcuses.com/retreats.

[Dan] All right. So we've talked about things that first-person does well and does less well. Let's talk now about how. How can we use first-person effectively? What are some good tools for using first person as a perspective?

[Mary Robinette] So I'm going to talk about one of the traps of first-person is a way of bringing us around to an effective tool. One of the traps of first-person is navelgazing. So it is, I think, one of the things that it does really well is that you can get into the character's interiority, but you can, like, have a character just sit in a room and think about themselves and never move on. So, for me, one of the tools that I often try to use when I'm doing that to combat the navelgazing is that if I have a scene where my character needs to think about something for whatever reason, I try to pair it with an activity that is somehow plot related. So, like, if there's this is a conspiracy, I think a conspiracy thing is happening, I will have them trying to repair a rover. Then, as they're repairing the rover, and having conversations, different things will then trigger for them. It's like hum, I think this is… You just said something very fishy, and what's going on with your face right now? But it is… Having that interaction with the outside world keeps… For me, keeps my navelgazing to a minimum.

[Howard] Yeah. It's the multi sensory approach. Only saying what the character is thinking about is just the navelgazing. But, I'm thinking about this. I'm seeing that. I smell this. I heard that. I'm touching this. My heart is pounding or I have a headache. I have… There's a whole huge spectrum of senses that you can tap into with first-person. If you don't use at least three of them, I feel like you're leaving too much unsaid.

[Erin] A tool that I really like that… To play around with with first-person is cadence. What the rhythm of that person's thoughts are as they're driving things. Because it tells you about the emotions. One thing that's really… You can have a very self-aware first-person character, but a lot of times they're not sure what's going on, exactly. They're afraid, but they may not say, like, I am afraid right now. They may just be experiencing fear. But what you can do is go with a faster Kayden. All of a sudden, like breathing heavy, like the heartbeat racing, when you're afraid. They're noticing things that are fearful, but also, the entire cadence of the piece as that sort of taut feeling to it, and then when they're safety, the cadence slows down. It gives a completely different feeling without you needing to signal it from the outside.

[Mary Robinette] Also, that is something that is extremely apparent when I'm doing audiobooks. When I'm narrating and the author is thinking about that, it shows up on the page and you can really hear it. It is much easier to [garbled]

[Howard] [garbled] makes your job easier.

[Mary Robinette] So much easier. I actually think that that's one of the reasons we're seeing the surgeon audio, in first-person narratives, is because they do better in audiobook. But there are times when I have to narrate something and the writer has not paid attention to the Kayden, and attempting to get the emotion into that scene is significantly harder, even though you have the added layer of I do cool things with my voice. It is undercut by the cadence.

[Howard] One of the reasons, Mary Robinette, that your first half of the episode mirrors scene was so humorous is that it breaks the true cadence of that person. That is not the pattern that you would use, that is not the cadence of… At least not of my inner voice. When I look in the mirror…

[Mary Robinette] No.

[Howard] My inner voice… Well, I'm not saying mirrors scenes are bad. I will look in the mirror and the cadence for my mirror scene is, Howard, you gonna go outside looking like that?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] Yep. Then I'm off. Now the reader has an insight into how I feel about how I look and how much I care. That's all we need.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yeah, most of my mirror scenes would actually be…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] How did you sleep on your hair to get [garbled]

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Like that.

[Dan] So, if we are using first person as a lens… Let me rephrase. If are using proximity as a lens, this is how we want to look at our work and we… What are some of the reasons we might choose first-person then? What is going to guide us? What… I guess this kind of comes back to the question we asked in the beginning of what does first-person do that the others can't. But what are some situations where we will say you know what this really needs? First-person.

[DongWon] It's so intimate. Right? We're talking about proximity. Right? First-person is… You're right up on that perspective, you're in their head with them. So when you need anything that is raw emotion. Right? That's why it works so well in YA, why we see it there so much. That's why you see it a ton in what I think of as genres of the body. Right? So, humor, romance, erotica, and horror. Right? Like, horror in particular, first-person is just so valuable there because as a person is experiencing disruption, fear, sensations in their body, all of those things, are stuff that you can get to so quickly and so closely as first-person that can take extra work when you're having to do the work of third person limited or omniscient of describing a broader scene. Right?

[Dan] Yeah.

[DongWon] So I think whenever you want to tap into someone's like emotional subjective experience, first person does so well for that. I think that's why it's doing so well on things like book talk right now.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Howard] When you've got a plot reveal that that moment, first-person can do that so well. Because we are right there. The Revelation of whatever it is, the plot twist, the monster, the whatever, the reader is getting that reveal at the same time the character is getting that reveal at the end. Yeah. Immediacy and proximity. And, as a writer, that lens of proximity… You may choose to look at your reveal's pacifically at the reveal you have in mind and say, you know what? This is going to work better in first-person than anything else I can do. So maybe that's the way I need to shape the rest of the story.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] Yeah. I think that a lot of times, I think of first-person stories as stories of perspective. Because you've chosen to use this particular… That character is the lens into the story more than anything else. Because you are filtering everything through the way that character experiences things. So, choosing it when you're going to have a reveal that shifts that character's perspective, where they understand something they didn't understand before, that they couldn't understand before, is where something… Where it really appeals to me. Where there is a reason in which that person as a filter is the best filter for the story.

[Mary Robinette] That ties into one of my absolute favorite things that you can do with first-person that you cannot do with any of the others. It's the proximity thing. That you can have the character change by the act of telling the story. Like, some of my favorite stories are ones… It's one of the reasons I love the John Cleaver books so much is that John is not the same person at the beginning is at the end, and the way John is relating to the reader has changed. That is so… I think that's so interesting. It works really… I think, really, really well in coming-of-age stories. I think that's one of the reasons we often see first-person paired with younger protagonists, because you more commonly have a coming-of-age story with them. But it is something that is just so delicious, so intimate.

[Dan] Yeah. I know that we are kind of running up against the end of time here…

[Erin] The end of time!

[Dan] The end of all… Not necessarily all time, but the end of our time for this. I do want to get back to…

[Mary Robinette] As I was sitting on the couch, Dan told me that I was running up against the end of time. I paused to look in the mirror…

[Laughter]

[Howard] Are you really going outside like that?

[Dan] This is part of the lens of where and when.

