Point of View

I meant to blog about this earlier in the week, but it didn't happen.  For one thing, our dishwasher decided to self-destruct.  Even I, as non-technologically minded as I am, know that billowing smoke from a dishwasher is a BAD thing. 

And, of course, this happened right after having neighbors over for dinner in an attempt to prove to ourselves that we are not, in fact, completely anti-social.

Anyway, there was substantial time and effort spent in purchasing a replacement for the burnt out appliance.  And trying to get rid of the smell. 

(Note to self:  buy more candles.)

I've been thinking a lot about point of view lately, mostly because I'm not sure what I want the POV to be in the novel I'm working on.  Right now it's in multiple, third person.  Should I change it to first person?  Single POV?  I just don't know.  So I've been thinking about it and looking at the books I'm reading to see what works and what doesn't. 

Most of the time when I'm reading, I don't pay too much attention to the POV unless it bothers me, like spending time in the head of a character that I don't care for.  Recently I read The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan.

This story is told in 3rd person from Nick's point of view.  I thought the author did a remarkable job of showing what everyone felt through Nick's eyes, often without Nick even understanding them.  Or even understanding what he himself was feeling.

Like the following:

Nick turned his gaze from the window to Alan.

"This is different," he said.  "This is you."

Alan looked terribly pleased for a moment, and Nick realized that his brother had taken this as one of the ridiculous, sappy things Alan was used to saying all the time.  Nick had only meant what he'd said.  It had never been his brother before.

It's pretty apparent, though, that Nick really does mean it the way that Alan interprets it, he just doesn't know it. 

I love the dynamics between the characters in the book, but it wouldn't have had nearly the impact if it hadn't been shown through Nick's VERY unique viewpoint instead of the other characters.  I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who might want to read it, so I won't say anything else about it.

But now the question is:  how do you know what POV is best?  Any suggestions? 

Emotional Involvement

I've decided that I shouldn't watch TV.  Not because I think it's mindless soul-sucking nonsense (although some of it is), but because I get so emotionally wrapped up in the show that I can't let it go when things don't go the way I want them to.

Like in Castle last night.  It was several minutes into the next show before I admitted that the episode was over and no one was coming back on to say that they were kidding.  And I wasn't too happy about that. 

It's like watching half of Pride and Prejudice and stopping there.  Or North and South, based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I know people who started it at 10 p.m., thinking it was a two hour movie, and they could not stop watching it until it ended at 2 a.m.  Even though they knew--eventually--that it would end well for the two people. 

(And, yes, North and South is my favorite movie, so if you haven't seen it and you like period pieces, go watch it.  You can even click on the image and go directly to Amazon and buy it.  Not that I'm biased or anything...)

So what is it that creates this sort of emotional involvement?  Why do we care so much about shows that we can't let them go even though we know they're over?  And what about books--what makes some books so easy to put down and walk away from and others impossible to put down until we've finished them?  What makes the difference?  Any ideas?

Do The Write Thing For Nashville

Some of you may have heard of the horrible flooding in Nashville.  Right now there is an auction going on to raise money to help out.

http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com/

Go check it out.  Just don't outbid me.

I'm kidding.  This is for charity--outbid me all you can.  It's for a good cause.

Retreating

Last weekend I went with some friends up to a pseudo-Swiss villa, complete with green rolling hills and goats to frolic with, for a writer's retreat.  A few of the other attendees (Nikki Mantyla, Brodi Ashton, and Chersti Nieveen) also blogged about it.  But since I arrived at the retreat late, I have to blog about it late too.  Or something.

Anyway...

I drove up there Friday morning and the drive included driving across some wetlands.  Where there were birds.  Now, I haven't gone bird watching officially since high school, which would disappoint my zoology teacher, I'm sure, but I still get excited about the pelicans swimming in a pond nearby or the red tailed hawks that often soar over our house.  And it's a terrible thing when I see something exciting while I'm driving.  Like a crane.

Or houses for sale.  Those distract me too.

In any case, I arrived in a very distracted mood.  I knocked at the door and it was opened...into utter silence.  Really.  Like the freaky should-I-run-out-screaming-now sort of silence.  Fortunately, one of the writer's broke the vow of silence to show me around the three story condo in a whisper.  It was like a tree house.  Really.  The main living room had vaulted ceilings that showed all the stairs leading up to the top floor.

I slept on the top floor.  In the party room.  I learned that when people tell you in hushed tones how late they stayed up the first night, to plan on staying up even later the second night because writer's, when given the choice, will sacrifice sleep to talk about books.  And, no, I'm not admitting how late we stayed up.  I told my husband when I got home and that's confession enough for me.

After my tour, I sat down to write.  We all wrote and wrote and wrote, mostly in that baby-is-sleeping silence (which wasn't terrifying when I was writing too), and occasionally chatted if someone was stuck on a part or if other's joined us.

At 4:30, we decided to take a break, go for a walk, and get ice cream.  Unfortunately, the ice cream shop closed at 4:00.  The lady in the gift shop felt sorry for us, so she gave us goat food instead to go feed the goats.  I'm still not sure how goat food made up for ice cream, but that's okay.  We wandered away from the gift shops and fed the goats.  And, yes, someone did greet them by saying, "Hello, David," even though David was an ibex and much bigger.  Just FYI.

That night, when I my brain completely shut down and refused to write another word, we watched The Young Victoria, which is a delightful period piece.  I'd seen it before, but I liked it even better the second time.  And then we stayed up way too late giggling about belly-buttons (watch the deleted scenes) and talking about--what else?--books.

The next day involved frantic writing by most of us.  Two of the writer's, though, tried to convince the rest of us to get ice cream again.  We stared at them like they were crazy.  Why would we choose ice cream over writing???

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and probably the best Mother's Day present ever, thanks to my husband and my own mother who watched my kids so I could go.

How was your weekend?

Conflict for First Graders

I went in to my son's first grade class today to teach them about writing.  First off, I told them we would talk about three important parts of a story and asked if they had any idea what those things might be.

"Put a period at the end of a sentence!"

"Put an upper case letter at the beginning of the story!"

Um, yes.  Very good answers.  Those are very, very important.  And moving on before I say very again . . .

The three things I was thinking of were plot, setting, and characters.  We talked the most about characters and how characters have to want things.  Take, for instance, Luke Skywalker.  What does he want?  He wants to be a Jedi Knight and to have peace in the empire, which means no more Emperor Palpatine. 

The story gets more interesting to us because we know that Emperor Palpatine isn't about to step down and walk away from dominating everyone in the galaxy because Luke asks him to.  No, no, he wants to keep his power and is willing to do just about anything to stay in charge. 

This creates conflict. 

It also created conflict when I wanted them to listen as I talked more about writing stories and they wanted to keep talking about Star Wars.  Sigh.  There was a reason I didn't become a first grade teacher. 

Bad Ends for Bad Boys

Many, many years ago I had a crush on a boy.  We were in sixth grade and he was beginning to earn his bad boy status, which only made him more attractive to me, a good girl.  I knew he would never notice me, but privately I yearned for him to like me back. 

He never did.  I went on being a good girl and he went on being a bad boy.

And then I ran into him last week.  I took a friend of mine out for ice cream to celebrate her graduation from BYU.  This old crush of mine stood behind the counter, serving the ice cream. 

Uh...

Talk about disillusioning. 

It's much nicer to remember an old crush nostalgically as the bad boy who (thankfully) never liked me back, not as the thirty-something ice cream server. 

Has this ever happened to any of you?  Running into an old flame in an awkward place or situation?  Or am I the only one that things like this happen to?