An Experiment in Writing – Part 25: Accidental POV Shifts

I’m critiquing one of Liz Tuckwell‘s alternate history pieces.

First thing, Liz is a gifted author (I enjoy her work) and a regular member of RoundTable 360° (a monthly meeting of creatives from all disciplines where we discuss challenges all creatives face and support each other).

Anyway, while critiquing Liz’s piece, I ran into something interesting, something craft-issueish, and because I’m anal-retentive about writing craft, it stopped me.

The interesting thing was a shift in POVs (viewpoints):

Tully found it hard to enjoy the food when he was tasting it for poison. Each mouthful of honeyed pork or spiced dove might be his last. That also applied to the excellent Jyptian wine he had to try. How he hated Tremulous for suggesting Tully could be his food taster.

  • Tully found it hard to enjoy the food when he was tasting it for poison. is a good line in 3rdPLO (third person, limited omniscient) POV
  • Each mouthful of honeyed pork or spiced dove might be his last. is also a good line but is it in 3rdPLO or 1stP POV (and possibly even Deep POV)?
    One of the great things about speculative fiction writing (and which definitely separates it from other genres) is 1stP POV is a limited viewpoint by definition in other genres, not so in speculative fiction. The latter allows a the full range from the character only knowing about themselves (but not being honest with themselves hence not being honest with the reader – the unreliable witness character) to having god-like abilities and knowing what’s going on everywhere everywhen. Each has its benefits and detriments.
  • That also applied to the excellent Jyptian wine he had to try. How he hated Tremulous for suggesting Tully could be his food taster. are both in 3rdP Omniscient.

    Going from 3rdPLO to 1stPDeep is fine because that’s how people think, but!!! the abrupt pullback can cause confusion. Usually the steps we take down a well (or into a character’s psyche) must equal the steps we take up a well (or a character’s psyche). We can run in either or both directions, and usually the steps have to be equal.

     
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    Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me or schedule a critique of your work.
    Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
    Either way, we’ll both learn something.

    Get copies of my books because it’s a nice thing to do, you care, you can follow along, and I need the money.

RoundTable 360° Aug 2024 – “Yeah, but you’re an idiot” on BizCatalyst 360°

There is no power without authority. There is no authority without legitimacy. Therefore, in considering rejection, we have to consider the perceived legitimacy of the authority and/or the size and perceived credibility of the institution doing the rejecting.

“Yeah, but you’re an idiot” is led by children’s book author and humorist Mark O’Brien. With poet, editor, and publisher Clarabelle Miray Fields; cozy/mystery author Donna Huston Murray; Rick DeRobertis, Brooke Erol, poet and screenwriter Ken Weene; Nick Heap, Phil Williams;and me, boring and dull Joseph Carrabis, and others.

Watch on BizCatalyst360 and enjoy.

An Experiment in Writing – Part 11: Language and Word Choice

Language is much more than how you use verb tenses and what adverbs and adjectives do, and word choice is much more than using the right word versus the almost right word.

This experiment in writing explores how to create a reading rhythm which keeps your reader reading, and how to use language to emphasize what’s happening on the page.

 
Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me or schedule a critique of your work.
Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
Either way, we’ll both learn something.

Pick up several dozen copies of my books because it’s a nice thing to do, you care, and I need the money.

Or you can get copies of Empty Sky and The Book of The Wounded Healers and follow along.

A Twelfth of Carrabis (Dec 2024 Newsletter)

(we’re doing something different. let me know what you think)


It is December and soon we will celebrate another turn around the sun. We are never alone on this journey, and I wonder how many appreciate we circle the sun, our sun circles the near clusters, the near clusters move through a great arm of the Milky Way, the Milky Way travels with it’s galactic neighbors in a near-eternity long dance, and the universe itself expands and we move on an arrow’s trajectory with it.

Taking all the accelerations, all the motions, all the movements into account humbles me. Philosophies range from a single Great Creator to the randomness of quantum strings, and I add the caveats that if there is a single Great Creator, their mathematical skills are amazing, and if quantum strings, go deeply enough in the quantum universe and there is no such thing as randomness.

Read further in this newsletter and you’ll notice some different formatting. Many thanks to Sister Rika Chandra‘s help and guidance (I’m not visual, she is) in making “A Twelfth of Carrabis” more readable and (we hope) more engaging.

I mentioned last month I’m thinking of redoing my website. The redo is ongoing albeit slowly as some changes require a bit of coding (blech!).

December 2024 Announcements

Continue reading “A Twelfth of Carrabis (Dec 2024 Newsletter)”

An Experiment in Writing – Part 4: More on Closings

Picking up from where we left off in An Experiment in Writing – Part 3: More on Openings, Closings, we’re going a little more into closings.

Just so we’re all clear on this, these Experiments in Writing posts are more for me. I hope you get something from them, yes, and I’m using them more to learn where I need work, to discover what I don’t yet understand fully if at all, and to keep myself improving.

I’m really doing these for myself, solipsist that I am…

And now, more on closings…

 
Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me or schedule a critique of your work.
Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
Either way, we’ll both learn something.

Pick up a copy of Empty Sky and/or The Augmented Man, the books I reference in this post (should you not already have them (shame on you!)) and want to follow along.

FYI, future Experiments in Writing will cover

  • Exposition via dialogue
  • Action scenes
  • Language/word choice
  • Exposition
  • and a whole lot more…if I even get to them.