[Erin] Exactly. At least I'll look good during my final [garbled]

[Dan] I do want to circle back to unreliability. Because not only… That was something we mentioned not only as a strength of first-person, but it's one of the things that is… One of the downsides of first-person. Not necessarily a downside, is that it's really hard to not be unreliable with it. What is the value of an unreliable narrator? This isn't really an unreliable narration episode, but it's so closely linked to first-person. You were talking about the John Cleaver books. That's leaning so heavily on that, the idea that what he is telling you is what he thinks is true, not what is actually true. That dramatic irony of being able to listen to him talk about himself and know, oh, dude, you are wrong about so many things. What is the value of unreliability and why might a reader, an author, I mean, choose to put that into their story?

[DongWon] I mean, going back several episodes to goals and motivations. Right? A character's goals often involve them lying to themselves a little bit because they think they want X, but what they really need is Y. Right? So the movement from understanding what your original goal was to what your new goals are is one of that unreliability coming to the fore so you realize that, like, oh, my understanding of the world is shifting. The reason why first-person is sort of inherently unreliable, because character growth necessarily changes what is quote unquote real for the audience experience. Right? So you're shifting… Which is both what makes first-person fun and so challenging is that it's always already moving around you at all times.

[Mary Robinette] There's the idea that we talk about periodically, what is the lie the character believes? There's a bunch of different forms that that takes, but I think one of the things that you can really play with in first-person is that you can reveal character by what the character is lying to themselves about and how they are lying to themselves and the lengths that they will go to to preserve those lies. That's something that's, I think, much easier to do in first-person because of the navelgazing. But because they can do a soliloquy in ways that a third person really can't. Then, that in itself, can become a form of conflict as they are struggling with the fact that all of their reasons are breaking down.

[DongWon] I call that narrative parallax because the slight shift in perspective lets you reveal more.

[Erin] Something that just occurs to me as you asked this question is that the reason because I love unreliable narration. It's like my favorite thing ever. I think it's because I like characters that don't necessarily change or grow. Which means that the forward momentum in the story has to be the reader realization of the truth of who that character is. So, like, if they're not, like, because if they were doing… They externally sort of do the same things, but you… They understand more about the world, you understand more about them. It grows in context, as opposed to in action. Sometimes I think unreliability works well because it feels like you're moving forward as they continue to misinterpret the world, even though they don't do anything different. It still gives it a sense of a forward lean in the reader's mind.

[Howard] I think two of my favorite examples of unreliable narrators are in first-person our books where you don't realize until the very end that this is a single POV that has been telling you a story in multiple POVs. The Fifth Season and Player of Games by Iain Banks. Fifth Season by N K Jemison. You discover late in the stories, oh, this story has a first-person narrator who is part of the action, and they been lying to me about their involvement the whole time, until the very end. That's not really a first-person narrative, and maybe that's a segue into how we mess with proximity later.

[Dan] Well, now we finally have arrived at the end of times…

[Chuckles]

[Dan] So, it's homework time. What I would like you to do is go pick up a book that you love, something that you enjoy. Find a scene that you think is really great that is not in first-person, and take a crack at rewriting it in first-person from the point of view of one of the characters in it. Pay attention to what types of changes this requires you to make, how information comes across differently.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 15.08: Q&A on a Ship

From https://writingexcuses.com/2020/02/23/15-08-qa-on-a-ship/

Q&A Points:

Q: What have any of you learned in the past year that has improved your craft?

A: Talk to your editor early in the process. Use an outboard brain. Do the hard thing. Take a chance, make mistakes, and do something because it might be fun. Go watch Lindsay Ellis Three Act Structure. (Maybe this one? https://youtu.be/o0QO7YuKKdI)

Q: My question is when you're having trouble, how do you know if it's a "I don't feel like writing today" problem or there's a structural problem that your mind is trying to ignore because it would be difficult to deal with?

A: Look at the problem, what is the barrier to moving the story forward? Make yourself a checklist, an inventory of things that can go wrong. Trust your instincts.

Q: As published professional authors, how far ahead do you plan the futures of your careers? Do you know what genres, series, or even specific books that you'll be working on in five years or in 15 years?

A: Committed idiot. Plan ahead, but publishing is volatile. Strategy, planning, but be ready to drop it. Be ready to jump in a different direction. Have a roadmap, and build a new one if you need to. Diversified income. Make plans for multiple scenarios, for whatever happens at cost points.

Q: How do you tell when a fight or a battle or a climactic final showdown is going on for too long?

A: When you wonder if it's gone on too long.

Q: How do you continue to learn and improve on your writing craft, now that you're further in your career? Have there been any times that you felt like you've plateaued and what do you do about it?

A: Learn by teaching. Externalize and explain, talk through the process.

Q: When you're working on multiple projects, how do you manage or prioritize yourself such that you don't get too disconnected from one project while you're working on another?

A: Identify different phases, and avoid doubling up on phases.

Q: If you've got multiple characters with very strong voices, how do you feel about having multiple first-person perspectives? Horribly bad idea or just really difficult?

A: Try it. See how it reads.

Q: What are the most important elements to include on the last page of your book?

A: The end is a frame, matching your beginning. Show who the character is now, how things have changed, and give the reader the emotional punch you've been aiming at.

Q: What are some things we can do to work on developing and strengthening voice when writing in the third person?

A: Rhythms that are linked to the character's personality, idioms, metaphors. Make the character feel specific and vivid.

Q: How do you decide who works best as an alpha reader and who works better as a beta reader?

A: Experience and personal preference. What are you looking for in readers, how are you using them?

Q: My question is in secondary world fiction, can you talk about how to decide between calling a horse just a horse or something unique to the world?

A: Does it connect to your story? If a horse is just a horse, call it a horse.

Q: How much leeway will an agent generally give a new writer if they like the idea or concept of a story or see promise in it, but it isn't quite there yet?

A: Agents work with people, not projects. If they believe in the person, they get lots of leeway.

[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode Eight.

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Q&A on a Ship.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dongwon] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Howard] I've been on this ship for several days now.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Which is a lot longer than 15 minutes. We are here at the 2019 Writing Excuses Retreat on a cruise ship in the Caribbean Sea. Actually, right now we're in the Gulf of Mexico. We have a live audience in front of us. Say hello, live audience.

[Whoo!]

[Dan] Awesome. We have asked them to ask us some questions. Our theme this whole year is the questions of the audience. We've been trying to answer them, we'll continue doing that throughout. Now, we have some live ones. So, our first question. Tell us your name and your question.

[Caleb] This is Caleb. I'm wondering what any of you have learned in the past year that has improved your craft?

