Lisa Hall-Wilson's Blog, page 13

How To Eliminate Distance In Deep POV

Deep POV is a dynamic, visceral, and immediate style of writing that aims to minimize the perceived distance between the reader and the point of view character (POVC). There are a number of stylistic choices an author makes to facilitate this. At the heart of Deep POV is an immersive experience for the reader through an emotional connection to the character.

Now, before I launch into this, let me begin by saying that eliminating distance is only one of the basic techniques of writing in Deep...

5 Ways Time Affects How We Write Emotions In Fiction

Time heals all wounds so the saying goes. Can’t say whether that’s a universal truth or not, but the passage of time does affect how we think about, talk about, and express emotions. When writing in Deep POV, writers are told not to name emotions:

She ran angrily.

He anxiously wrung his hands.

Now, naming emotions is usually considered telling and the preference is to show. Show Don’t Tell. However, the passage of time is one of the exceptions to the show don’t tell rule. When writing in Dee...

5 Tips On Writing A Trauma Backstory

Life is hard and as writers, we aren’t doing our jobs unless we make our character’s lives a living hell. Am I right? Good fiction isn’t borne out in the comfortable and easy living we might dream about, but in the tension and conflict between characters and/or their own desires.

Giving a character a backstory that includes trauma (part of their backstory at any rate, because no one wants to be defined by that one awful thing that happened or they witnessed) is a great device to create inner...

Cover Reveal: The Last Seers

So, I wrote another book! Sort of…

Last fall I published my debut novel The Watched. I released it as a serial on my blog here and it has been available online for free (or as free as I could make it). The plan had been to release the series as shorter novels (novellas, really), but I fell behind. I’ve had book 2 and 3 written for some time but never got them out.

In May, I won a national award for The Watched which was fantastic. I was not expecting that. Earlier that day, I walked away fro...

What Is Deep POV And Why Should You Learn It?

I LOVE Deep POV. Back in the early 2000’s, I noticed some of the novels I was reading were written in a style that felt new and fresh. I was immersed into story in a way I hadn’t been before, and I was a little addicted to the thrill of the adventure of reading again.

That’s when I began exploring what this technique was and how to write it well. What was only known as limited or close third POV then, further evolved into what we now call Deep POV. Whether writing in first or third person po...

8 Ways To Balance A Writing Career While Making Family A Priority

I have been a stay-at-home mom off and on for eighteen years. For the last twelve years, I’ve also been a writer.

I went from knowing nothing to having my own freelance business and being a national award-winning freelance journalist and author. One thing I had to learn was how to carve out time for my writing career while keeping my family a priority. You can, too.

I think “balance” isn’t the right concept. I don’t balance my priorities, I set priorities for short seasons.

For me, trying to...

Creating Strong Female Characters Your Readers Will Cheer For

How dynamic and authentic are the female characters in your fiction? How do you know whether they’re strong? Do they have what Chuck Wendig calls “agency” which is the power to influence the story? There are plenty of women in classical literature who were strong, but sometimes it’s hard to pick them out because they’re not strong by today’s contemporary standards.

Consider Jane Eyre. In her day, a woman did not wait to get married, and she certainly didn’t choose to be alone. When she was f...

Are You Writing Female Characters Who Are Too Stupid To Live?

Writing strong female characters has become this… thing recently among writerly types. Nobody wants to write a tired trope or cliched character, and yet they keep popping up. Fantasy is particularly bad, but historical and horror are only a couple of other genres guilty for it.

If your character is too stupid to live, it means they continue to make baffling decisions that force them or the people around them into otherwise impossible situations OR they are passive and bad stuff just keeps ha...

The Power of Touch in Fiction

Interpersonal touch is a huge part of any society regardless of time or culture. A pat on the back, a heavy grip, a shoulder knock, we touch ourselves and other people all the time, and are programmed to interpret all of these subtle nuanced touches by filtering them through social and relational context. Writers seem limited in their sensory repertoire of touch to how something feels, and that’s important, but there’s so much more to learn about sensory touch descriptions.

Let’s consider a...

4 Ways To Be Invisible with Deep POV

When writing in Deep POV, the author’s job is to be invisible. Readers want to immerse themselves in the story in real time, they want to take the journey with your characters and experience everything the character is going through. You need to eliminate distance to do this, in other words, become invisible.

What is Author Intrusion?

Author intrusion is when the author pauses the story or speaks to the reader through the text either through narration, backstory, explanation. Since we’re try...