Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Deep Point of View
    Deep Point of View
    Deep Point of View
    Ebook162 pages2 hours

    Deep Point of View

    By Marcy Kennedy

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Do you want readers to be so caught up in your book that they forget they’re reading?

    Then you need deep POV.

    Deep POV takes the reader and places them inside of our characters—hearing their thoughts, feeling their emotions, and living the story through them. Compared to other writing styles, it builds a stronger emotional connection between the reader and our characters, creates the feeling of a faster pace, and helps avoid point-of-view errors and telling rather than showing.

    In Deep Point of View, writing instructor and fiction editor Marcy Kennedy brings her years of experience into showing you how to write deep POV. You’ll learn specific, practical things you can do immediately to take your fiction to the next level.

    Each book in the Busy Writer’s Guide series is intended to give you enough theory so that you can understand why things work and why they don’t, but also enough examples to see how that theory looks in practice. In addition, they provide tips and exercises to help you take it to the pages of your own story, with an editor’s-eye view. Most importantly, they cut the fluff so that you have more time to write and to live your life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarcy Kennedy
    Release dateFeb 10, 2016
    ISBN9781988069050
    Deep Point of View
    Author

    Marcy Kennedy

    Marcy Kennedy is a speculative fiction writer who believes fantasy is more real than you think. Alongside her own writing, Marcy works as a freelance fiction editor and teaches classes on the writing craft. You can find her blogging about writing and about the place where real life meets science fiction, fantasy, and myth at www.marcykennedy.com.

    Read more from Marcy Kennedy

    Related to Deep Point of View

    Related ebooks

    Language Arts & Discipline For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Set the Hook With Great Beginnings

      Oct 18, 2021

      As a novice fisher, I’ve only caught a few fish, but I’m already thinking about better ways to hook more. Likewise, as a writer, I think a lot about how to write beginnings that will hook readers. Just as fishing advice abounds, so too does writing a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Subplots Aren’t Secondary

      Jun 19, 2019

      Subplots Aren’t Secondary
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art Of PLOTTING

      Jul 9, 2022

      Writing a novel is a huge challenge. Not only must you create relatable, compelling characters who grab readers, but you also need to nail down a storyline that does the same thing. Readers want adept storytelling, with scenes that move, lives that c

      8 min read

    • Article

      Beat Sheet Or Cheat Sheet?

      May 5, 2022

      If you’ve not yet encountered the Save the Cat! books you will, because the original book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (2005) proved so successful it led to a franchise which now includes at least seven volumes, inclu

      8 min read

    • Article

      Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word

      Oct 18, 2021

      Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word
      7 min read

    • Article

      The First Five Pages

      Jan 7, 2021

      The First Five Pages
      5 min read

    • Article

      What Agents Wish Writers Knew

      Dec 21, 2021

      What Agents Wish Writers Knew
      9 min read

    • Article

      Mastering Plot Twists

      Dec 12, 2022

      Mastering Plot Twists
      8 min read

    • Article

      Character, Know Thyself: The Essentials Of Character Awareness

      May 8, 2019

      Early drafts are an exercise in getting to know your character and her story—you are, in essence, telling the story to yourself first so that you can figure out what to add or omit when fine-tuning the story for readers. I encourage you to pen more p

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Donald Maass Craft Library

      May 21, 2019

      “What makes novelists successful is storytelling,” Donald Maass says. He’s written a number of books to help writers understand the art of storytelling: “Writing the Breakout Novel breaks down the technique of plot layers, meaning multiple things hap

      1 min read

    • Article

      What Physics Can Teach Us About Writing Fiction

      Mar 6, 2018

      Sometimes writing fiction feels to me like that oft-used image of a godlike creator: the man pulling the strings of the marionette, orchestrating each fine movement from above the stage. One string might be character, another plot, a third setting, a

      6 min read

    • Article

      Pantser Or Plotter?