[Mary Robinette] What any of us have learned in the past year that has improved our craft? I actually learned the value of talking to my editor really early in the process. One of the things that happened to me this year was that I had a number of events that derailed me from writing. I was working on a novel, and my usual process did not work. So… When I say editor, what I guess I mean is using an outboard brain. My usual process was not working, because I kept having life things go wrong. There were some family members at hospitals, then we were moving, and it was just a lot of things. Going to someone else and saying, "I cannot hold this story in my head. Please help me focus." was immensely valuable and actually got me back on track.

[Dongwon] That's convenient, because the lesson I learned this year was to talk to my clients early in the process.

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] To make sure that everything's on track. I think one of the things that I learned that kind of lined up with that is to not be afraid to push people to do the thing that is hard. Right? In that sometimes when you're giving editorial feedback, because you're working with somebody who puts their heart and soul into a manuscript, into a book, you want to be… You want to be nice, right? You want to go easy on them in certain ways because you like this person, you work with this person. For me, one of the things I had to really learn in this past year is to get involved early and don't be afraid of saying, "Is this really the right choice? Is this the best way to get where you're going?" Sometimes, breaking it down and doing the hard work is the most important thing. Whether or not that's going to make someone upset.

[Howard] For me, it was when I joined the TypeCastRPG role-playing game and decided that, you know what, for fun, I think I'm going to try to live sketch things that happen during the game. The pressure there being I need to turn out a… What is ultimately a single panel comic strip that depends on the context of the game in a minute and a half. Then we did a live show at [FanEx] and they set up an Elmo and I… To borrow the metaphor, screwed the courage to the wall and said, "I'm going to make terrible, terrible mistakes and I'm going to do it when my arms are 10 feet long on this screen behind me…"

[Chuckles]

[Howard] "But I'm going to do it anyway because it might be fun." It unlocked a piece of my brain that allowed me to visualize more quickly and draw faster and draw things I've never drawn before.

[Dan] Fantastic. Just, really quick for me, I talked about this in one of the classes that I taught here on the retreat, the Lindsay Ellis's episode about three act structure and the way that she explained it made three act structure work for me in a way that it never has before. So everyone go watch that. It's brilliant.

[Dan] All right. We have another question.

[Allison] Hi. My name is Allison. My question is when you're having trouble, how do you know if it's a "I don't feel like writing today" problem or there's a structural problem that your mind is trying to ignore because it would be difficult to deal with?

[Mary Robinette] I wish I knew the answer to that one.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] That's a really super common problem. The way I evaluate it is whether or not… Is to interrogate the quest… The problem that I'm having. I look at the problem and I'm like, "Okay. What is the barrier between me and moving this story forward?" If it's… If I can't identify a barrier, that means that it's probably me, it is not actually the story. If it is… Sometimes it is… There is actually a problem with the story that is really difficult to diagnose. That's when handing it to someone else to look at becomes useful. But most of the time, if I ask just what is the barrier that is between me and moving forward, or the character and moving forward, that will unlock what the problem is.

[Howard] I've found that, for a lot of people, by the time you reach a point in your writing career where you're comfortable answering this question, you may have moved beyond actually writing down the equivalent of a preflight checklist. But having a preflight checklist, having a way to take inventory of the things that can be wrong… They might be diagnostic tools like pacing, three act structure, character arc, conflict, seven point whatever… The sorts of things that we talk about here on Writing Excuses all the time. When I'm writing jokes, I have this sort of checklist. I've internalized it. But what I found is that when I'm stuck, I have to take inventory. A lot of the times, it's me. I haven't had enough sleep. I haven't eaten correctly. I'm exhausted because of an emotional thing. The temperature in the room is wrong and it's making me grouchy. This character is at the wrong point in their character arc for me to write the scene that I want to write, therefore, I don't feel justified in writing it. By the time I'm able to articulate these things, the unlocking starts moving really quickly. I can see where the problems are, and where the problems aren't.

[Dongwon] I think it's probably the most frustrating advice I give, and also the most important advice that I like to give, is that you need to learn to trust your instincts. Right? But this is a case where it's very hard to tell where the line between your conscious thought and your instinct is. So, the thing I think about a lot is what Howard was just talking about is the ways in which your conscious and subconscious mind are connected to your embodiment, right? So, a lot of things that can help you are really core mental health and mindfulness techniques, right? Meditation, yoga, go for a run, go take a shower, go take a break. Find something that uses up part of your brain so that your subconscious can chew on it. Then come back to it when you're feeling calm and relaxed and centered, and try and get in touch with what is your core emotion here? What is your instinct telling you, versus what is your fear telling you? Right? If that instinct is saying, "Actually, it's a structural problem here," then focus on that, and do that hard work. On average, if you're having that question, you're probably right, that the problem is bigger than I don't feel like writing right now. On average.

[Mary Robinette] I forgot that I have an entire blog post on this that we'll put in the liner notes. Which is… For those people who never go to look at the liner notes, you can search for it. It's called Sometimes Writer's Block Is Really Depression. I talk about how to diagnose the kind of delays that you are having and the kind of… Like, if your drowsy, it's probably that your story is boring. If you are restless, it's probably that you don't actually know the next thing that's going to happen or you don't believe it actually, I think. But, anyway, Sometimes Writer's Block Is Really Depression. It includes how to diagnose it, and then a long list of tools for when it is… The problem is not with the manuscript, but external to the manuscript, to your own life. Some things to help you move forward.

[Dan] Awesome. Cool. Next question.

[Matt] Hello, my name is Matt Chambers. My question is as published professional authors, how far ahead do you plan the futures of your careers? Do you know what genres, series, or even specific books that you'll be working on in five years or in 15 years?

[Howard] 10 years ago…

[Dan] Now I'm just depressed.

[Laughter]

[Howard] 10 years ago, I could have told you that 10 years from now, I would definitely still be doing Schlock Mercenary. Five years ago, I could have told you when the major Schlock Mercenary mega arc was going to end. Two years ago, I could have, but wouldn't have, told you how it was going to end and what all the book plans and plot plans were around that. This year, I am re-thinking all of that, because I was probably an idiot, but I'm committed, so I'm sticking to it in a blind panic.

[Laughter]

[Dan] Committed idiot is actually a great thing to put on my business cards. Six years ago, I had the very best year of my career up to that point, and since.

[Howard] Oh, dear.

[Dan] I thought at the time that I knew I would be doing six years later, and had no idea that one of my publishers was going to dry up completely, that one of my series was going to tank abysmally. So, kind of my answer to this is that it is very smart to plan ahead, but that this industry is very volatile. A lesson I did not learn early enough is how to plan around that volatility. The good news is we're going to have one, and possibly two, episodes on this exact topic later in the year with Dongwon about how to plan out your career and how that career can change and how to reboot it when it falls apart.

