In a writer’s workshop I took this past January, the workshop leader took the time to talk about the strong need for diverse characters in our writing. It was slightly surreal, as the leader and every single participant was a white woman. Still, it was hardly the first time I’d heard this plea. #WeNeedDiverseBooks is a very common hashtag among publishing professionals on Twitter.
Does it follow, though, that stories starring diverse characters need to be written by diverse writers? Should they? Can a white writer authentically write a story with a black protagonist? If not, are we also saying that black writers should not write stories with white characters? Can “color-blind casting,” which is exploding on television these days, be adapted for a written narrative?
J.K. Rowling’s recent experience doesn’t bode well for warm acceptance of white writers writing about cultures not their own. Native American communities were infuriated when her recent history of magic in North America, written as a run-up to the debut of the Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them movie, touched on certain tropes and beliefs about Native Americans. What does a white woman from the U.K. know about the Cherokees and Navajos?
I’m not writing this to defend Rowling – I haven’t read the stories and don’t know enough about Native American cultures to even form an opinion. But I’ve cherished the Harry Potter books, and Jo’s interactions with fans and her charitable giving. I can only imagine how horrified she must feel, being accused of appropriating someone else’s culture. Getting it wrong.
I am a white woman – a wife and mother – and in every book I’ve written so far, my first-person protagonist is the same. True, one of them was also a half-vampire, but I didn’t get a lot of emails from half-vampires complaining I’d gotten it wrong. However, I did get one review that mentioned her Hispanic co-worker, Vic Ramirez, was Hispanic in name only.
In that writer’s workshop in January, I presented the first 25 pages of a YA novel I’m working on, featuring a morbidly obese teenager who decides to have gastric bypass surgery. I’ve had my issues with weight, but I’ve never been nearly that heavy. I’ve done research, and had a live-in nanny who had the procedure, but still, I have no personal experience with being that weight. So as much as I love my story and my protagonist, I still feel that I don’t have the right to write it. (Reading this blog post reinforced that feeling. ) I feel panicky at the thought of querying agents or publishers, imagining a similar reaction. Who are you to write about this girl? More broadly, do I have the right to write from the perspective of a bi-racial teen, or a black woman, or an Asian man – of anyone whose experience of the world is fundamentally different from mine? I can make up plots and whole universes, but do I have the right to make up people?
And if the answer is no, then are we saying that at obese person shouldn’t write from the point of view of characters who don’t struggle with their weight? That a black man shouldn’t attempt to write a story about a white woman? That a gay man should only write about gay men? Of course not. How much smaller our literary world would be if we only accepted stories in which a protagonist mirrored her creator.
And yet … some of the most well-known books about characters from minority populations are written by writers from those populations.
I don’t have any answers. Just lots of questions.
I honestly don’t know if I’m going to finish my story about my obese teenager. As much as I love her, the writing is tough, and there are other ideas that come easier. One of them is about a white wife and mother.
Are you writing a story in which your protagonist differs from you in a major way? How did you build her world, being different than yours?
Monday, March 14, 2016
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Thank You for Saying No
Everyone who works in Hollywood knows that no one ever says “no.” If an agent, manager or producer asks for your script but doesn’t like it, he rarely tells you outright. He’ll simply stop returning your calls or emails, or tell you it’s with his partner, or out to an actor, or they’re waiting to hear back from … someone. The conventional wisdom behind this is that no one wants to burn bridges. Your next script may be fantastic, the thinking goes, and therefore the agent/manager/producer doesn’t want to insult you by actively turning down this one. Apparently you’ll be so grateful at having been given the run-around that he’ll be the first person you’ll turn to with your next gem. (And yes, my use of “he” is deliberate.)
That’s how you can “die of encouragement” in Hollywood.
Thankfully, New York, where the literary agents live, plays by different rules. And I’d like to take this opportunity for a shout out for everyone there who has given me an unequivocal, no-doubt-about-it no:
To the agents who post on their websites that “if you don’t hear back from us after 6-8 weeks, it’s a pass:” Thank you for giving us a timeline and holding yourself accountable. A soft “no” is easier to hear than a hard “no,” and your timeline tells us exactly when we might hear from you, and when we know the material’s not right for you.
To the agents who reply “no” to a query: Instructions on a web site are enough. That you took the time to send a personal email to let me know that you read my query and pages, and they aren’t what you’re looking for, is very much appreciated. Yes, I can tell it’s canned language, but so what? I don’t have to wait eight weeks or wonder if the email got lost in spam or somehow overlooked.