      Jan 29, 2022

      When you write a story or a novel, you’re undoubtedly focused on turning out a good one. That’s the product. But what about the process? Are you a so-called plotter, one who creates summaries and outlines before clicking out your story or novel? Or a

      10 min read

    • Article

      A New Approach To Outlining

      Oct 29, 2022

      WHEN I WAS ABOUT 12, I PLAYED baseball in the street with a group of neighborhood kids. None of us knew how to play; the point was to have fun. One day while we were playing, a girl who lived in a big house on the corner – Jenny, I distinctly remembe

      5 min read

    • Article

      Making Conversation

      Sep 11, 2021

      What’s a story or novel without scenes? Scenes involve us directly in characters’ lives and, when handled adeptly, provide dramatic intensity. If the prose writing is stellar, we will certainly be hooked by expository sections that dive deeply into a

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Three-Act Structure

      Jun 12, 2023

      The three-act structure dates back to Aristotle’s Poetics and is the typical structure for much of fiction, particularly in Western culture. While Aristotle’s framework focuses on writing tragic plays and has specific recommendations tied to that for

      4 min read

    • Article

      Better writing NOW

      May 6, 2021

      Better writing NOW
      5 min read

    • Article

      Opening ACTS

      Jul 9, 2022

      Opening ACTS
      10 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      May 5, 2022

      What do you do when you’re not writing? You know, those pesky job things. Among our featured authors this month, there’s a thread of biding your time, and knowing that becoming a writer was the only ultimate goal. Editor For some, like our ruthlessly

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Time Is Now Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Oct 10, 2018

      Suggested Reading:The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press, May 2017) by Dinty W. Moore The director of creative writing at Ohio State University and author of a number of books of literary no

      2 min read

    • Article

      Firing Up Fiction

      May 21, 2019

      Firing Up Fiction
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Deep Point of View

    5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Deep Point of View - Marcy Kennedy

      DEEP POINT OF VIEW

      A Busy Writer's Guide

      Marcy Kennedy

      Copyright 2015 Marcy Kennedy

      Smashwords Edition

      Deep Point of View: A Busy Writer’s Guide

      First Edition

      All rights reserved.

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. This e-book may not be re-sold, as a used file or otherwise, and may not be given away to other people. Purchase and download is a one-time final use of this product. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Editor: Christopher Saylor

      Cover Design: Melinda VanLone

      Published February 2016 by Tongue Untied Communications

      ISBN: 978-1-988069-05-0

      WANT A FREE BOOK?

      Free Book Strong Female Characters

      Sign up for the author's mailing list and get a free copy of Strong Female Characters: A Busy Writer's Guide.

      Click here to get started or visit www.marcykennedy.com/freebookforwriters

      INTRODUCTION

      Why A Busy Writer’s Guide?

      A few years ago, I started creating Busy Writer’s Guides for a very simple reason—I wanted to give hope and practical help to writers who were struggling to reach their goals and dreams because of the demands life placed on them.

      This became my passion because I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed by responsibilities that can’t be ignored or delegated and to prioritize the needs of those I love over my own desires. I know what it feels like to make it through a day with no energy or creativity left to write.

      And I knew I couldn’t be the only one. The more writers I talked to, the more I found so many others who felt stretched too thin. They were trying to fit writing in around full-time jobs or around caring for children or aging parents or grandparents. They were battling physical and mental health problems. They had life commitments that were as important to them as writing.

      They were people who wanted to achieve their dreams, but who didn’t want to do it at the cost of their health, their relationships, or their moral compasses.

      While I can’t solve all the problems in the world, or in anyone’s life, I wanted to help make writing a great book more achievable for those people—people like me.

      And that’s where the Busy Writer’s Guides were born.

      They’re short, yet in-depth and practical. The intent is to give you the full coverage of a topic that you need to write well, but to do it in a way that still respects your time.

      How does that work?

      These guides leave out the filler and fancy prose padding meant to impress you. My goal isn’t to make you think I’m fantastic. My goal is to help you become fantastic. I cut the fluff while keeping the substance so that you can have more time to write and more time to live your life.

      Each book in the Busy Writer’s Guides series gives you enough theory so that you can understand why things work and why they don’t, but also enough examples to see how that theory looks in practice. Approaching it from two sides like this streamlines the learning process and speeds up your learning curve.

      In addition, these guides provide tips and exercises to help you take what you’ve learned to the pages of your own story with an editor’s-eye view. There’s a leap we all need to make from intellectually understanding a topic to proficiently applying that topic to our work. The Take It to the Page sections give you a way to start, trying again to make this transition easier and quicker for you. If you’re not ready to apply it to your work yet, you can skip these sections and come back to them later.

