Getting to know my characters is like getting to know a friend and I need to know not only those things the character will tell me, but maybe even more importantly, those things they won’t say. Because it is the things we don’t talk about easily which are the deepest well of emotion. And the depth is where you find the uniqueness of the character.

So why is it important to know your characters … especially those traits beyond what you can “see”? Because the better you know your character, the better able you are to put them on the page as a real person. Here is an example of what a difference it makes:

When I started writing Speak No Evil, I knew there would be a character in the role of social worker because the main character winds up in foster care after the death of her mother and disappearance of her father. But I didn’t know anything about her/him — the character was like a stick figure to me with no features whatsoever. I honestly thought the social worker would play a minor role in the overall book. The “minor role” wound up blossoming into one of the major support characters for Melody. When it came time to write the first scene with the social worker, I didn’t even have a name … though by that time I knew the character was a woman. So I stopped writing and took the time to get to know Rebecca Prescott.

At that point, I still thought she was a minor character in the book, but over the next few scenes, she proved me wrong. As I wrote, details of her personality and past unfolded, which is fairly normal for first draft character development. I finished the draft and took the work through several revisions, honing and tightening. But I realized there was a gap at the beginning that needed to be shored up. I needed a transitionary chapter to go between chapter one and chapter two. So after the completion of the book and a couple of years, I wrote the “last” chapter to go toward the beginning of the book. The writing went smoothly and only required a little “touch up” here and there because I knew my characters so well at that point.

Then, during the publisher editing process, one of the editors determined that the second chapter should become the first as it set the book up in a much better fashion. He was right. It’s something I would never have seen because I am way too close to the book (and which is why editors are essential.) I could have given a hundred reasons why the chapter should remain exactly where it was in the 2-spot. But I took a step back and looked at his comments from a more objective perspective and his one reason trumped all my reasons combined — the strength of my characters were there on the page and provided the hook necessary to draw readers in.

The editor in question is Jonas Saul, the international bestselling author of the Sarah Roberts Series, which has sold well over 2 million copies. So here is a tip from Jonas:

Think of it like this: you’re writing about a kitchen. Everyone knows basically what a kitchen looks like, so we as authors shouldn’t bore them with kitchen details like, stove, fridge, counters, and so on. Tell them about the cockroach on the counter, though. Show them the kitchen’s age with that cockroach, or the state of cleanliness of the kitchen. It’s my, “Cockroach on the Counter” rule.

Then he followed it with a specific comment about a line of text in the chapter:

The, “You haven’t said a word for almost two years. Not even in therapy,” was awesome. There’s the cockroach on the counter, your originality, your yank-me-in moment. Love it!

If I had written that particular chapter first, it probably would have been a very different chapter … because I wouldn’t have known my characters as well as I did at that point. Rebecca Prescott said the words that ultimately set up the entire novel, and they may not have been said at all, had I not known the character well. In fact, no other character in the entire book would have KNOWN enough about Melody to say those words.

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This is just a general question. Why is it not acceptable to write my novel in third person omniscient where I know all the thoughts, actions and feelings of all my characters? I majored in literature and spent a lot of time on the classics and was wondering why modern texts don’t use the technique?

Omniscient is the God POV where the narrator is on the outside of the action and can see all and know all. Like they are standing atop a mountain and looking down at the action below.

Studying the classics is fabulous because they give you a background in understanding the nuts and bolts of writing techniques and layering of the craft. Much like if you’re a filmmaker, your studies are incomplete unless you study black and white films. But now that we have the ability and knowledge of how to make films in color (and the advances that have come throughout the years of refining it), the choice is rarely to throw back to the “old days” and film in 100% black and white. And even if someone does make a black and white film today for effect, they are still piggybacking on the advances and enhancements made in the world of color to do so.

But were Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte to turn in one of their works today, it would be summarily rejected. What we would want is something that gives us the flavor of Oliver Twist or Wuthering Heights, but certainly NOT those actual texts.