To the agents who requested a partial and then sent the standard “pass” email: Thank you for letting me know where I stand with you. Yes, it’s disappointing that you were intrigued by my query but did not find the story or writing to be what you were looking for. Now I know it might be time for a rewrite, and to keep looking. You didn’t keep me hanging or wondering. Thank you.
To the agents who requested a partial and then sent a personalized “pass” email: Thank you so much for taking the time to craft a personal reply, letting me know exactly why the story didn’t work for you. I’m am so grateful you did this, even though you only looked at 50 pages or three chapters. I might not agree with all of your points, but I really appreciate that you reached out to give me your opinion. And some of your notes were absolutely spot on! I know you’re professional and thoughtful, and hope to have the chance to work with you someday.
To the agents who requested a full and then sent the standard “pass” email: Thank you for letting me know where I stand with you. Yes, it’s disappointing that you were intrigued by my query but did not find the story or writing to be what you were looking for. Now I know it’s time for a rewrite, and to keep looking. You didn’t keep me hanging or wondering. Thank you.
To the agents who requested a full and then sent a personalized “pass” email: Thank you so much for taking the time to craft a personal reply, letting me know exactly why the story didn’t work for you. I’m sad that you didn’t do this as an R&R letter, but honestly, if I agree with your notes, I’ll be doing a rewrite and querying you again anyway! Hope springs eternal, and your professionalism and thoughtfulness make me very eager to work with you. I’ll keep trying!
To the agent who requested a full, rejected it, and then read and rejected the rewrite: I thanked you personally, but I will do it again here: You were under no obligation to read it again after sending the standard pass. I am so grateful that you chose to read it anyway, and let me know that it still was not the right book for you. I envy those writers who have you as their representative! I still hope that someday we can work together.
To be honest, rejection hurts me just as much as any other writer. But what writer hasn’t received rejection after rejection? All of my literary heroes have stories of rejection letters tacked on walls or hidden in shoe boxes underneath their beds. Hard work and perseverance are just as important as talent in this business.
What these rejections tell me is that these agents see me as a professional. By sending along that “no,” they treat me as a mature, level-headed person trying to build a career in the publishing business. That unequivocal no means I am someone who is thick-skinned enough that she can take rejection, hear criticism, and keep writing and rewriting.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for that message.
That’s how you can “die of encouragement” in Hollywood.
Thankfully, New York, where the literary agents live, plays by different rules. And I’d like to take this opportunity for a shout out for everyone there who has given me an unequivocal, no-doubt-about-it no:
To the agents who post on their websites that “if you don’t hear back from us after 6-8 weeks, it’s a pass:” Thank you for giving us a timeline and holding yourself accountable. A soft “no” is easier to hear than a hard “no,” and your timeline tells us exactly when we might hear from you, and when we know the material’s not right for you.
To the agents who reply “no” to a query: Instructions on a web site are enough. That you took the time to send a personal email to let me know that you read my query and pages, and they aren’t what you’re looking for, is very much appreciated. Yes, I can tell it’s canned language, but so what? I don’t have to wait eight weeks or wonder if the email got lost in spam or somehow overlooked.
To the agents who requested a partial and then sent the standard “pass” email: Thank you for letting me know where I stand with you. Yes, it’s disappointing that you were intrigued by my query but did not find the story or writing to be what you were looking for. Now I know it might be time for a rewrite, and to keep looking. You didn’t keep me hanging or wondering. Thank you.
To the agents who requested a partial and then sent a personalized “pass” email: Thank you so much for taking the time to craft a personal reply, letting me know exactly why the story didn’t work for you. I’m am so grateful you did this, even though you only looked at 50 pages or three chapters. I might not agree with all of your points, but I really appreciate that you reached out to give me your opinion. And some of your notes were absolutely spot on! I know you’re professional and thoughtful, and hope to have the chance to work with you someday.
To the agents who requested a full and then sent the standard “pass” email: Thank you for letting me know where I stand with you. Yes, it’s disappointing that you were intrigued by my query but did not find the story or writing to be what you were looking for. Now I know it’s time for a rewrite, and to keep looking. You didn’t keep me hanging or wondering. Thank you.
To the agents who requested a full and then sent a personalized “pass” email: Thank you so much for taking the time to craft a personal reply, letting me know exactly why the story didn’t work for you. I’m sad that you didn’t do this as an R&R letter, but honestly, if I agree with your notes, I’ll be doing a rewrite and querying you again anyway! Hope springs eternal, and your professionalism and thoughtfulness make me very eager to work with you. I’ll keep trying!
