Blog: Point of View

One of the themes of my novel, SAY IT THREE TIMES, is how point of view (POV) affects our perception the so-called "Rashomon Effect"). Most stories are told from a single POV—just like life. But, unlike life, we usually assume we’re being told the story as it is—that is, that the narrator is telling the truth. Shifting POV stories can be used to reveal an unreliable narrator or a different side to the story. In SAY IT THREE TIMES we never get that POV shift—we only know what the Detective reveals and through subtle cues, we come to suspect the Detective may not be telling us the entire story, may be purposely lying, or may even be delusional.

Personally, I love “shifting POV” stories, especially movies like The Usual Suspects and Immortal Beloved where a last minute shift to another character’s point of view reveals an entirely new context or meaning for the story. But many people do not. They often feel cheated when the story changes with the introduction of a new POV because it prevents the reader/viewer from anticipating the ending. Next week I’ll talk more about unwilling narrators in fiction. But this week I wanted to talk a little more about the craft of writing revealing POV shifts. Guest blogger and historical fiction writer Joyce Alton joins us to share her insights on how POV changes can alter our perception of a story and whether or not such stories ultimately work.

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Joyce Alton says: I think in some cases, yes, it can work. It’s a unique storytelling structure which should be used sparingly or it would cease to be fresh and become predictable. Mystery novels come to mind first, when you have a room full of suspects and witnesses each giving their account of events. Maybe they’re telling the truth, maybe they’re fudging it. It’s a fun brain tease for the reader.

Blog: To Tell The Truth

I can’t lie. It’s an odd compulsion that I’ve had all my life. When confronted with an opportunity to lie—or where a lie might be appropriate, such as when asked “Do you this new shade of lipstick?” by someone who looks like they landed lips first in a puddle of mud—I freeze like a deer in headlights. I know the truth would be a terrible thing to say and yet I can’t force an untruth past my lips. And so I just freeze. My sister recently tried to entice me in a game of “Cockroach Poker” (Kakerlakenpoker), in which lying is a key ingredient to the game. My first attempt at this game became the stuff of family legends: I became so flustered by trying to lie that I finally had to just ran out of the room to end my turn (my family found this all much more entertaining than the actual game). In my more fanciful moments, I imagine I was cursed in my infancy by an evil fairy, like Sleeping Beauty or Ella of Ella Enchanted. Modern science, on the other hands, posits that I might have a mild form of Asperger’s Syndrome or a deficiency in my “theory of mind.”

Blog: Spread the Word

Author Kelly Harmon had a really great blog post about gifts for writers. I disagreed a little with her on the “what not to give” list—I happen to love (and use) notebooks and journals—but all the other suggestions are excellent. Especially good were the marketing help suggestions—if you like someone’s work then spread the word. There are over 200,000 books published each year by traditional publishers and over 500,000 self-published. It can be difficult for any author or book to stand out in the crowd—the vast majority of books sell less than 1,000 copies.

Blog: The Business of Art

There comes a time in almost every writer’s life when he or she must choose: do I want to create art or do I want to sell books? Now I’m not saying that “artsy books” don’t sell or that popular, best-selling books are all crap. But there’s a reason why literary and commercial fiction are considered two separate categories. As one commentator sneered, in response to a recent article about a traditionally published author who took the leap into self-publishing after disappointing sales of her first attempt at literary fiction, “Of course she only sold 10,000 copies. It’s literary fiction.”

People (generally writers themselves) assign a lot of value judgment to the choice between art and business. Writers who crank out commercial fiction are derided by other writers as hacks (even though most of those cranking out the books are household names raking in the dough), while, at the same time, authors who write beautiful, masterful stories that no one will publish because they aren’t commercial enough are regarded as failures. It’s a Catch-22. The truth is, a lot of artistically masterful books are commercially unviable (meaning not that they won’t sell any copies, but they won’t sell enough copies). And publishing is, first and foremost, a business. And a lot of good books—and good authors—get passed over because of this.

Blog: The Doors of Perception

My grandmother always had a way with language, had, for as long as I could remember, described things in her own, fanciful way.

“I was walking the other day…” she would say.

“Really? You were walking?” my sister and I would tease her, knowing full well she hadn’t gotten out of her wheelchair for several years.

“Well, I was sitting, the nurse was pushing, but you know what I mean…” she’d say with a dismissive wave of her hand and that Cheshire grin of hers that indicated she thought she was being particularly funny or was having a laugh at someone’s expense.