OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
One of the things I love about the author community these days is the authenticity around sharing, and the generosity in helping others.
Blogging and social networks enable writers to finally find a community online, and I am so grateful that this site continues to be a place we can share honestly and with support for each other. Today I'm excited to welcome Rachel Abbott, Amazon #1 bestselling author of Only The Innocent and now The Back Road, to talk about some of her writing challenges when going deeper into characters.
You can also check out an audio interview with Rachel here, on marketing your way to a #1 bestseller.
I’ve always been a writer of one sort or another, but until four years ago my experience had been in writing creative treatments, plots for interactive programs or even board reports – none of which generally require significant emotional input. It’s hard to shed a tear over a flowchart – although sometimes it might want to make you scream with frustration.
When I wrote my first novel – Only the Innocent – I wrote for my own pleasure.
I never expected anybody to read it – not even family. But I was pressurized into sharing it, and I realized that if I was going to allow people to actually read it, I wanted to make sure that it was at least half decent. I was happy with the story, but I wasn’t convinced about the quality of the writing, and nobody was going to be allowed near it until I was. Of course, this was before I realized that you can’t just learn to write, like you might learn to recite the alphabet – it is forever a work in progress and an endless learning curve. Nonetheless, I took my fragile ego in both hands and paid to have my book torn apart by an expert.
In the end, the feedback wasn’t too bad considering it was my first attempt. However, it was full of phrases that I didn’t understand.
Apparently my biggest sin was ‘head-hopping’.
What?
On Point of View
I hadn’t the faintest idea what this was about, so I turned to Google and read every possible article I could find until it was ingrained in me. I was told that I was writing as if I were watching a film, sitting in an armchair. Where I should have been was inside the head of one of the characters – the person whose point of view the scene was written from. That person’s eyes needed to become my camera.
It took a while, but I got there in the end. I now make sure that every scene of every chapter is clearly marked in the draft with exactly whose POV the scene is viewed from in capital letters so I can’t forget.
If you are as ignorant as I was about this, a classic example of head-hopping would be:
“Nick dragged his gaze away from the road ahead and looked at Laura. Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears as she stared out of the window. But Laura didn’t see his glance. She was watching the dark brooding clouds, and thinking how well they matched her mood.”
First we’re seeing the scene from Nick’s perspective, and then suddenly we know what Laura is thinking. If your camera is inside the character’s head, you’ve just switched seats!
Now I know that this is quite basic stuff and you probably all got this long ago, but when you really do get inside a character’s head it can make you go slightly loopy. You have to start thinking what your character would think, feel what they would feel. You might want to see, hear and even smell their surroundings – just as they would do. So how do you describe what somebody is feeling?
There are two perspectives here. Let’s imagine there are two people in a room. Ellie and Leo (short for Leonora). These are two characters from my latest novel, The Back Road. Ellie is furious, and Leo is watching her. If you are in Leo’s head, you have to describe how that fury looks to you. If you are in Ellie’s head, you have to describe how the fury actually feels.
On Adverbs
I thought the first one was easy, but I was wrong – as I discovered when I read a book on self-editing and was told that under no circumstances should adverbs be used. “Words ending in LY should be eradicated from your writing,” it said.
Why? I thought, angrily. (There you go!! An adverb.)
I’d heard of the ‘show don’t tell’ advice, but didn’t really get it until the whole adverb issue was pointed out. I searched my novel. Uh oh – there were lots of adverbs. So now not only did I have to start thinking about whose head I was in, I had to think about how they would ‘see’ people’s actions. I started to look into body language and descriptions of facial expressions. If I can’t say ‘angrily’ – what would this person be looking like, or how would they be holding their body?
Whereas once I might have said “Ellie turned angrily to Leo,” I now had to think what an angry turn looks like. How would Ellie be feeling, and how would that portray itself in her actions?
“Ellie slammed the glass down on the worktop and spun round to face Leo.” Now I don’t need to be told she’s angry. I can see it for myself.
But to get to that point, I had to get inside Ellie’s head (even though at this point I was viewing the scene from Leo’s POV – just to confuse you) so that I could work out exactly how she would demonstrate her fury. Then I had to stand on the other side of the room and see it enacted through Leo’s eyes.
So I’ve experienced the rage, but now I am in calm place – all in a matter of seconds – witnessing this anger portrayed by another person. Now do you understand the ‘loopy’ comment?
All of this helps me enormously with describing a person’s demeanor without resorting to adverbs, but what about when I am describing the emotion from within that person. If that scene had been from Ellie’s point of view, I would have had to describe how she was feeling. It somehow didn’t feel good enough to say something like “Ellie felt a ball of anger bubble up inside her,” because that didn’t really explain the raw emotion.
I needed to dig deeper.
There were a couple of points in my latest novel where I came unstuck. In both cases I was writing a scene from the point of view of the person who was experiencing the trauma, and so I had to find words to express how she felt. I couldn’t say ‘She sat disconsolately on the bed’ – I had to really think how to describe what ‘disconsolately’ would feel like (and anyway, it was an adverb!).