To the agent who requested a full, rejected it, and then read and rejected the rewrite: I thanked you personally, but I will do it again here: You were under no obligation to read it again after sending the standard pass. I am so grateful that you chose to read it anyway, and let me know that it still was not the right book for you. I envy those writers who have you as their representative! I still hope that someday we can work together.
To be honest, rejection hurts me just as much as any other writer. But what writer hasn’t received rejection after rejection? All of my literary heroes have stories of rejection letters tacked on walls or hidden in shoe boxes underneath their beds. Hard work and perseverance are just as important as talent in this business.
What these rejections tell me is that these agents see me as a professional. By sending along that “no,” they treat me as a mature, level-headed person trying to build a career in the publishing business. That unequivocal no means I am someone who is thick-skinned enough that she can take rejection, hear criticism, and keep writing and rewriting.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for that message.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Self-Publishing versus Indie – One Author’s Story
One of the wonderful things about being a writer in 2016 is that being rejected by every agent and traditional publisher on the planet doesn’t necessarily mean shoving your novel into a drawer where it will one day be discovered by a great-grandchild after your death. (Although sometimes this is exactly where that manuscript belongs!) Thanks to the internet and Amazon revolutions, for the past few years, writers have had the choice to self-publish. And with several self-published writers going on to make big names for themselves (Hugh Howery), and well-known writers opting out of their traditional-publisher contracts to get their work directly to their readers, self-publishing no longer has the stigma that it did in the days of the vanity press. At the same time, independent publishing has also exploded. With the ease of print-on-demand and ebooks, many small companies – some run by self-published authors – have sprung up to take the editing, design, and marketing aspects out of the hands of authors whose stories aren’t big enough to attract traditional publishers, but don’t want all the hassles that come with self-publishing.
So if you’ve exhausted all traditional publication outlets but aren’t willing to let your book baby go unborn, what option is best for you? I currently have two books out: Keeping Score, and The Ties that Bleed. I self-published Keeping Score, which led me to publish The Ties that Bleed through an indie. I found out that there are just as many cons to indie publishing as self-publishing. I learned, basically, that the old adage is true: If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Yes, I was grateful that I had someone else design the book cover and prepare the text for formatting. However, the book designer was limited to creating covers that matched others that the publisher had released, and to certain stock photography. The resulting cover was nice, but not what I originally had in mind.
The publisher had me work with an editor, who went over a few logic points with me (such as, the room is too dark for her to see his face so clearly) and stressed that the publisher hated em dashes. She and I went over the manuscript several times, at which point it went to the typesetter. I made the mistake of assuming someone at the publisher would go over the formatting as carefully as the editor had. Wrong! The book was released with typesetting errors such as smart quotes being used interchangeably with straight quotes, paragraphs not being indented, and random italics. (I was never given the option of okaying a proof.) The reviewers I sent the book to, and people who’d bought it through Amazon, pounced all over these errors. It was humiliating.
I had had two different indie publishers vying for the book, and I chose the one that had been in business for several years and had a strong output. Their authors seem very loyal and excited to be part of the publisher’s family. However, that does mean that each individual book only gets a brief moment of attention from the publisher before the next one hits the presses. Perhaps a smaller one would have been more supportive.
Secondly, I had no input as to pricing or sales decisions. My book is only 200 pages long, yet the ebook is $5.99. I’m a voracious Kindle reader, but I rarely if ever download a book that is more than four dollars, and that’s only if it’s a famous author and a book I’ve been looking forward to. Otherwise, I’ll reserve it at the library or wait for it to go on sale. Who’s going to spend that much money on a book from an author she’s never heard of? Very few people.
Sales are at the heart of ebook marketing, yet I never heard back from any of my emails suggesting a sale, especially around Halloween. Occasionally the publisher announces that all books will be briefly discounted for a very short amount of time, but this comes way too quickly to take advantage of the book-sale newsletters that self-published authors use to get the word out on their books.
The admittedly unscientific result: While I have 56 reviews of KEEPING SCORE on Amazon (most written in the first few months after I published it), I only have 11 for THE TIES THAT BLEED.
I have the next four books in the TIES series planned out, but with paltry sales and few reviews (although most everyone who reviewed it asked for a sequel), it doesn’t look like writing the next one is worth my while. Yet most self- and indie- publishing experts agree that a series helps keep sales of all books high.
Obviously this is just my experience, and I know that many authors who published with this company are very happy. And they were very responsive about getting my book to CreateSpace and issues that cropped up later with the back cover. They allowed me to purchase print copies of the book at their price. Royalties are paid promptly. But my thinking that almost any publisher was better than going on my own – and that a strong, professional contract mean professionalism in every capacity – was obviously wrong.
My third book may end up in that drawer, after all.