[Dongwon] Yeah. I love talking to my clients about strategy. A lot of times, what most of them are planning three, four… Not even books, like 3 to 4 contracts out, right? And a contract can be 2 to 3 books. So it's what are we doing here, what's coming after that, what's coming after that? The important thing, as Dan kind of touched on, is that you have to be sort of ready to throw all of that out at the drop of a hat, right? Publishing is extremely volatile, you have no idea what's going to happen when that book hits the market. So you have to be kind of ready to jump in a different direction. Sometimes you have backup plans, and sometimes you don't. But always have something… Some roadmap of where you want to go. Then be ready to build a new one when you need to.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I… Much like everyone else, my plans change. The things that… For me, the metrics that have been working is that I have… I have kept my income stream diversified, so that's why I have three different careers running simultaneously. So that when one of them is not doing well, I can fill in the gaps with one of the others. I also think about the shape that I want my career to take. That, generally, is that I want to be able to turn down the gigs that I don't want to do. Which means that if a really lucrative contract comes in, and I'm like, "That looks… I mean, the money looks really great, but I don't want to be pigeonholed into doing that kind of work," that's not… That is something that I can think about turning down, and that I can decide in the moment. I have a giant list of novels that I want to write. I won't get to write them all, probably. But I keep them. Then, I think, the last piece of advice that I was just given this past year… I was in an enviable position, which is that I had just won the Nebula and the Locus, and we were looking at the Hugo. I was like… People kept saying, "Well, you're going to win it." I'm like, "You can't think that. That's not healthy. Certainly not healthy for me." Then my agent, Seth Fishman, said I should think about it like applying to college. That you don't know whether or not you're going to get into college, but you make plans for both scenarios. You make plans for well, if I get into college, I'm going to need to be able to put these things into place. If I don't get into college, then these are the backup plans that I have and this is how I'm going to occupy my life. So I think that that's one of the things that is very useful, is to think about the possible cusp points in your career, and to think about positive outcomes for either cusp point. So that's… That has been very helpful for me. Fortunately, I did get into college, in this particular scenario.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But it was also… Even the positive things can rock you if you are not prepared for them.

[Dan] Awesome. I want to pause right now for our book of the week, which is also Mary Robinette.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. I want to talk about a book called Jade War, which is the sequel to Fonda Lee's… Wait. Yes. The sequel to Fonda Lee's Jade City. I just had this moment of thinking that I had them backwards. So, I blurbed the first book, and the second book is every bit as fantastic. It is the Godfather meets like a Kung Fu wire film. It's secondary world fantasy, but it feels like 1960s or 70s Earth. But there are people who can use jade and they can do magic, except they don't think of it as magic, it's just part of an… It's just completely woven into the world. It feels so real that I am surprised that it is not. The relationships are compelling. If you are someone who likes a well-written sex scene, it is not the entirety of the book, but there are a couple in there that are some of the hottest and… Like, really beautifully drawn consensual sex scenes. The consensual parts is the part that I find appealing. But the…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Just the entire thing, it's great. It's Jade War by Fonda Lee.

[Dan] Cool. Thank you very much.

[Dan] Now, we still have several questions to get… Left. We want to try to get to them all. We're going to let this episode run a little long. But we're going to call this the lightning round, okay? So ask your question, and then one of us will answer it instead of all four. So, go.

[Cameron] Okay. Hey, guys, my name is Cameron. I was wondering how do you tell when a fight or a battle or a climactic final showdown is going on for too long?

[Dongwon] When you wonder if it's gone on too long.

[Laughter]

[Dan] [Haha!] Excellent answer. Next?

[Chuckles]

[Caitlin] Hi, I'm Caitlin. How do you continue to learn and improve on your writing craft, now that you're further in your career? Have there been any times that you felt like you've plateaued and what do you do about it?

[Mary Robinette] I learn by teaching. When I was a pup… Getting trained in puppetry, what my instructor had me do is he would have me learn everything with my right hand, he would teach me with my right hand, then he would have me teach my left hand how to do it. What he said was any time you have to externalize and explain what you're doing, even if it's to yourself, that it causes you to hone your craft and to get rid of the parts that aren't important. I find that when I am teaching students, even if it's someone that is a peer and just saying, "Hey, this is the thing that I've learned today." Even if they don't necessarily need to know it, but I'm talking through the process, that it makes me better at my craft.

[Jessica] Hi, I'm Jessica. When you're working on multiple projects, how do you manage or prioritize yourself such that you don't get too disconnected from one project while you're working on another?

[Dan] My answer to that has always been that I will identify the different phases that each project has to go through, and then make sure that I'm not doubling them up. So I'm never writing two things at a time, but I could be writing one while revising another or outlining another or editing or proofing or whatever it is. That way, it makes it much easier for me to keep them in my brain, because they're all in different parts of my brain.

[Kevin] Hi. I'm Kevin. If you've got multiple characters with very strong voices, how do you feel about having multiple first-person perspectives? Horribly bad idea or just really difficult?

[Howard] I love the way POV use changes in our culture over time. I think that that could work. I don't know that I've seen it done, but I've thought about doing it myself. I think that 20 years from now, that could end up being the rule rather than an exception, because these sorts of things are cultural. If it's what you want to do, go for it.

[Dongwon] I just want to jump in with one little note, is the thing I run into a lot from writers and in the writing community, is people think about POV really, really rigidly. So, like, if I start in third person limited, I have to stay that way all throughout. Whereas, I think, we're seeing a lot of things that are really pushing back against that. N. K. Jemisin's Fifth Season is a really great example. Even Robert Jackson Bennett's Foundryside, you'll see POV jump around from first person to third person, you'll see tense shifts, things like that. So feel free to really sort of experiment with the different perspectives and the different POV's that you have. You can drop into one just for a chapter or a scene, and then they can never reappear again. So, feel free to try different things and experiment and see how it reads. I think writers and crit groups are very focused on consistent POV. I don't think readers even notice.

[Emma] Hi. I'm Emma. What are the most important elements to include on the last page of your book?