On one occasion I wrote something like ‘Ellie wondered why was it so difficult to describe emotional pain,’ to which my editor responded in large letters on the side of my manuscript – ‘it’s not Ellie who can’t describe it – it’s you!’.
Oops.
How right she was. But emotional pain is so very difficult to describe, and it’s not something that one wants to experience on a regular basis. So I had to dig deep down inside myself to think of something that had hurt me badly, and imagine it all over again so that I knew how it felt. That was a harrowing and distressing moment, but I’ve found myself doing it more and more often.
The second occasion was when I needed to describe fear. I’m not very often in situations where I’m afraid, I’m happy to say. I live on an island where nobody ever locks their doors when they go out, and crime is zero. But as luck would have it, one day I’d been out – leaving the door unlocked – and I came home just as it was getting dark. I was alone.
Then, from upstairs, I heard a thud.
It wasn’t subtle – and it was definitely in my house. I felt as if I a million tiny pins were pricking every inch of my body. It only lasted a second, but it was the first time I had bothered to even think what fear felt like. I was more interested in my reaction to that moment of fear than I was in what was going on upstairs in my house. I forgot about my burglar for a moment while I imagined the words I would use to describe my physical reaction.
Hopefully the title of this blog now makes perfect sense.
Since starting to write about people and the sometimes terrible situations in which they find themselves, I have had to explore emotions in a way that I have never done before.
I’ve had to interpret those feelings and put them into words – and they have to be words that will affect my readers and show them what each character is feeling. I am constantly examining how I react to events so that I can find the words to express each and every sentiment when the need arises, and the days of controlling my emotions to give an aura of outward calm have long gone.
So if you see somebody sobbing in the corner, scribbling in a black notebook, that’ll be me!
P.S. The loud thump from upstairs was a mirror falling off the wall (it didn’t break).
What are the challenges you have in writing emotion, or point of view? Please share your comments and tips below.
Rachel Abbott’s second novel The Back Road is available now on Amazon for £1.99. It will be released later this year in other formats in the UK, and in paperback and Kindle versions in the US.
You can find Rachel at Rachel-Abbott.com and on twitter @_rachelabbott
Top image: Flickr Creative Commons shipwreck by palestrina55
Heather says
This is awesome. I started realizing as I delved into my writing that I was getting loopier. I’ve even started mimicking people’s accents or emphasized words from the radio and TV just to notice why they said it that way. I’ve always loved the “why would someone react like that?” question and I think I just need to put it in my writing more. You’re inspiring me to tear my YA manuscript to pieces, because it was a 3-day novel and I took the tell instead of show shortcuts.
With POV though, I have a question. If it’s in first person, how to do you write about what happens when they’re unconscious? And yes, they need to be unconscious. It’s kind of central.
Rachel Abbott says
Hi Heather
Glad you like the post, but with regard to your question I think you need some expert input here. I never write from first person – with the exception of some little inset pieces of a key character’s thoughts – so I really wouldn’t know how to advise you.
Anybody else out there who’d like to chip in?
Belinda Pepper says
I’m by no means an expert, but I’d like to present a question to Heather:
Are you telling the story from the correct POV character?
I think of the movie “While You Were Sleeping”. Peter spent a good chunk of the movie unconscious. If we were inside Peter’s head for the duration of the movie, we would have missed all of what was going on between Lucy and Peter’s brother Jack.
Knowing virtually nothing about your story, I can’t say this is your issue, but there’s A LOT of new writers who tell the story from the wrong character. If you find that one of the other main characters is more interesting, more engaging, and more relatable than the POV character, maybe you’ve chosen the wrong person to tell the story. I would certainly consider this if your POV character’s unconsciousness is pivotal to the story.
Amy Lamont says
Most of us spend so much time doing things to distract ourselves from those strong emotions, it can be tough to connect when it’s time to write. I love that a-ha moment you had when you discover how you experience fear in your body. It’s an eye opener, isn’t it? It can be tough for us as writers to dig deep to relive those emotional experiences, but I think it’s worth it. Not only is it satisfying to really show the emotion on the page, it can be a cathartic experience.
Daniel Escurel Occeno says
Rachel, I will read through the other blogs on the archives of you and your story, TY.
Steven Ramirez says
Rachel, thank you for the excellent article. Though I agree it’s important to get deep into your characters and their emotions, I cannot accept blanket rules like “under no circumstances should adverbs be used.” I mean, who wouldn’t want to read a sentence like this: “He died brilliantly.” Adverbs have their place, but they should be used wisely. 🙂
Rachel Abbott says
I do agree with you, Steven – but just to make sure that you (and everybody else) understands – I’m not the one who said this – I’m quoting from a book. This statement has proved quite controversial (which is good – because it’s great to get people chatting), but I think it’s an excellent rule, because it makes writers stop and think. And then it’s possible to decide whether a certain usage is a GOOD adverb, or a LAZY adverb.