So if you’ve exhausted all traditional publication outlets but aren’t willing to let your book baby go unborn, what option is best for you? I currently have two books out: Keeping Score, and The Ties that Bleed. I self-published Keeping Score, which led me to publish The Ties that Bleed through an indie. I found out that there are just as many cons to indie publishing as self-publishing. I learned, basically, that the old adage is true: If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Yes, I was grateful that I had someone else design the book cover and prepare the text for formatting. However, the book designer was limited to creating covers that matched others that the publisher had released, and to certain stock photography. The resulting cover was nice, but not what I originally had in mind.
The publisher had me work with an editor, who went over a few logic points with me (such as, the room is too dark for her to see his face so clearly) and stressed that the publisher hated em dashes. She and I went over the manuscript several times, at which point it went to the typesetter. I made the mistake of assuming someone at the publisher would go over the formatting as carefully as the editor had. Wrong! The book was released with typesetting errors such as smart quotes being used interchangeably with straight quotes, paragraphs not being indented, and random italics. (I was never given the option of okaying a proof.) The reviewers I sent the book to, and people who’d bought it through Amazon, pounced all over these errors. It was humiliating.
I had had two different indie publishers vying for the book, and I chose the one that had been in business for several years and had a strong output. Their authors seem very loyal and excited to be part of the publisher’s family. However, that does mean that each individual book only gets a brief moment of attention from the publisher before the next one hits the presses. Perhaps a smaller one would have been more supportive.
Secondly, I had no input as to pricing or sales decisions. My book is only 200 pages long, yet the ebook is $5.99. I’m a voracious Kindle reader, but I rarely if ever download a book that is more than four dollars, and that’s only if it’s a famous author and a book I’ve been looking forward to. Otherwise, I’ll reserve it at the library or wait for it to go on sale. Who’s going to spend that much money on a book from an author she’s never heard of? Very few people.
Sales are at the heart of ebook marketing, yet I never heard back from any of my emails suggesting a sale, especially around Halloween. Occasionally the publisher announces that all books will be briefly discounted for a very short amount of time, but this comes way too quickly to take advantage of the book-sale newsletters that self-published authors use to get the word out on their books.
The admittedly unscientific result: While I have 56 reviews of KEEPING SCORE on Amazon (most written in the first few months after I published it), I only have 11 for THE TIES THAT BLEED.
I have the next four books in the TIES series planned out, but with paltry sales and few reviews (although most everyone who reviewed it asked for a sequel), it doesn’t look like writing the next one is worth my while. Yet most self- and indie- publishing experts agree that a series helps keep sales of all books high.
Obviously this is just my experience, and I know that many authors who published with this company are very happy. And they were very responsive about getting my book to CreateSpace and issues that cropped up later with the back cover. They allowed me to purchase print copies of the book at their price. Royalties are paid promptly. But my thinking that almost any publisher was better than going on my own – and that a strong, professional contract mean professionalism in every capacity – was obviously wrong.
My third book may end up in that drawer, after all.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Happy Release Day, My Funny Valentine!
When my friend Caroline Fardig told me that Bad Medicine was going to be the last book in her Lizzie Hart series, I was disappointed. Yes, she had wrapped up the Lizzie/Blake storyline nicely and was moving onto other projects. But Lizzie is funny and brave and relatable, and I was going to miss her. Thankfully, Caroline changed her mind! Lizzie and Blake are back in a funny novella just in time for Valentine’s Day!
My Funny Valentine
The Lizzie Hart Mysteries Series #4
Caroline Fardig
All Lizzie wants for Valentine’s Day is for her fiancé
NOT to be the prime suspect in a murder investigation.
Is that too much to ask?
Lizzie Hart is finally living the dream. She’s engaged to the love of her life, Blake Morgan, and more importantly, she hasn’t even given a thought to dead bodies or murder investigations for an entire year. The only hurdle in Lizzie and Blake’s way to wedded bliss is introducing their polar opposite families to each other at their engagement party.
Blake’s parents have thrown a lavish shindig, but the fun is quickly over when Blake’s brother arrives with an unexpected guest, the woman who left Blake at the altar years ago. If that weren’t enough drama for one evening, Lizzie and Blake find the town mayor dead and the detectives on the case put Blake at the top of their suspect list.
It’s a race against the clock for Lizzie and Blake to find the real killer before the police decide to lock Blake up and throw away the key.
This sounds awesome! Buy it here!
Learn everything you need to know about Caroline and all her books by checking out her Amazon page:
Congratulations, Caroline!
