In Today’s Journal
* On POV Character Description
* I’m Back in College
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
On POV Character Description
A writer friend recently asked a craft question:
A lot of my short stories are in first person. It doesn’t feel natural to describe “myself” in the story. Setting, yes. The main character? Not so much.
Any ideas for getting that into the story unobtrusively? A lot of the time it feels forced to include a description.
I believe most writers struggle with this.
I certainly have. And it isn’t always practical (or always a good idea) to have the POV character checking his reflection in a mirror or as he’s passing a window.
With my Blackwell Ops books, the problem kind of handles itself since the cover usually has a pic of the POV character on it. Still, that’s only his or her face and general build.
But in the story I usually just let the POV character’s description occur subliminally through his or her descriptions of other characters.
In my most recent string of novels, the POV character is Sam Granger. In the most recent of those, for just one example, he saw another character (a contact and a helicopter pilot he’d worked with before), waiting near the base of the escalators in an airport.
Sam described that character (and by extension, himself) like this:
Dale’s a few inches shorter than me at 5’10″ or 5’11”. He’s swarthy with close-cropped black hair and broad shoulders.
I smiled and raised one hand as I descended the escalator. Like the last time I saw him, he was dressed in black combat boots and green, brown, and black camouflage trousers and jacket, but no cap.
The sleeves of the jacket were rolled up, his ham-hock arms were folded across his barrel chest, and he wore a smug, self-confident smile that even an experienced mortician couldn’t alter, much less remove, in less than a week.
As I stepped off the bottom of the escalator, I extended my hand. “Hey, Dale!”
But he only clapped me on the shoulder and turned away. “Good t’see you, Sam. Let’s roll. We got things to do.”
That passage conveys Sam’s approximate height. It also puts a picture into the reader’s mind of the ‘cammies’ Sam will change into later. Finally, it also hints at Sam’s and Dave’s personalities.
When he encounters another character (another contact in a different assignment) as he answers a knock on a door, Sam might also say something like this:
She was tiny at around 5’6″, her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a small black duffel dangling from her left hand. As she looked straight up at me, her blue eyes flashed and she chuckled. “Sam, right? Jeez, what’re you, six-two?”
I nodded and smiled. “About that.” I shrugged. “You know, probably.”
“Okay.” She and her attitude blew past me into the room in a take-no-prisoners kind of way. Black sneakers, jeans, and a sloppy pink sweatshirt. And she’s trim. And attractive.
Okay, first, a 5’6″ woman isn’t necessarily ‘tiny’ to most people, but she is to Sam. The height comparison is subliminal.
But also remember that any 1st person POV story or novel is a direct communication between the POV character and the reader. So a direct introduction is all right too (but try to keep it short):
I’m Sam Granger. I’m a little tall, I guess, at 6’3″ in my combat boots, and I’m slim enough at around 220 pounds. My face is all right, with a prominent nose, blue eyes, and a blond crewcut.
But I don’t usually go with a direct introduction, and if I do, I do it only once, usually near the front of the story.
I usually go with a POV character self-description by comparison with other characters as he encounters them (as above).
Depending on the situation, sometimes that comes in a chunk (as with Dale), and sometimes it leaks out in bits over a few paragraphs, as with the female contact above, where the description was interrupted by her blowing into the room. (Energy interrupting energy, like in ‘real’ life.)
Hope this helps.
Any questions about any of this or anything to do with fiction writing or epublishing, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
I’m Back in College
After narrowly avoiding what I thought was probably a ‘book promotion’ scam, I started thinking about marketing.
But with my productivity, what I need is someone to promote me as a brand and all my books as products of that brand.
So I thought about looking for a local college student who loved marketing as much as I love writing.
My wife noticed the local college offers courses in marketing and sent me the link. I took a look, and as I was browsing I noticed a Certified Brand Strategist Course. It ticked all the boxes I was looking for. And the instructor has been the brand manager for CBS for the past 8 years.
Hmmm. I already know what I want my brand to be. I just need to learn how to put it out there. So instead of trying to enlist a student to help me, I signed up. Tada! Just like that, I’m back in college!
Note: I won’t be handling brands for anyone else, so please don’t ask. I just don’t have that kind of time.
But once I finish the certification course and have put what I learn into practice (I have up to 6 months to finish), I’ll be willing to share that knowledge as readily as I share everything else.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Naming Your Book: Avoiding Title Mistakes That Kill Sales I didn’t vet this. In my own work, the story or novel usually names itself.
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 960
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 960
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date………… XXXXX
Fiction for December……………………… XXXXX
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 754647
Nonfiction for December.………………… 1600
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 266730
2025 consumable words………………… 1013808
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 122
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29