Nullius in Verba

One tenet for writers, besides write, write, write, is read, read, read.

I don’t recall where I read it, but a published author said (paraphrasing), “Don’t just read the great stuff, read lousy stuff too.”

A couple years ago, I put the first ten thousand words of my story (working title: Timber Beast) on YouWriteOn.com, a website in which wannabe-published authors upload the beginnings of their stories in order to be noticed. (For a good overview and critique of YouWriteOn.com go here.) In such online slush piles,you’ll find loads of manure, compost, chaff, and the very occasional gem. Try it. If you want to learn how write better, read other folks’ work and then explain what works and what doesn’t work for you, and more importantly, to you—not necessarily them.

The idea of YWO is to review someone else’s nascent novel and get a credit to have another member review yours. The site posts the reviews online for the community to read and comment on. YouWriteOn.com has reviewers rate the story, 1 (poor) to 5 (best) on eight criteria:

• Characters,
• Story,
• Pace and Structure,
• Use of Language,
• Narrative voice,
• Dialogue,
• Settings, and
• Themes and Ideas

Each month, the five stories scoring the highest ratings receive professional reviews from editors in the stable associated with the site.

My critiques would often cite the author’s use of the ‘head-hop.’ I would be ensconced with a character, knowing his thoughts and feelings, and boing…I would find myself in another character’s head. Narrative voice affects the reader’s perception. Head hopping is #2 on the top ten list of mistakes made by newbie novelists.

Peter Selgin says, “Of all the problems plaguing amateur works, none is more common or fatal than mishandling of viewpoint. Typically, the problem results not from a chosen viewpoint being violated, but because no viewpoint has been firmly established to start with, so there is nothing to violate.” He reduces it down to a simple equation, “NO POINT OF VIEW = NO STORY.” – The Writer, August 2007.

The edittorrent editors discuss multiple POV in Telepathy, interpretation, and POV shifts.

I suspect that some form of multiple (but controlled) POV will be “the” POV of the 21st century, as omniscent was the dominant POV of the 19th C and single POV of the 20th C.

This doesn’t mean bouncing around from one head to another in a scene.

Sometimes as I read a passage, I feel ejected, like suddenly I’m not in Tom’s mind, I’m in Joan’s mind, or dangling helplessly in between. When I go back and read to figure out why, it’s often actually a deep POV issue, where the writer has Tom interpreting something from the way Joan speaks or behaves… but because there’s no “Tom thought” in there, it sounds like JOAN.

Edittorrent’s post on how to handle narrative voice to keep from swatting POV as if it were a Ping-Pong match is worth reading.

Of course, once you are published  like James Rollins and writing fast-paced thrillers and making the New York Times bestseller list, the rules get relaxed and don’t bind so much.