      The final way that I try to respect your time is by separating some topics out into appendices. A lot of writing craft concepts overlap. I try my best to keep the material in the body of each of my books fresh. In other words, I minimize the content overlap between books as much as I can without sacrificing clarity. (In some cases, I still do have to re-explain elements or I wouldn’t be doing justice to the concept at hand.)

      When I think there are elements of other topics that aren’t absolutely essential to understanding the current topic, but which would help you understand the topic of the current book better, I add them as appendices. That way, if you’ve read my other books and don’t need a refresher, you can save time by skipping the appendices. If this is the first one of my books you’ve read, or if you want to refresh your memory on a topic, you can read the appendices.

      And that’s quite a long enough intro, I think. Time to get to the meat. If you want to find out more about me, you can visit my website at www.marcykennedy.com or check out the About the Author section at the end of this book.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Defining Deep POV

      Deep POV is actually a shortened way of saying deep penetration point of view. It refers to the most intimate, closest writing style, where the reader experiences the story as if they were inside of the character—feeling what the character feels, experiencing what they experience, and hearing what they think—without any distance between them. It’s emotionally intense and the author must stay completely invisible.

      Deep POV was originally called close or intimate limited third-person point of view, and it first appeared and started gaining popularity between 1975 and 1995.

      The reason for this steep rise in popularity is the connection deep POV creates between the reader and the viewpoint character. It makes the story interactive in a way that more distant approaches to point of view can’t. It allows the reader to live vicariously through our viewpoint characters.

      From a purely writing craft standpoint, when we master deep POV, we’ll also have a stronger grasp on showing vs. telling and internal dialogue, and we’ll be better able to avoid problems like backstory or info dump and point-of-view errors.

      In this book, I’m going to help you understand deep POV better and learn how to apply it to your writing. To start, we need to look at how deep POV can improve our writing, come up with a working definition of what makes a passage deep POV, and dispel some of the biggest misconceptions about it.

      HOW DEEP POV IMPROVES OUR WRITING

      Since you picked up this book, you’re probably already convinced about the value of deep POV. Just in case anyone ever challenges you, though, I want to give you a few of the many ways deep POV improves our writing.

      Deep POV creates a stronger emotional connection. The reader experiences the story from the inside out because they’re inside the character. A shallower POV creates an experience from the outside in—we’re looking at the character externally. The difference is like that between feeling your own emotions and watching someone else’s.

      Deep POV eliminates unintentional telling. Show, don’t tell is one of those foundational writing guidelines that show up in every best writing tips list. Properly executing that advice becomes more challenging, but if you master deep POV, you’ll also improve your grasp of showing. This doesn’t mean you’ll never tell. It means you’ll better understand when to show and when to tell, and you won’t accidentally default to telling.

      Deep POV feels tighter and quicker in pace even though it often uses more words. Tight writing is less about the number of words used and more about making every word count. Deep POV cuts out a lot of the filler words and emotionally empty words and replaces them with strong words that hold the reader’s interest. When they’re interested, the book feels faster-paced.

      Deep POV helps the reader forget that they’re reading. Emotional depth, connection to the viewpoint character, smooth writing, and a fast pace all combine to form a reading experience that blocks out the world around us. We no longer consciously see the words on the page and instead vicariously live the story.

      Now that we know a few of the reasons and can better explain our choice should we be asked, it’s time to define deep POV.

      WHAT DEFINES A DEEP POV PASSAGE?

      It’s almost impossible to hit a target if we don’t know what we’re aiming for. We might accidentally get lucky, but that’s no way to write a book. Writing a book takes too much time to depend on hoping for lucky accidents.

      Because of that, we need a practical definition of what sets deep POV apart from other writing styles. Once we know what type of writing qualifies as deep POV, we can work on developing it in our writing.

      Deep POV is defined by the following aspects:

      Limited knowledge

      Inside-out perspective

      Interior life

      Interpretations

      Immediacy

      I’ll give you a quick overview of these elements now, and then we’ll spend the rest of the book exploring them.

      Limited Knowledge

      While we’re writing in deep POV, we’re constrained. Before that terminology turns you away from this technique, consider this—we’re constrained in the same way that we’re constrained by our body in life. It binds us to one physical place at a time. We experience life through the medium of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1