The Lizzie Hart Mysteries Series #4
Caroline Fardig
All Lizzie wants for Valentine’s Day is for her fiancé
NOT to be the prime suspect in a murder investigation.
Is that too much to ask?
Lizzie Hart is finally living the dream. She’s engaged to the love of her life, Blake Morgan, and more importantly, she hasn’t even given a thought to dead bodies or murder investigations for an entire year. The only hurdle in Lizzie and Blake’s way to wedded bliss is introducing their polar opposite families to each other at their engagement party.
Blake’s parents have thrown a lavish shindig, but the fun is quickly over when Blake’s brother arrives with an unexpected guest, the woman who left Blake at the altar years ago. If that weren’t enough drama for one evening, Lizzie and Blake find the town mayor dead and the detectives on the case put Blake at the top of their suspect list.
It’s a race against the clock for Lizzie and Blake to find the real killer before the police decide to lock Blake up and throw away the key.
This sounds awesome! Buy it here!
Learn everything you need to know about Caroline and all her books by checking out her Amazon page:
Congratulations, Caroline!
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
The Necessity of No
Uberproducer (and my personal hero; probably yours, too) Shonda Rhimes has a new book out – The Year of Yes. It’s garnered great reviews and hit the New York Times bestseller list. I haven’t read it yet – it’s on my TBR list, of course! – but in it, Shonda talks about how she changed her life when she started saying yes to things she usually said no to. Delivering Ted talks. Going on talk shows. Eating healthy. Etc.
From where I’m sitting, life looks pretty good when you’re asked to deliver TED talks or go on Jimmy Kimmel, but Shonda – despite creating and producing some of the best TV shows evah! – said she was depressed. I wholeheartedly agree, though, that when you want to do something but you’re too afraid to do it, that’s not a fun situation to be in.
Unfortunately, though, most of us aren’t turning down invitations to address our alma mater’s graduating class. Most of us are getting invitations to volunteer for our child’s PTA, take on administrative duties at our offices (which are not related to our position, nor come with extra cash), walk our neighbor’s dog, or stuff envelopes for a friend’s charity. And we – usually begrudgingly – end up saying yes.
Most women I know have busy lives and big goals. They are raising families, pursuing careers, trying to get to the gym on a regular basis, wanting more time with close friends, and perhaps even pursuing a dream – writing, painting, singing. In order to accomplish the big things they’re up to in their lives, they simply don’t have time to make cupcakes for the school bake sale, drive a hundred miles for a second cousin’s first birthday party, and spearhead the office toy drive. Yet women are constantly asked to do all these tasks and more, and often say yes because of societal pressure to be nice and personal feelings of obligation.
But sometimes you just have to say no.
Not to everything, of course. If that second cousin’s mother is a dear family member whom you miss seeing, take the time and make the drive. (Or go up a day when she’s not so busy with the party and other guests.) But too many of us are spending valuable time on activities that do nothing to forward our personal and professional goals. Then at the end of the week, the month, the year, we wonder why we never wrote that book, took that weekend getaway with our college roommate, or got through the Oz series of books with our first grader.
Know your personal goals. Know your professional goals. Then say no to activities that don’t forward either. For instance, if one of your goals is to spend more time with dear friends, then don’t join that new meet-up group. Use that time instead to have coffee with a good friend you haven’t seen in a while.
A close cousin to saying no is the “yes, but.” Say yes to invitations that sound interesting, but set boundaries right away. Yes, you’ll meet your friend’s niece to give career advice, but only if she comes to your office. Yes, you’ll help your nephew fundraise for his sports team, but only through sending a few emails.
One word of caution, though – when you start saying no and setting limits, you’re bound to piss off a few people who have counted on your easy-going nature. Don’t let yourself get bullied or made to feel bad. Stick to your guns. What’s worse than saying a firm no or setting boundaries is to say a begrudging yes, and then do a poor job or cancel at the last minute. We all have people like that in our lives, and they contribute to our feeling overwhelmed.
In a similar vein, I have decided to cut down posting on my blog from almost every week to once or twice a month. With over three years of posting, and almost a hundred and fifty posts, I’m just not getting the return I need to make more frequent postings worthwhile. I’ll reconsider if things change.
This will give me more time to do other things, including reading Shonda Rhimes’ latest, The Year of Yes.
From where I’m sitting, life looks pretty good when you’re asked to deliver TED talks or go on Jimmy Kimmel, but Shonda – despite creating and producing some of the best TV shows evah! – said she was depressed. I wholeheartedly agree, though, that when you want to do something but you’re too afraid to do it, that’s not a fun situation to be in.