[Oooo]

[Howard] Your Patreon.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] So, what I think about when I get to the end is it is a frame. I am framing something that I set up at the beginning. At the beginning, I made promises to the reader. One of the things that I promised them is that they would feel a certain way when they get to the end. So when I look at that last paragraph, I think about it as the beginning in reverse, the inverse of that. I try to make sure that I'm showing who my character is now, where they are now, and the ways in which things have shifted. Doing that in a way that makes the reader have that emotional punch that I had been going for through the whole thing. Like, if I had been wanting them to have a sense of dread all the way through, and then the catharsis of relief, then that last thing needs to contain relief. If I want them to still feel dread, then that last thing still needs to have dread in it. So it's a… For me, it's the frame, it's the button, and that's what I look for at the end.

[Jess] Hi. I'm Jess. What are some things we can do to work on developing and strengthening voice when writing in the third person?

[Mary Robinette] I can take that one.

[Dan] Do it.

[Mary Robinette] So. Coming from theater and audiobook, the thing about third person and the way… Is that it is actually still very much first-person in this real simple way. The narrator is telling a story to the audience. The narrator is sometimes very closely linked to a third person character, but even so, there is a storyteller who is speaking to the audience. What you're looking for with the voice are rhythms that are linked to the character's personality. If it is a tight limited third person, you want to use everything… You want to make sure that the idioms that you're using, the metaphors that they're using, that these are all linked to how they self define themselves. All of that is going to make the character feel specific and vivid in ways that aiming for the so-called transparent prose will not.

[Morgan] Hi, I'm Morgan. How do you decide who works best as an alpha reader and who works better as a beta reader?

[Howard] Sad, sorry experience.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Yeah. I mean, that really is the answer. I know Mary Robinette and I, for example, have very different criteria as to who we count as an alpha and who we count as a beta reader. That… It all comes down to experience and personal preference, I think.

[Howard] For my own part, an alpha reader… When I've handed it to an alpha reader and gotten it back, I want to feel energized about doing the things that need to be done to fix it. I want my offer readers to energize me. My beta readers I want to be a little more critical and help me fine-tune things. But I'm fragile that way.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, I'm… Just to demonstrate that we are sometimes counter. The thing that I'm looking for in a beta… In an alpha reader is someone who is asking me the right questions to help me unpack it a little bit further so that the beta readers are getting something that is closer to the story that I'm trying to tell. The beta readers, I am using them as a general, but the alpha reader… For me, the alpha reader in this case is Alessandra Meechum [sp?], most of the time, and she is… She's what is sometimes called the ideal reader, which is that she represents the core audience that I am writing for. So when I'm writing, I am specifically writing to see whether or not I make her go, "Oh, I love this," or "I hate this so much."

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] That often pleases me a great deal.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] So it depends how you're using them. I'm using her to shape the story. I've spotted… Sometimes I'll spot someone in beta and go, "Oh. You also sit in that ideal reader category." There are some stories that I'm going to write at some point that she will not be the ideal reader for, and I'll switch out alphas for that story. But that's what I look for.

[Dan] It's worth pointing out that Alessandra is in the room, and beaming like the sun to be referred to as an ideal reader. So.

[Nick] Hello. I'm Nick. My question is in secondary world fiction, can you talk about how to decide between calling a horse just a horse or something unique to the world?

[Oooo]

[Dongwon] I would say only rename things if there's a big sort of… If it connects to the core of your story, right? If the question you're asking is about, I don't know, national identity, for example, then it can be very complicated to use an existing country or an existing sort of language structure. So… If… Unless you're asking the question of what is the meaning of horse, then I wouldn't rename it, right? But if you're trying to disrupt ideas of like what do we consider animals, what do we consider our relationship to them, what are beasts of burden, then that's a case where maybe playing with it would give you an opportunity to really do a lot more there. But, in general, if it's a horse, call it a horse.

[Matthew] Hello, my name is Matthew. How much leeway will an agent generally give a new writer if they like the idea or concept of a story or see promise in it, but it isn't quite there yet?

[Dongwon] I wonder who's going to answer this one?

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] I don't know. Well, I'll take… No.

[Dongwon] The thing that I talk about a lot is that I work with people, not projects. Right? I sign a client, I don't sign a single book. So, the answer is if I believe in the person, then all the leeway in the world, right? That's something that we'll work together to make it right. What goes into that decision is hard to articulate in a lot of ways. But I have to be excited about this person's potential to do something really interesting… Even if they're not quite there yet. So there are clients I've worked with for years and years and years, and we haven't gotten out with anything. But we're still working together, we're still honing in on what the right project is… Or how to do X, Y, or Z. So, the answer is, it depends a lot on the person. The right circumstances, it's okay if that book isn't quite there, so long as I can see you're doing something interesting and I can see that you are someone who has all the chops, all the drive, all the ambition to get to where you need to get to.

[Dan] Great. So, that is all our questions that we have. I'm sure that there are many more burning in your hearts right now, but… Thank you for listening. We have a piece of homework for you. So, once again, we're throwing this to Dongwon.

[Dongwon] So, I think that the openings of novels are really, really important. It's a great opportunity to hook your reader. More than that, it's an opportunity to get someone to say, "Yes, I'm going to spend $20 or whatever it is to buy this book." So what I would like each of you to do is take the first line of your work in progress or something that you've finished and rewrite it three separate times. Make sure that when you write each one, it's not three variations on the same sentence. Try and shake those up as much as possible, right? Try a different voice. Try a different style. Try different… Even like points to start the scene and see what jumps out at you. What is the most exciting, what grabs you, what are you excited about to keep going with. I think that will tell you a lot about how your opening scenes should work so that your pulling the reader into your story as forcefully as possible.

[Dan] Perfect. Okay. This has been Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 14.05: Viewpoint As Worldbuilding

From https://writingexcuses.com/2019/02/03/14-5-viewpoint-as-worldbuilding/

Key Points: Worldbuilding using character viewpoint? How do you integrate setting into your characters? Start with the way the character interacts with the world, both physically and emotionally. Use actions and dialogue to show us assumptions and attitudes, how things work, without lengthy info dumps. Use two or more characters with different backgrounds or opinions, different viewpoints, to give the reader information about the thing, about the characters, and about the unreliable viewpoint. One way to use viewpoint to intersect with worldbuilding is in the way characters describe other characters. The same character seen through the eyes of two different characters can be very different. Think about how the character's voice directs the narrative versus keeping the narrative safe and trustworthy. First person, the character runs everything. Third person, you need to balance. Some voice, some straight narration. To make your worldbuilding richer, think about what people swear by, who makes what jokes, and how your character interacts with the environment. A room with marble floors comes to life when heels clack across it.

[Mary Robinette] Season 14, Episode Five.