Steven Ramirez says
Rachel, thanks. Sorry if I implied that the statement was yours—I was aware that it’s something you read. Cheers. 🙂
Belinda Pepper says
The admonition to “never use adverbs” is great in the sense that it makes new writers stop and think about their writing. New writers often use adverbs because it’s EASIER to think up an adverb than it is to think up a strong verb.
So perhaps the rule “Never use adverbs” should be modified:
Never use adverbs when a strong verb can be used instead.
Rachel Abbott says
I completely agree – at the risk of being repetitive, I think that the writers of the book who said “NEVER” were trying to be helpful – in the sense that if as a writer you believe that NEVER is the rule, it will make you extra vigilant. They have given a few exceptions to the rule (as, I believe, I did) – but I do consider that for me, at least, it was a lesson well learnt.
Alyne DeWinter says
Interesting article.
I have found writing has made me clearer and more sane. I have discovered wisdom in myself that I would never have known I had if I hadn’t been writing a story with characters who had those thoughts.
I had to learn to love conflict. That was the hard part. Now its a skill and I find less of in my life because its all going into the stories.
I’ve been in the arts all of my ice. Emotion is your instrument, whether dancing, singing, drawing, or writing. Emotion is what makes alive. You have to go there or what do you give to the reader?
As for POV, I find First Person allows for mystery. If you are writing in character, you will not have a problem. I have written third person and stayed with a single POV because it adds mystery.
When I wrote my first novel I wished I had three brains – one for use and two for storage. I either grew two extra brains or I got smarter and a much better memory. Now I can have two novels on the go and write shorts once in a while and not forget much.
I feel the stories are a gift from God. Maybe you just have to keep going. Its a slow process. I’ve writing fiction seriously for 13 years and have just been getting my books out in the last 6 months.
Alyne DeWinter says
This bloody instant spell checker is for the birds. Ice is supposed to Life. How do you turn this thing off? Its technology that makes me crazy.
Rachel Abbott says
Ha! that made me laugh – I know what you mean about spell checkers. You can turn them off in Word and other apps – but not sure what you do about blogging software.
A very interesting response, though. And I agree about the wisdom comment, but I do think that it depends on the person. I feel that through looking more closely at emotion and interaction between people, I’ve gained a much greater understanding, I think. But not everybody would see that as a blessing – some would potentially be more cynical.
Belinda Pepper says
Thanks for the awesome post, Rachel. Glad to see I’m not alone!
I think I’d die if anyone secretly watched me while I was writing. When I write, I really get into it. If my character is smiling, I smile. If my character is in pain, I grimace and squirm. I dunno why I do it. Maybe for the same reason mothers pull such funny faces when they spoon-feed their babies. 😛
Unfortunately I’ve gone through a wide range of negative emotions in my life, so I’ve got a veritable library to draw from. Does this make me miserable when I write? Sometimes, but in a good way, I think. Because if I’m drawing up all those emotions and putting them on the page, maybe the passage will be more authentic for the reader.
I quite like Andrew Lincoln’s (who plays “Rick Grimes”) acting in the The Walking Dead. In the first episode, he returns to his house to find it empty. His wife and son are gone, the world is a mess, and he doesn’t know what’s going on. The way he screams and crumbles is believable. He’s a husband and a father.
In this respect, it’s good to analyse movies and their screenplays (especially if you haven’t got a “library of emotional experiences” to draw on). The director can’t just have a voice-over come in and say “X character was distraught”- they have to show those feelings somehow. We watch Rick Grimes sag against door frames as he calls out for his wife and son, his voice cracking. He crumbles to the floor, screaming their names, spit falling from his mouth, mixed in with the tears. Once the initial fear and desperation subside, you can see him start to mull over the possibilities. Could they have traveled to Atlanta to be with family? He stops calling out to them. While he’s still visibly shaken, the grim determination on his face and quiet thoughtfulness show us that his emotions have taken a turn.
Now to think how my face would’ve been if I were writing that scene….
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m70z3vbv2T1qchxcpo1_500.png
Rachel Abbott says
Wow, Belinda! I’ve never actually watched The Walking Dead – although I’ve always been a fan of Andrew Lincoln (we will forever be Egg to me) – but the way you have expressed what you saw on screen has made me immediately want to go out and buy the boxed set!
Belinda Pepper says
Lol Rachel! Maybe I should ask them for commissions? 😛
Some of the acting in TWD is weak, but for the most part I think they’ve done extremely well. I really do like Andrew Lincoln’s acting in the first season.
If you are a super observant writer, that show can certainly give you ideas about how to portray human emotions. True Grit (the new one) is another favourite of mine, mainly because the characters try so hard to NOT show emotion, but we keep seeing the cracks in the facade.
Cindy Patterson says
This is great stuff!!! Thanks so much:)
Robin says
This is why I love deep pov when you’re doing it right you can’t head hop, you’re placed firmly in that pov and no other. Another great posting. (I’m going through your articles.)