Unfortunately, though, most of us aren’t turning down invitations to address our alma mater’s graduating class. Most of us are getting invitations to volunteer for our child’s PTA, take on administrative duties at our offices (which are not related to our position, nor come with extra cash), walk our neighbor’s dog, or stuff envelopes for a friend’s charity. And we – usually begrudgingly – end up saying yes.
Most women I know have busy lives and big goals. They are raising families, pursuing careers, trying to get to the gym on a regular basis, wanting more time with close friends, and perhaps even pursuing a dream – writing, painting, singing. In order to accomplish the big things they’re up to in their lives, they simply don’t have time to make cupcakes for the school bake sale, drive a hundred miles for a second cousin’s first birthday party, and spearhead the office toy drive. Yet women are constantly asked to do all these tasks and more, and often say yes because of societal pressure to be nice and personal feelings of obligation.
But sometimes you just have to say no.
Not to everything, of course. If that second cousin’s mother is a dear family member whom you miss seeing, take the time and make the drive. (Or go up a day when she’s not so busy with the party and other guests.) But too many of us are spending valuable time on activities that do nothing to forward our personal and professional goals. Then at the end of the week, the month, the year, we wonder why we never wrote that book, took that weekend getaway with our college roommate, or got through the Oz series of books with our first grader.
Know your personal goals. Know your professional goals. Then say no to activities that don’t forward either. For instance, if one of your goals is to spend more time with dear friends, then don’t join that new meet-up group. Use that time instead to have coffee with a good friend you haven’t seen in a while.
A close cousin to saying no is the “yes, but.” Say yes to invitations that sound interesting, but set boundaries right away. Yes, you’ll meet your friend’s niece to give career advice, but only if she comes to your office. Yes, you’ll help your nephew fundraise for his sports team, but only through sending a few emails.
One word of caution, though – when you start saying no and setting limits, you’re bound to piss off a few people who have counted on your easy-going nature. Don’t let yourself get bullied or made to feel bad. Stick to your guns. What’s worse than saying a firm no or setting boundaries is to say a begrudging yes, and then do a poor job or cancel at the last minute. We all have people like that in our lives, and they contribute to our feeling overwhelmed.
In a similar vein, I have decided to cut down posting on my blog from almost every week to once or twice a month. With over three years of posting, and almost a hundred and fifty posts, I’m just not getting the return I need to make more frequent postings worthwhile. I’ll reconsider if things change.
This will give me more time to do other things, including reading Shonda Rhimes’ latest, The Year of Yes.
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Are the rules of POV changing?
The rules about point-of-view are handed down from old writers to new ones much in the way parents teach their children to play catch or ride a bike. To sum:
First person, or “I” – the narrator is the main character and knows only what she sees or has been told.
Second person, or “you” – usually only seen in “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.
Third person, or “she” – The narrator knows all, but limits point of view to a few main characters to keep things from getting confusing. Almost always, these characters and their points of view are introduced in the beginning quarter of the book, so the reader knows whose story it is.
These rules are pretty much sacrosanct, and to violate them means incurring the wrath of anyone who has ever taken a creative writing course.
This past week, however, I read two traditionally published books that ignored the rules. The first, Sophie Hannah’s The Monogram Murders, is a mystery starring Agatha Christie’s most famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. But Poirot is not the narrator – the book is told in first person from the point of view of Detective Catchpool, a hapless detective from Scotland Yard who pretty much needs Poirot to tell him how to tie his shoes. This is odd because Catchpool must have ESP, as he describes many scenes in which he is not present. Poirot will be having a detailed conversation with a witness, and several paragraphs or pages later, Catchpool will join him at the coffee shop or mention he’s someplace else entirely. Monogram has received mixed reviews, but a lot of fanfare since it’s an authorized Poirot tale told by a famous mystery writer using Christie’s style. Nevertheless, Christie was well versed with the rules of POV, which she exploited to great effect with her debut mystery, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
My library finally coughed up a copy of Jojo Moyes’ After You, the sequel to her blockbuster Me Before You. Moyes is a very talented writer who has used first person, third person, and multiple narrative threads in her earlier novels, but this book is the first time I have seen her break a rule. After You is Louisa’s first person account, and in most of the book she’s preoccupied with a teenage girl named Lily. In the last third of the novel, Lily goes missing, and Moyes jettisons her narrative structure of first person, past tense to spend several pages in Lily’s third person, present tense world. Once this plot twist is resolved, Moyes returns to Louisa’s first person point of view.
It’s been said that a writer has to know the rules in order to break the rules, but I found these rule-breakings jarring. In both cases, they pulled me completely out of the story and left me mumbling about “whose story is it anyway.”
