In Today’s Journal
* …and Point of View (POV)
* If You Found This Helpful
* A Brief Promo
* Of Interest
…and Point of View (POV)
In yesterday’s post at the Journal website and on Substack (pick your poison) I offered up
Chapter 23: The Hit on Eldridge Reeves.
This is an excellent story to study if you want to learn how to focus down.
I could teach a five-day seminar with a 4- to 6-hour session each day on this chapter alone. And the topic of the entire seminar would be “Focusing Down”… well, and “on POV.”
Yesterday, I talked about pulling the reader deeper into the story through focusing down in narrative description, dialogue, and the setting and characters.
I also mentioned how focusing down would inject tension and suspense into the story. Finally, I also explained that this craft technique would work across all genres of fiction. All of that’s true.
But there are also excellent examples in the story of the three types of POV focus: Distant, Close, and Focused-Down.
If you studied or still want to study the chapter, I suggest you open one of the Chapter 23 links above in a new window, then follow along with this brief lecture. I’m going to get down in the weeds a little. Notice that everything below is about the reader.
Let’s get started:
The long opening paragraph is still presented in Nick’s first-person POV (it’s his story, after all), but the type of POV is Distant.
In that first paragraph, the first-person narrator keeps the reader distant (holds the reader at arm’s length from the scene and the story). He glosses over details of the trip because those same details were included in the previous chapter.
Notice that simply setting the scene in the car (the first four words) is enough to initially ground the reader in the chapter and re-ground him in the story.
After all, this story is part of a novel, so the narrator can safely assume the reader will remember at least the general details of the trip north from the previous chapter.
Beginning with the very short second paragraph, the POV is Close (pulling the reader in), with the POV character (Nick) first resetting the scene (they’re in Lafayette), then firmly pulling the reader into the car when he looks at the clock, reads the time, and presents an assumption (his opinion).
Then in the short third paragraph, Nick first attempts to mask his nervousness. (See it?) He does that by offering up an excuse directly to the reader (the first 12 words) and then by asking Marie a question. Do you hear the false calm in his voice?
In the fourth paragraph, we hear the actual, almost dismissive calm in Marie’s voice in her first two statements. Then she launches into the answer to his question, though still calmly, in the form of instructions in four more short (so fairly terse, to help build the tension) sentences.
Her quiet explanation invites Nick to delve deeper in the fifth paragraph with “For example?” and the story continues.
Notice that through the rest of the story Nick transitions from playing down his nervousness to being blatantly open with it, both to himself and to Marie (and the reader).
His nerves become a little more obvious in paragraph 19. Marie could have laughed at him (or responded in any other way) but instead she simply answered the question, calming him.
His nerves are standing on end screaming at him from the time the wind grabs his car door as he opens it (paragraph 40) all the way through the “doing his job” scene until the adrenaline finally begins to drain in paragraph 66, (“No, I’m good. I’m good.”).
Hmm. His nerves only peak when he’s on his own. Subtext, anyone?
Notice too that Marie remains consistent in her demeanor—calmly shoring Nick up, encouraging him, instructing him, and building his confidence—through most of the story (until around paragraph 72 when she becomes ‘normal’ again).
The first example of focused-down POV happens early, with Nick lifting his hand from the steering wheel (paragraph 11). The next instance—and this one is repeated through the entire novel—is Marie patting his thigh (paragraph 12), a gesture that conveys calm and comfort.
(If you remember the TV sitcom All in the Family, the loose tread on the stairs was an excellent example of recurring, focused-down POV. Recurring focused-down POV is a very strong technique in its own right. It’s kind of a trick that immediately grounds the reader deeper in the setting, the scene, and the story.)
Note to that when you use repeated instances of focused-down POV those are usually not dramatic. So they’re lighter, or less-intrusive.
The first strong example of focused-down POV in the story is the left turn looming in the headlights in paragraph 18, and then in paragraph 19 that morphs into action, Nick’s unspoken thoughts, and then him muttering a nervous question.
And in paragraph 20, Marie’s (again, calmly delivered) response defuses the tense situation, and then she continues providing instruction and support through the rest of the ongoing scene.
I encourage you to open and read Chapter 23 along with the notes above.
If You Found This Exercise Helpful,
please leave a comment or email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. Feel free to ask any questions you may have too.
If there’s enough interest, I might write another post or two similar to this one to serve as an extended study guide for how to pull the reader into the story, keep him there, and make him focus-down and invest himself more deeply in the story.
And even if this feels like next-level stuff, it’s still something you can use right now to improve your writing. As a craft technique, it’s probably second in importance only to grounding the reader in the setting and scene.
By the way, if you want to get more out of studying Chapter 23, I recommend you copy and paste it into a Word or Text document and then number the individual paragraphs and put a blank line between them (no first line indents).
That will ‘isolate’ the paragraphs within the story and help you, the writer, focus your conscious, critical mind on each paragraph as an example of whatever technique it illustrates.
A Brief Promo
Yes, Chapter 23 is indicative of the writing throughout Blackwell Ops 54: A Most Unusual Day. If you’re interested, you can find the complete novel at my online discount store for only five bucks.
Okay, that’s enough for today. Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Branding A Series (The Series Series Part 13) (Might be behind a subscription or paywall.)