[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, Viewpoint As Worldbuilding.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Brandon] I'm Brandon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Brandon] One of my personal favorite topics… Perhaps even hobby horses, is to talk about how to worldbuild by using character viewpoint. I love it when books do this. In fact, it is one of the things that when I pick up a book, if the first chapter does, the first page does, I know I'm going to have a good time, at least with that character. I really like it. I want to talk about how we do it. So, how do you make setting an integrated part of your characters?

[Mary Robinette] I think a lot of it is the way the character interacts with it, not just physically, but also emotionally. That... the weight that things carry. So, using Jane Austen as an example, someone can… Like, two characters can look at each other, and that's no big deal. But when Austen handles it, she gives you that emotional weight. It's like she… And I'm thinking specifically in Persuasion, there's this scene when Capt. Wentworth pulls a small child off of Anne Elliott's back, and there's a moment where he's touching her. The emotional weight of that tells you, as a modern reader, that oh, there is no touching. This is… There is a lot going on between these two. It is… It gives you all of these layers of detail, while just being a physical interaction in the world. So that's the kind of thing that I find very interesting.

[Dan] One, very similar to that, is in Age of Innocence, when he takes her glove off. It is so steamy, and it's just a glove. But it tells you so much about the world and what it's like and the rules they have to follow.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yeah, you do that. It's actually one of the things I enjoy in the Stormlight, is the safe hand.

[Brandon] Right. Right. The safe hand came from… So, for those who aren't familiar. Society has eroticized the bare left hand of women. This has all kinds of social implications, and all kinds of… People always want to ask me, they want to say, "Why?" They often come to me, "Why, why is this?" I can answer. From, like, I… In the worldbuilding, the past, well, there were these events and these influential writings that happened, and then there was some institutionalized sexism that insp… But really, the answer is, "Why? Because that's how their culture is."

[Laughter]

[Brandon] That's how they see things. It's not why because they are like, "Well, when my great…" No. They're just like, "This is how my culture is." Then that culture becoming a big part of how people see the world is the sort of thing that I just love.

[Dan] You just look at all the different cultures on Earth today and the cultural assumptions that we carry and assume are common to the entire human race. Then you go to another country, and it's… They've never even heard of it before. You realize that we do this all the time.

[Howard] Last season, we had an episode on confronting the default, in which we talked about exactly that. When I wrote, I think it was Scrap Ante for Privateer Press, they wanted me to develop a character for them… Develop an existing character. They wanted me to give a POV to a character who was a mechanic… And this, they've got game fic… They've got game stuff surrounding this guy already. Who is a mechanic, and he needed to sound like a mechanic, and they wanted to talk a little bit about how these things work. Then it needed to not be boring. So I created a mystery in which someone is sabotaging a Warjack, and in as lean writing as I could, I have this mechanic digging in and finding out that somebody has swapped a part that looks like another part, and he has names for all of these, and he's rattling them off the way a mechanic would. In the course of writing this, I started lifting names and altering them a little bit from actual steam engines and diesel engines and whatever else. When I sent it into the Privateer Press guys, Doug, who's the chief worldbuilder, read it and said, "you have done something that I have been terrified to do forever." Which is explain how these things work.

[Laughter]

[Howard] They loved it. It read like a fun story, and it was all POV. It was not, "Oh, this is how the magic flows through the whatever." It's just a guy fixing a thing and looking for a problem, and then determining that somebody had sabotaged this to kill him.

[Brandon] Awesome.

[Dan] So. An example from one of my books. In the Partials series, one of the things that I wanted to play with for the worldbuilding was the generational divide. People who remember life before the apocalypse and the kids who have grown up in a post-apocalyptic world. So I had the chance then to start with two or three chapters entirely from this teenage point of view, just describing a normal world. She didn't think it was scary, she wasn't constantly concerned with the things that they had lost. Then, we finally get to a meeting with adults, and they spend their whole time bemoaning how rustic everything is. Just the difference between their attitudes immediately tells you a lot about the world and the society.

[Brandon] Yeah. That's one of the things I like the most is when you can take two different characters and describe the same thing, the same event, or the same cultural mores, and then, with those two contrasting opinions, the reader is given a bunch of information. They are, number one, told about the thing. Right? You're getting the worldbuilding. But you're, number two, told about the characters. You're told what they find important and valuable, or what they notice. But, number three, you're also told viewpoint is untrustworthy.

[Dan] Yes.

[Brandon] Which is a really important thing with these sorts of stories.

[Dan] That can make it very difficult. If you want to do that, that's something that you might need to refine and polish quite a bit, because your readers of the first or second draft might say, "Oh, you've got an inconsistency here." No, I don't. You need to look at who is saying it, and maybe I need to finesse this a little bit so that that is more clear.

[Howard] The number of times I have taken an inconvenient fact about the Schlock Mercenary universe and backtracked it to determine who said it…

[Laughter]

[Howard] And then ascertained, "Oh. That person is actually allowed to be wrong about this." Did the narrator ever… Nope! Narrator didn't… Did a footnote ever… Nope! Oh, this is awesome.

[Laughter]

[Howard] This is awesome. I am off the hook.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I have… There's a timeline problem in the Lady Astronaut universe. Because when I wrote the novelette, I was just like, "Eh, it's a one-off." I wrote it. I didn't do a lot of worldbuilding. Basically, when I got into doing the actual hard-core how long does it take to get people into space when you're kickstarting a space program… I'm like, "Oh. Elma's just wrong."

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] About some of her memories. She's just conflating them.

[Dan] Just misremembering.

[Mary Robinette] Just misremembering.

[Brandon] I run into this a lot. But it is nice to establish viewpoints that are untrustworthy for this sort of reason.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So a book that I'm reading right now that's doing a really interesting job of this shifting viewpoint is Semiosis by Sue Burke. It's a multigenerational novel. So you will move forward like an entire generation, and it's a colony world. So the first generation are the first people on the planet. Then the next generation are kids who've grown up there. The way they view their parents versus… The worldbuilding is fascinating, because… They're… You see how they're shifting and how the culture is shifting to adapt to the place that they're living. It's really, really interesting. It's all POV that's doing it.

[Brandon] Now, that is not our book of the week, but it would be a good book for people to read.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Brandon] Dan actually has our book of the week.

[Dan] Yeah. The book of the week actually hits this topic perfectly. It is Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. Which is a YA fantasy. Big secondary world fantasy set in a world inspired by Africa. What's fascinating about it… Many things are fascinating about it. But pertinent to this discussion, there are three viewpoint characters. It's a world where magic has been stolen. No one can do it anymore. The people who used to be able to do it are an oppressed class. So one of our viewpoints is one of these kind of former mage people. Then we have a princess who has been sheltered her entire life and runs away from home. Then we have her brother who is struggling with the King's policies. So they all have completely different ideas about what the world should look like and what it does look like and how they want to change it. It's really fascinating to see the interplay of those viewpoints as you go through.