But perhaps I’m being an old stick-in-the-mud. Are writers, editors and publishers becoming more lenient about the rules around point of view? Should I expect to read more examples like the two above? Or did I just happen to catch two exceptions to rules that are still alive, well and kicking?
First person, or “I” – the narrator is the main character and knows only what she sees or has been told.
Second person, or “you” – usually only seen in “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.
Third person, or “she” – The narrator knows all, but limits point of view to a few main characters to keep things from getting confusing. Almost always, these characters and their points of view are introduced in the beginning quarter of the book, so the reader knows whose story it is.
These rules are pretty much sacrosanct, and to violate them means incurring the wrath of anyone who has ever taken a creative writing course.
This past week, however, I read two traditionally published books that ignored the rules. The first, Sophie Hannah’s The Monogram Murders, is a mystery starring Agatha Christie’s most famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. But Poirot is not the narrator – the book is told in first person from the point of view of Detective Catchpool, a hapless detective from Scotland Yard who pretty much needs Poirot to tell him how to tie his shoes. This is odd because Catchpool must have ESP, as he describes many scenes in which he is not present. Poirot will be having a detailed conversation with a witness, and several paragraphs or pages later, Catchpool will join him at the coffee shop or mention he’s someplace else entirely. Monogram has received mixed reviews, but a lot of fanfare since it’s an authorized Poirot tale told by a famous mystery writer using Christie’s style. Nevertheless, Christie was well versed with the rules of POV, which she exploited to great effect with her debut mystery, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
My library finally coughed up a copy of Jojo Moyes’ After You, the sequel to her blockbuster Me Before You. Moyes is a very talented writer who has used first person, third person, and multiple narrative threads in her earlier novels, but this book is the first time I have seen her break a rule. After You is Louisa’s first person account, and in most of the book she’s preoccupied with a teenage girl named Lily. In the last third of the novel, Lily goes missing, and Moyes jettisons her narrative structure of first person, past tense to spend several pages in Lily’s third person, present tense world. Once this plot twist is resolved, Moyes returns to Louisa’s first person point of view.
It’s been said that a writer has to know the rules in order to break the rules, but I found these rule-breakings jarring. In both cases, they pulled me completely out of the story and left me mumbling about “whose story is it anyway.”
But perhaps I’m being an old stick-in-the-mud. Are writers, editors and publishers becoming more lenient about the rules around point of view? Should I expect to read more examples like the two above? Or did I just happen to catch two exceptions to rules that are still alive, well and kicking?
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Best Twist Ever!
Thanks to Deb for coming up with another great idea for a blog hop! These hops are more than just an entertaining way to recognize our favorite stories. As writers, dissecting twists, endings, beginnings, etc., helps us come up with ideas to make our own projects stand out.
Before I get to my choice, I want to talk about what makes a twist work. They are completely surprising, yet supported by everything that has come before. They make readers/viewers feel like they should have seen it coming. They can be summed up in one simple sentence. When they happen in the middle of a book or TV series, they take the show into a completely different direction, but one that works with what’s happened before.
Most good twists center around the protagonist’s identity. (In fact, there’s a whole movie about that very question that Kerrie so aptly described yesterday. The protagonist doesn’t know something important about him/herself, and the twist is the discovery. This includes such biggies as Luke finding out he’s really Darth Vader’s son, Harry learning he’s a wizard (although it happens so early in the series, is this really a twist?), Malcolm Crowe discovering he’s dead, and the entire cast of St. Elsewhere living in some kid’s head.
The Empire Strikes Back was the first time I was exposed to this twist, but is it the best? I would say not, because the clues were just not there. George Lucas could have thrown a few tidbits during Star Wars and the first three quarters of Empire. I have a feeling he didn’t because he didn’t know himself that Darth was Luke’s father. And then he just went nuts, with Leia and Luke being twins and all the head-scratching stuff that happened in the prequels. Thank goodness J.J. Abrams is in charge of the new movie.
The Sixth Sense contains the most well-known twist, and it’s one of the most well-done. All the clues are there that Malcolm is dead – the most obvious one being the desk he works on in his drafty, creepy old basement, surrounded by mementoes on the floor. I have to admit I didn’t get this one – I had heard there was a big twist, and I was convinced that somehow Cole and the crazy guy who killed Malcolm would have some kind of genetic connection. So I was concentrating on that, and missing the obvious fact that the kid who could see dead people was the only person addressing Malcolm directly.
I’ve gotten much better since then. Shutter Island? Called it.
