As we discussed last week, writing in deep POV means being very close to our characters’ thoughts, feelings and perceptions. One of the most basic things we have to do to write in deep POV is to understand what our characters are thinking and feeling.

But since our characters are individuals who are at least somewhat distinct from us authors, this can be a challenge. How can we ever hope to understand the thoughts and emotions of people who aren’t us? After all, we can’t experience the thoughts and emotions of our parents, spouses or friends—we can never truly understand exactly what they feel.

My favorite trick for this was inspired by How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey. He explains that the kernel of any mystery is found in the villain, so that’s the first character he recommends designing. Once you’ve determined the physical, psychological and sociological aspects of the character, he recommends interviewing the character.

I’ll admit it sounds a little hokey to me. So instead of directly interviewing the character, I do a slightly different exercise: I write something short in that character. Sometimes I’ll pick a specific point in the story to “set” this character journal, usually either right before or right after the beginning.

To help get into the character’s head, first I’ve already come to know the character well—I’ve at least contemplated the life events that have brought him here, his attitudes, his interpersonal relationships. If it’s the villain, I know what he’s capable of (though sometimes I use the journal technique to figure out his motive).

While I’m not a fan of drawn-out character questionnaires, I do find it much easier to write if I have at least a vague idea of the characters—and writing the character journal helps to firm up my vague ideas and make them concrete. At least once, I wrote a journal and a scene when I was well into revisions, and it still helped me to discover things about my protagonist, who’d carried probably 60-70% of my manuscript.

But I think the biggest thing that helped was to write in first person, if only for this little section. As you write (and yes, I know this also sounds hokey), act: pretend to be that person, experiencing these feelings, thoughts and events. How do you feel about what has happened?

You could also try rewriting scenes from your story in first person. As you write, again, act, pretend. Close your eyes and visualize what happens in the scene, but not as someone else might see it—from the character’s vantage point. What do you notice? How does that make you feel? What do you think about?

When I’ve done this, like I said, it helps me get to know my characters better, even if I’ve already worked with them for a hundred thousand words. In fact, I often do this long-hand, and I’ve even seen my handwriting change as I delve more deeply into someone else’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

What do you do to really come to know your characters? How do you come to understand how your characters would think, speak and act (and react)?

If you feel comfortable, feel free to post a short excerpt from your character journals here! On Thursday we’ll look at some specific techniques for anchoring our readers on this same level of intimate knowledge of our characters.

Photo credits: plunge—Konrad Mostert; head scan—Max Brown

Welcome to our series for July: taking the plunge into the deep end of point-of-view! (Perfect for the middle of summer, right?).

Ordinarily, a discussion of deep POV looks in-depth at the history of point-of-view in fiction. Feel free to read Alicia Rasley’s article (linked there) if that’s what you want to do. For our purposes, we’re just going to look at what’s most popular now—and this is one trend that we all have to pay attention to. For better or for worse, deep POV is the default mode of storytelling today (other than first person, of course).

So what is deep POV? Interestingly, it’s very like the other major mode of narration today, first person. In first person (“I did this and that.”), we are limited to only what the protagonist/narrator thinks, feels, perceives and guesses. Just like you can’t read others’ thoughts, a first person narrator can’t know what other characters are thinking. Similarly, in deep POV third person (“He did this and that.”), we are limited to the thoughts, feelings, perceptions and guesses of a single narrator per scene.

Of course, that’s just third-person limited mode. What makes a point of view “deep” is how “close” we are to the viewpoint character’s thoughts. In a distant third-person mode, we may be privy to few of the character’s direct thoughts, and those are always related in italics. We may rely more on their actions and speech to characterize and understand them. Often, we’re acutely aware of what the viewpoint character is doing, as if we’re watching them with a tight focus, and every once in a while we get a voiceover of his or her thoughts (mmm, Burn Notice).

In deep POV, the character’s thoughts can form almost a running commentary on the actions of the story. We don’t just get the occasional The problem with blackmail is that it’s like a gun with only one bullet or Yeah, the mob isn’t exactly known for its cushy retirement and severance package. Statements like that—direct thoughts from the viewpoint characters’ heads—are woven into the narration. In very deep POV, those statements might not even be italicized.

Sometimes, you can get so deep into POV that we don’t “hear” the “author’s” voice in narration, but the character’s. (And that can be awesome.) Everything we, the readers, get is as if we were seeing it through that character’s eyes (or brain, since we get a lot of his/her processing, too). We don’t just watch this character and his or her actions—we don’t see the character looking out the window. We see what s/he sees through the window. We seem to live the character’s experiences ourselves.

That’s a powerful narration mode—and that’s why deep POV has become so popular.

In pure deep POV, “head hopping,” or peeking into the thoughts of other characters within a single scene, is never allowed. Of course, a number of well-known, multi-published authors do this, but in general, new authors have to show that they truly understand point-of-view (oh, and sell books) before they can flout its conventions. In deep POV, you can have more than one viewpoint character, but to change between them, you have to insert a scene break. No matter how smooth or lovely you think your POV change is (and really, it might be masterful), it destroys the illusion of seeing the world through one character’s eyes and throws readers off.

Coming up this month, we’ll be looking at deep POV in detail. We’ll draw lessons from awesome articles around the web on how to show our character’s perceptions and worldviews. I’ll be reading from Alicia Rasley’s book, The Power Of Point Of View (as soon as it arrives; shipped yesterday!). And I already have some ideas for fun practice exercises for getting into our characters’ heads and seeing the world from their perspective.

What would you like to learn about deep POV? What do you like or dislike about the most popular narration mode today?

Photo credits: plunge—Konrad Mostert; man looking out window—Ben Husmann; city view—Mihai Estatiu