[Brandon] Excellent. That is Children of Blood and Bone. I was on a panel with her, and she was really interesting. Had some really cool things to say about magic. So I anticipate it being a great book. Emily really liked it.

[Dan] Yes. She describes the book as Black Panther but with magic.

[Brandon] She does.

[Brandon] Now, one of my favorite ways to use viewpoint in worldbuilding, to intersect them, is by the way the characters describe other characters.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] Uhuh.

[Brandon] I first picked up on this as a young person reading The Wheel of Time, where… And I'm not going to be able to quote these exactly. I'm sorry, Wheel of Time fans, but you have one character who would describe someone and say, "Wow. They look like they spend most of their day at the forge." Then another character describes the same person and says something along the lines of "Wow. If you beat that person at cards, leave early. Because otherwise, they'll jump you in the back alley." Those two descriptions are both "This is a tough, intimidating person." But seen through the eyes of two very different characters. I love this sort of thing. Description. Now, my question for you guys is, do you ever worry about the blend of… When you're in narrative, how much you're going to let the character's voice direct the narrative and how much you're not?

[Mary Robinette] It does depend on whether… Which voice you're using. Are you using first person, or are you using tight third? Because first person, all over the place. It's no problem. But with tight third… With third person, it is a tricky line. Because what I find is that the… Unless it is very obviously voice-y, that the reader will interpret that as being safe and trustworthy. So I tend to try to be fairly honest when I'm doing narration that is less flavored than when I'm doing something that… If I'm doing free indirect speech, I try to… That's… I try to reserve the perceptions for those.

[Brandon] Yeah. I always kind of go back and forth on this, because, of course, Robert Jordan did very much a lot of tight thirds. There would be these moments where it felt like it was right in their head, and other times when the narrator was speaking. He balanced it really well. I'm always a little scared about that. Because you do want the narrator, the non-present narrative, to be trustworthy. But you want the viewpoint of the character to maybe not be.

[Mary Robinette] Sometimes it's a thing that you can do… I was just reading The Killing of Kings by Howard Andrew Jones. It's not… At the time of recording, it is not yet out. But one of the things that he does is there is this character who's constantly… Male character who's constantly looking at women with a very male gaze. Like, constantly looking at boobs and ass. Just all the time. Then will say things like, "I don't understand why this woman doesn't like me."

[Chuckles]

[Brandon] Right. Right.

[Howard] Wow.

[Mary Robinette] "It's like she's always so cold and distant. There's always a piece of furniture between us." I'm like, "Yep. Yes, there is. Absolutely, yes, there is." But it is… It's deftly handled, because he is staying absolutely true to the character's point of view. But by giving us very obvious physicality and recognizable body language from the other character, he's telling us how this behavior is actually perceived in the world.

[Brandon] Later in the year, we're going to do an entire week on writing imperfect worlds. Or imperfect characters. With… Using topics like this, not validating but acknowledging that some people are like this. We will cover that. It's going to be in a few months, but we are going to get to that. That is one of the… That's like Using Viewpoint and Character Level 501.

[Chuckles]

[Brandon] Being able to pull off some of this stuff.

[Brandon] Before we go out, any tips for writers on making their sentences, particularly their worldbuilding sentences, do more than one thing at once?

[Howard] What do these people swear by? I love that. My favorite examples of this currently are from the various different NPCs in the ESO world, where they swear by different gods. They are consistent in the way this works. It adds a measure of depth. Because some of them will swear by those gods, and somebody who is from the same culture will never utter those words. You can now tell that those two people are actually different. That's not the sort of thing that you expect to see… Well, if you grew up with video games. It's not the sort of thing that you expect to see in a videogame. But videogame writing has progressed to the point that we are expecting that level of worldbuilding, especially in dialogue that has to be read by an actor in a way that sounds conversational and believable.

[Dan] Very similar to that, and I'm starting to notice this more as I read… In the current science fiction that I'm reading, is what our people allowed to make jokes about. Which jokes can come from which species in the space station? And things like that.

[Mary Robinette] I would say, for me, the tip that I would hand to our listeners is to make sure that your character is interacting with their environment. Which is where I started us, but I'm going to give a really concrete example. Like, I can describe a room and say, "The room had marble floors, tall vaulted ceilings, and green velvet curtains." That tells you what the room looks like. But if I say, "My character's heels clacked across the marble floor as she strode to the window. The velvet was soft against her skin as she pushed the curtains back." You know so much more about the character and the world. So you're getting both things at the same time. I think that's going to make it feel richer to the reader, as well.

[Brandon] Awesome. Howard, you've got some homework for us.

[Howard] I do. This is the from-within, from-without episode, the Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering, the Twoflower, Rincewind. Take a character who is alien to the culture or the setting that you are writing within. But obviously has a reason to be there. Describe things from their point of view. Now describe those same things from the point of view of a native. Somebody who's grown up there, who's been there, who is familiar with it.

[Brandon] Excellent. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker.livejournal.com

Writing Excuses 12.9: Q&A on Viewpoint

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/02/26/12-9-qa-on-viewpoint/