My entry for this blog hop is the much discussed, much debated 2000 Christopher Nolan film, Memento. To jog your memory, Guy Pearce plays Leonard, a man who developed short-term amnesia in an attack that left his wife dead. The police say they caught the guy who did it, but Leonard believes he had an accomplice (the police do not), so he’s going after that guy himself in order to kill him. Leonard writes clues in his body since he can’t remember anything for longer than 15 minutes. As such, the film itself runs backwards, with the next scene happening chronologically before the scene it follows. It was confusing, and I saw several people walk out of the theatre in the movie’s first half hour.
Because of this format, just about every scene contains a twist, and also enough clues that hint at the movie’s resolution. The two most shocking twists came at the end. One, Leonard’s wife did not die in the attack that left Leonard brain-damaged. Rather, Leonard himself killed her by accidentally giving his diabetic wife insulin twice. It was a test, because she didn’t think he really had amnesia. Leonard passed the test and his wife died as a result. The second huge twist is that Leonard had already killed one man he blamed for her death. After that death, he deliberately hid those clues from himself so he could start a new game of find the killer.
With the viewer being completely in Leonard’s point of view, both these twists were stunning (although the diabetes clue had been dropped near the beginning). Yet they follow the rule of identity being the linchpin of the twist.
AMBI Pictures recently announced that it will be remaking the film, so perhaps a new version might be a little clearer. (There’s also a DVD available that runs the action in chronological order.)
Please tune in tomorrow, when Deb finishes it up for us!
Before I get to my choice, I want to talk about what makes a twist work. They are completely surprising, yet supported by everything that has come before. They make readers/viewers feel like they should have seen it coming. They can be summed up in one simple sentence. When they happen in the middle of a book or TV series, they take the show into a completely different direction, but one that works with what’s happened before.
Most good twists center around the protagonist’s identity. (In fact, there’s a whole movie about that very question that Kerrie so aptly described yesterday. The protagonist doesn’t know something important about him/herself, and the twist is the discovery. This includes such biggies as Luke finding out he’s really Darth Vader’s son, Harry learning he’s a wizard (although it happens so early in the series, is this really a twist?), Malcolm Crowe discovering he’s dead, and the entire cast of St. Elsewhere living in some kid’s head.
The Empire Strikes Back was the first time I was exposed to this twist, but is it the best? I would say not, because the clues were just not there. George Lucas could have thrown a few tidbits during Star Wars and the first three quarters of Empire. I have a feeling he didn’t because he didn’t know himself that Darth was Luke’s father. And then he just went nuts, with Leia and Luke being twins and all the head-scratching stuff that happened in the prequels. Thank goodness J.J. Abrams is in charge of the new movie.
The Sixth Sense contains the most well-known twist, and it’s one of the most well-done. All the clues are there that Malcolm is dead – the most obvious one being the desk he works on in his drafty, creepy old basement, surrounded by mementoes on the floor. I have to admit I didn’t get this one – I had heard there was a big twist, and I was convinced that somehow Cole and the crazy guy who killed Malcolm would have some kind of genetic connection. So I was concentrating on that, and missing the obvious fact that the kid who could see dead people was the only person addressing Malcolm directly.
I’ve gotten much better since then. Shutter Island? Called it.
My entry for this blog hop is the much discussed, much debated 2000 Christopher Nolan film, Memento. To jog your memory, Guy Pearce plays Leonard, a man who developed short-term amnesia in an attack that left his wife dead. The police say they caught the guy who did it, but Leonard believes he had an accomplice (the police do not), so he’s going after that guy himself in order to kill him. Leonard writes clues in his body since he can’t remember anything for longer than 15 minutes. As such, the film itself runs backwards, with the next scene happening chronologically before the scene it follows. It was confusing, and I saw several people walk out of the theatre in the movie’s first half hour.
Because of this format, just about every scene contains a twist, and also enough clues that hint at the movie’s resolution. The two most shocking twists came at the end. One, Leonard’s wife did not die in the attack that left Leonard brain-damaged. Rather, Leonard himself killed her by accidentally giving his diabetic wife insulin twice. It was a test, because she didn’t think he really had amnesia. Leonard passed the test and his wife died as a result. The second huge twist is that Leonard had already killed one man he blamed for her death. After that death, he deliberately hid those clues from himself so he could start a new game of find the killer.
With the viewer being completely in Leonard’s point of view, both these twists were stunning (although the diabetes clue had been dropped near the beginning). Yet they follow the rule of identity being the linchpin of the twist.
AMBI Pictures recently announced that it will be remaking the film, so perhaps a new version might be a little clearer. (There’s also a DVD available that runs the action in chronological order.)
Please tune in tomorrow, when Deb finishes it up for us!
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