{"id":199,"date":"2013-04-30T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/04\/30\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_30\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:17","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_30\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nDeep
\npoint of view (DPOV) is the new trend in fiction. This is not to say that all
\nauthors will want to use this style, however, I don\u2019t know why they would not
\nwant to at least infuse a bit of this element into their storytelling. It takes
\npoint of view (POV) to a higher level for the reader. This is true whether the
\nstory is written in first person or third person limited POV.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nA
\nsimple POV technique is to take the author into a scene and make sure that the
\ncharacter doesn\u2019t experience anything outside his scope of his understanding. In
\nother words, if the character can\u2019t know it, see it, or watch it, the reader
\ncan\u2019t see it or watch it. The reader may know it if the knowledge comes through
\nanother POV character\u2019s viewpoint, but if our main guy is in the dark about
\nsomething, he can\u2019t be suddenly enlightened on his own. In other words, Sally
\nmay have already met John in a prior scene. If Walter is with Sally in a scene
\nwhere John walks in, and he has never met John, Sally must introduce John
\nbefore Walter can refer to him by that name.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHere
\nis an example from such a scene:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWalter stood, plate in hand, by the buffet
\ntable looking over the delicious offerings of caviar, shrimp, and other delicacies
\ntoo numerous to mention.<\/div>\n
\nSally grabbed his elbow, almost making him
\ndrop the expensive china. <\/div>\n
\n\u201cWalter, it\u2019s him. He\u2019s the one who
\ninvited us here,\u201d she whispered.<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWho?\u201d Walter looked about the room.<\/div>\n
\nThe man stood in the midst of the crowded
\ndining room. \u201cThank you for sharing this evening with me.\u201d He raised his hand
\nand the crowd quietened.<\/div>\n
\nWalter sat his plate down on the table. \u201cWho
\nis he?\u201d He leaned toward Sally.<\/div>\n
\n\u201cJohn. The rich billionaire I met last
\nweek. I told you about him.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\u201cOh, yeah.\u201d Walter slumped forward. \u201cThat
\nguy.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nNow, let\u2019s instill some deep POV magic to our storytelling
\nelements and see what we can create:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWalter stood, plate in hand, by the buffet
\ntable looking over the delicious offerings of caviar, shrimp, and other delicacies
\ntoo numerous to mention. Who in this little town could afford such a spread?<\/div>\n
\nSally grabbed his elbow, almost making him
\ndrop the expensive china. On his salary, it would take a couple of weeks to
\nrepay the hotel for this single piece of dinnerware.<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWalter, it\u2019s him. He\u2019s the one who
\ninvited us here,\u201d she whispered.<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWho?\u201d Walter looked about the room. Yeah,
\nhe\u2019d admit it. His journalistic curiosity had pressed him into donning his only
\nsuit and tie. The collar of his dress shirt scratched his neck.<\/div>\n
\nThe man stood in the midst of the crowded
\ndining room. \u201cThank you for sharing this evening with me.\u201d He raised his hand
\nand the crowd quietened. Who did this over-made-up, makeup-wearing fool think
\nhe was, Jesus on the Mount.<\/div>\n
\nWalter sat his plate down on the table. \u201cWho
\nis he?\u201d He leaned toward Sally.<\/div>\n
\n\u201cJohn. The rich billionaire I met last
\nweek. I told you about him.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\u201cOh, yeah.\u201d John slumped forward. \u201cThat
\nguy.\u201d The one who bought the paper, the one it was rumored would be sending out
\npink slips over the next couple of weeks. Him. Walter kind of wished the guy
\nwas Jesus. Then, maybe John would show Walter a little mercy, and he\u2019d be able
\nto keep his job.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nDPOV deepens<\/i> the
\nstory. In the first scene, Walter is just a guy at a dinner party. He’s about to meet an unknown fellow Sally met the week before. In the second scene, Walter isn\u2019t
\njust a guy. He\u2019s a journalist whose curiosity made him pull out his only suit
\nand tie and wear it to a lavish gathering we can easily assume is out of his
\nusual element. Then we learn, with Walter, that John could just possibly hold
\nWalter\u2019s future employment in his hands. The reader isn\u2019t told this. The
\ninformation is shown (rather than told) through Walter\u2019s deep POV. Writing such
\na scene takes the author into the mind of the character which, when read,
\nbrings the reader deeper into the story.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAnd if an editor is reading a well-written story, and the POV
\ntakes him or her deeper into the lives of the characters, it will make the
\nstory hard to put down for the editor, who is often an author\u2019s worst critic.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nEven if an author feels that a deeper POV isn\u2019t the way to
\nstyle a story, when editing, every author should look for those times when a
\ncertain thought from the lead character will add depth and understanding to that
\ncharacter\u2019s journey.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nLet’s do something fun, and I hope the readers will take part. Take the first scene. Provide a DPOV for Walter. With the first scene, the sky is the limit. Walter could be anyone. Sally could be anyone to Walter, and John’s bio is yet to be written. Practice your DPOV and see what you can do with it and post it in the comments. (Remember CBA rules apply).<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHappy editing.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deep point of view (DPOV) is the new trend in fiction. This is not to say that all authors will want to use this style, however, I don\u2019t know why they would not want to at least infuse a bit of this element into their storytelling. It takes point of view (POV) to a higher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}