Q&A Summary:
Q: Third person omniscient is generally the norm in most fantasy/sci-fi. Do you have any ideas, tips, tricks to make this voice more interesting or unusual?
A: Give the narrator a personality, characterization.
Q: How can you make [third person] limited more interesting?
A: Make the character sing. It's not the viewpoint, it's the character.
Q: It usually takes me a few drafts/revisions to really nail down a character's voice. Is this normal for most writers? Any tips on how to discover it in other ways?
A: If it's working for you, don't break it! Try writing a quick scene that is pivotal and important to your character. Sample scenes, monologues, conversation, job interviews. Don't be afraid to throwaway writing. Let the character talk so you can figure out who they are.
Q: What is the most effective way to portray an unreliable third limited viewpoint in which the reader can still know what is actually happening?
A: Why do you have an unreliable narrator? To fool the audience? Dramatic irony, where we know something the character does not? Establish that this is the character's personality, they think one thing, even though something else is really happening.
Q: How does one thoroughly immerse themselves in a setting/person? I know it's very subjective, but what are the most effective methods you have found in feeling, for example, when a pregnant woman, a pious man, or a lost child might feel? It's so far eludes me.
A: Meditation, guided imagery. Primary sources! Find forums where people are sharing trials and experiences, and get the things people gripe about right. Method acting for writers – feel it yourself, then write.
Q: How do you choose between first and third person? What's your process? When you're preparing a story, how do you make that final decision?
A: Is the story about plot or character? If it's about character, do it first person. Check your genre – adult romance usually is third, YA first person. How can you best express the characters? Try a writing sample, a quick scene or paragraph, to see which works best.
Q: How do you pick the right character for a viewpoint in a scene? How do you choose whose eyes you're going to see through?
A: Who is in the most pain? Who's most interesting? Who has the highest stakes, the most emotional response? Who's going to be doing the most, whose protagging the most? What do you like to write?
Q: I'm writing my first novel. How do I choose to do first person, third person, it's overwhelming. I could do omniscient, I could do non-omniscient, how do I make this decision?
A: Which POV makes the words flow for you? First novel, just write it. Spot check along the way, "Is this still working for me?" If so, keep going. If not, try a test scene in another perspective and see if that works better. What do you want to accomplish? Grand in scope, lots of different characters, third might work better. But first and foremost, finish the book.
Q: I have a problem with transitioning between voices. A.k.a. How do you know when to cut, how do you smoothly transition from one viewpoint character to another, how do you do a chapter break, do you sometimes not do a chapter break, how do you decide this?
A: End on a phrase that resonates with the reader, that's impactful, and makes them want to keep reading. Look at the first line of the next scene, make sure the reader knows whose head they're in as quickly as possible. Beware the garden path sentence, where the reader doesn't know whose head they are in until they turn the corner. End on a zinger, something awesome to say goodbye to that character for a while. Answer a question, raise a new question, resolve a package. Give emotional closure.
Q: My characters start to sound less distinct the further in my story I get. How do you keep this from happening?
A: Give each character a high concept that's evolving out of the consequences of previous acts, along with a dialogue tic that's a result of the consequences. Check prepositional phrases and three syllable words to see if your characters are all using the same ones. Visual and verbal tics work because they remind you, the writer, who the character is. Remember the character's passion.

( Wow, back and forth... )

[Brandon] I'm going to call it here. We have so many questions. I'm sorry we didn't get to them all. But, Piper has some homework for us.
[Piper] Oh, I do. My brain just died. I'm so sorry. So, my homework for you is to take dialogue, not narrative, dialogue, and take the characters who were involved in the dialogue… Probably works better with two or three, just a limited number of people in the dialogue, and swap them. So character A might say one thing, character B might say another. Now swap them, and how would character B say that first line, and how would character A respond?
[Brandon] Excellent. I really like that writing exercise. This has been Writing Excuses, you're out of excuses, now go write.

Current Mood: voices in my head

mbarker.livejournal.com

Writing Excuses 12.2: How to Nail Character Voice in First Person

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/01/08/12-2-how-to-nail-character-voice-in-first-person/

Key points: A memorable first person voice? Sentence structure, rhythm and accent. Accent is word choices and phrasing, not just dialect. Use first person to showcase characters with an interesting voice, but third person is easier. Use a text-to-speech program to read your writing out loud! Snarky is easy, but show us the thought process, what's behind the face the character shows everyone. What's their attitude, their too factor? First person is good for wordplay. Think about the categories of words your character might use. Be aware that no one is snarky in their own thinking, or has an accent in their own voice.

( I said, )

[Brandon] I'm going to have to cut it here. It's a great discussion. But we do have some homework that Mary is going to give to us.
[Mary] Right. So, here's your homework. What I want you to do is I want you to write, about a page, maybe two, first person and you've got a character who is trying to accomplish something. If you don't have anything in your head, then I'm going to say that you have a baker, and the baker is attempting to deliver some bagels. Then, I want you to write it again, but this time, your main character is not a baker, and I want you to have them go through the same task. The goal of this is to see how the character's attitude and the way their lens affects the world, affects how they relay the story of this bagel delivery, or whatever it is that you want to do.
[Brandon] Excellent. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Current Mood: sleepy

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Writing Excuses 12.1: Variations on First Person

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/01/01/12-1-variations-on-first-person/

Key points: First Person variations! (1) Epistolary, letters and journals, in-universe artifacts. (2) Reflective narrator, there I was, surrounded by... the storyteller over the fire. (3) First person immediate, I'm talking to you! Often present tense, lots of YA. Will I survive? Keep reading and find out! Think about the meta-element (how did we get this to read? Who is the narrator? Where is the line between the story universe and mehaving a book in my hands to read?), and the fourth wall, which might be where the shadows of the story are written?

( In the shadows behind the fire... )

[Brandon] Awesome. So, as I said, there's a lot of depth to exploring even within first person. I wanted to assign you some homework. Which is to take the same idea, a writing prompt you've had, and write a short narrative based on it in one of these three first person formats. Either epistolary, reflective narrator, or first person immediate. Then, I want you to try it in the other two. So that you can personally explore how these three different forms of first person are different tools that achieve different things. Just do a short narrative. Whatever it is. You could even take something you've already written in one and change it into the other two. But until you've tried all three, until you've tried doing a piece of them, I don't think it'll really pop out at you how this all works.

[Brandon] Now, we will be back next week with the Chicago team, where we'll be talking about how to specifically create a powerful first person voice. I wanted to give you a warning that the week after that, we're going to be doing a wildcard. The four of us will be back together and we'll be talking about Risk Assessment, which is the bonus story in the Schlock Mercenary volume Force Multiplication. So this is your spoiler warning. If you want to get that and read it before we talk, we'll be having Sandra Tayler on as a guest because she was the author of it. We will discuss in depth with no holds barred spoilers about that bonus story.

[Brandon] All right. Thank you guys so much. We are excited to have you in season 12 of Writing Excuses. This has been Writing Excuses, and you're out of excuses. Now go write.

[Mary] Writing Excuses is a Dragon Steel production, jointly hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler. This episode was mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Writing Excuses Transcripts

Entries tagged with first person

Writing Excuses 20.34: Deep Dive into "All the Birds in the Sky" -- Using the Lens of Who

Writing Excuses 20.14: Third Person Limited

Writing Excuses 20.13: First Person

Writing Excuses 15.08: Q&A on a Ship

Writing Excuses 14.05: Viewpoint As Worldbuilding

Writing Excuses 12.9: Q&A on Viewpoint

Writing Excuses 12.2: How to Nail Character Voice in First Person

Writing Excuses 12.1: Variations on First Person

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