Not only has the craft of writing advanced since those were written, so has the taste, attention span, and understanding of the reader. Going back to my black and white film example, once we added color to film we brought an entire world of richness to the work that black and white simply doesn’t have. There is a depth of detail that was lacking in the older films and makes the experience “more real” if you will, to the moviegoer. Black and white can be used for effect for a specific purpose, and once we had the ability to use color, it did become an effect. Most notably perhaps in The Wizard of Oz where Kansas was black and white and the world of Oz was in “living color”.

So the classics used omniscient 3rd person, they had long descriptive passages, the TOLD the story to the reader, and generally had long chapters. Why have we made changes in what is accepted in books? Because the reader’s tastes have changed. The act of reading itself has evolved over time. When the classics were written, there were fewer distractions and fewer things available to occupy the time of the reader. Life was lived at a different pace. Television with it’s commercial breaks every 20 minutes didn’t exist, so the attention span of the reader had not yet been modified. Truth of the matter is that we generally have shorter chapters now because we don’t want the reader to stop in the middle of a chapter. There is the potential that we could lose them.

And reader’s have demanded to know MORE about our characters. Omniscient POV while giving the reader more thoughts and feelings from ALL of the characters keeps the reader’s at arms length because they never fully are able to sink into the skin of one particular character. And omniscient POV invites more “telling” to the reader vs. allowing the reader to experience because it automatically creates a distance. In today’s world, the reader wants to be able to crawl inside the skin of the character and experience what is going on from their perspective, they want to identify with that character. Hence the utilization of 1st person, which has become the popular go-to for Young Adult. In Adult writing, we don’t necessarily have to use 1st person, but is more geared to the use of 3rd person limited because they don’t want to get ripped out of the view point all the time and jump from head to head.

While omniscient viewpoint can be used at times for effect, much like black and white in film today, it is generally frowned upon for the entirety of the work because it is a weaker more distant viewpoint. Our intent is to grab the reader and bring them in close. You cannot do that with the omniscient POV.

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Why is a strong POV important? Why can’t we give the reader the thoughts and feelings of the non-POV character? Doesn’t the reader gain more by having everyone’s thoughts and feelings? The simple answer is NO. Here’s what can happen by head hopping.

• Potential for confusion — If the POV is sliding from one character to the next, there is always the possibility the reader will become confused, have to stop reading, track back and figure out who just spoke or had a thought. I cannot count the number of times I’ve been cruising along with a book, getting hooked by the story only to trip on a POV change I didn’t make with the book. Wait … What??? I have to stop and go back, and the last thing we want the reader to do is to stop reading because they have become confused.

• Lessens the connection the reader has to the POV character. I know all the objections … the reader only becomes confused if the POV shift hasn’t been handled well, but if you do it well, you can get away with it. Ummm, I’m not trying to get away with anything (which implies we’re somehow trying to cheat or game our reader), but rather make sure I’m presenting my story in the best way I can to the reader. I want the reader to connect to my POV character. I want them to care what happens because that is going to keep them turning the pages. If I take time away from my POV character to give to a secondary character, no matter how well I’m doing it, I am pulling the reader briefly out of the story and making them get settled into another viewpoint.

• One of the side effects that happens with head hopping is dilution of tension. If you have a scene and have set up the reader expectation that you are in and out of all of the characters thoughts, and need to build some mystery surrounding something one of the characters knows the others do not, how do you do it? If you have a strong POV, there is no problem because in a strong POV you only have the thoughts and feelings of a single character. And if you dilute your tension too much, the reader has no reason to keep on reading.

So how do you ensure you’re not head hopping? Comb through your manuscript looking for tell-tale signs.

• Target all sense words. If someone other than your POV character is seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, noticing, watching, etc. you have changed POV.

• Watch for what they didn’t do. One common error I see all the time is, “I/He/She didn’t notice …” If your POV character didn’t notice something then you cannot put it in the book because they have not experienced it. That particular error is a slide into the omniscient viewpoint because it isn’t a specific character POV, but an unseen/unknown narrator telling the reader what the POV character didn’t notice.

• Also the POV character cannot notice someone else not noticing something. Or not seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Check all thoughts and determine WHO is thinking them … if it isn’t the POV character, then bring it out another way.

Does all this mean that you can never have multiple viewpoints in a book? Of course not. But make your selections wisely and with purpose and make sure you’re only changing POV at structured scene/chapter breaks.

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