Lisa Hall-Wilson's Blog, page 9

Readers Want More Than The Body Language Of Love — They Want The Why

Last week I visited Writers In The Storm and wrote about writing deep point of view using layers of emotions and I promised this week to share about writing love in deep point of view. If you missed last week’s post, make sure you check it out.

Let’s recap for a moment. A secondary emotion is our thinking response to primary (instinctive, unthinking) emotions. A secondary emotion could be triggered by one or a dozen primary emotions, and that blend will be unique for every character in ever...

Learn Deep Point of View Using Emotional Layers

Deep point of view lets your readers experience story through a virtual reality headset. Readers want to take an emotional journey alongside the main character in every scene. This style puts readers IN the story as much as possible.

To achieve this, writers have to avoid summarizing or telling how a character feels. Instead, writers have to present evidence to the reader about how the character feels. Not enough evidence and the reader is lost, too much and the reader is bored.

To do this,...

3 Ways To Ramp Up Setting And Description With Subtext

How do we use subtext to communicate setting and description?

Subtext is all about what’s not said. It’s about what’s implied, the innuendo and euphemism; it’s layered implication, it’s infused into facial expressions and tone of voice–it’s illusive. Subtext is about the underlying or secondary meanings we want to convey to readers.

I’ve had a few emails asking for help with setting. These tips help pull my readers deeper into the story every time.

What Forces Are At Work?

You must take into...

4 Ways To Create Unique Character Voice That Work For Any Novel

Creating unique character voice for your characters is essential for great fiction. Even classical writers like Tolkien writing in omniscient point of view were able to imbue their characters with enough uniqueness that you felt like they were an individual. Yes, precious. In writing styles like deep point of view where the writer needs to become invisible and let the character tell the story entirely, creating unique voices for each pov character can be challenging.

Before I turned to writi...

Buffy vs Bella: Why Your Characters Need To Be Proactive

Characters who make decisions that push the story forward are more engaging, more interesting, and more like-able than characters who are passive. This is a mistake I continue to make over and over. It doesn’t seem to matter how well I know this lesson, it still creeps into my writing.

Bella Swan Is Passive

Bella Swan from Twlight is a passive character in at least the first 1.5 books of that series. She decides to go to Forks to live with her father, and then the rest of the book is stuff ha...

3 Reasons Deep Point Of View Might Not Be Working For Your Story

When writing in deep point of view, even though this writing technique is visceral and delivers an emotional punch — sometimes it just doesn’t seem to be working. There’s no depth. Readers aren’t connecting with your characters. Assuming the story is well constructed and the characters well-conceived, does that mean Deep Point of View isn’t the right decision for your story?

Perhaps.

Maybe it means you have one of the problems below instead and just a simple tweak can turn a good story into...

4 Times You Shouldn’t Write In Deep Point Of View

Deep point of view is a popular writing technique and is recommended by editors and agents. The appeal of deep point of view is putting readers IN the action of the story — handing them a set of virtual reality goggles. Deep point of view is immersive, immediate, and emotionally compelling, but sometimes this style of storytelling won’t serve you well.

On The Nose Writing Slows The Pace

Strictly speaking, writing in deep point of view would have you describing in detail every step or action...

4 Point of View Breaks That Sneak In Even When You Know Better

Point of view errors break the fictive dream for readers. This is a problem in general, but in deep point of view where the aim is to create an immersive experience for a reader – this is equivalent of ripping off the virtual reality goggles without warning. A little jarring at best, enough to make you walk away from the story at worst.

What’s A POV Break?

You must remain in one character’s head at any given time unless you’re writing in omniscient pov. I don’t know of anyone writing in omni...

Writing Emotions In Layers – What Does It Look Like

On Tuesday, I did the first Deep Dive Live on Facebook where I geeked out over deep point of view. We talked about the body language of fear/excitement, shame, anger, and attraction and how to write them in deep point of view. A question came in during the live asking to see an example of what emotional layering looks like.

So, let’s back up the train a smidge and catch you up in case you haven’t seen the video.

Psychology tells us there are primary emotions and secondary emotions. Primary e...

How To Show Your Alpha Hero’s In Control Even When Writing In Deep Point Of View

There people who have dominant personalities. We might call them an alpha. They don’t have to be abusive, arrogant, angry, or dismissive. In fact, when you combine the positive traits of alpha males and females with generosity, humility, and a few others, a compelling character can emerge.

Dominant Characters In Deep Point Of View

When you’re limited to only what the point of view character can see, know, feel, hear, etc. it becomes really important to learn what dominant body language looks...