Write Good or Die

happening outside her range of perception. Make sure the character isn’t experiencing the thoughts of another character unless one of them has ESP.
    Omniscient viewpoint gives you the authorial power of God, knowing all and seeing all, but it can be a bit aloof and less successful at emotionally engaging the reader. If using first-person viewpoint, then you must be doubly sure you’re limited to your “I” character’s thoughts and sensations. Second-person is a bit artificial and calls attention to itself but can be effective if that’s what you’re after. Mixing first, second, third, and omniscient viewpoints can be hazardous to your reader’s (and your career’s) health.
    6. Keeping Your Distance. Newer writers tend to rely on “He saw,” “He felt,” “He smelled,” “He tasted,” or “He heard” instead of just letting the actions or sensations occur. It shows a lack of a confidence. If you have done a good job of securing your character viewpoint, then when that stack of dishes clatters to the ground, the reader knows who hears the smash. Like any mechanism, it has a time and place, but several of these in the same paragraph really sap the energy: “He felt that what he heard was an elephant that sounded like it was in the jungle.” Better: “An elephant trumpeted in the distant jungle.” The more immediate the imagery, the more powerful.
    7. Slow Death. Too many useless mannerisms, bits of business or trivia, and descriptions can bog your tale down right out of the starting gate. While the color of someone’s coat can be a revealing detail, make sure there’s a reason for its inclusion, and beware stacking up lots of physical description before the reader has a chance to build her own image. The reader’s less likely to care that Susan is of medium build with brown eyes and auburn hair than the fact that Susan is carrying a bouquet of wilted flowers, has wet mascara runs, and is missing one earring.
    Whatever you do, don’t have a character enter a room waving a cigarette, inhaling between every two lines of dialogue, flicking ashes, lighting another, and repeating until the scene is mercifully expired from emphysema. The same goes for meals: avoid them just as you would avoid showing a character going to the bathroom. Unless there is a plot purpose or intriguing piece of character development at stake, let that type of business take place offstage or mention it in passing.
    Now for the final bad habit of unsuccessful writers, one which makes all the above meaningless: the habit of not writing. In my career, I’ve only seen two kinds of writers. Those who succeed and those who quit. Be one of those who succeed.

    Scott Nicholson— http://www.hauntedcomputer.com
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17. Morrell’s Point of View
    By David J. Montgomery
    http://www.davidjmontgomery.com

    I attended a CraftFest panel as part of the warm up for ThrillerFest. Thriller writer David Morrell talked about point of view, that element of the craft that has bedeviled so many writers.
    David Morrell has been in the business for 37 years, so he knows a thing or two about writing. You probably know who he is. (I will briefly note that in addition to be an enormously successful writer of thrillers, David was also a professor of American Literature at the University of Iowa for many years.)
    What follows are David's thoughts, which I hastily scribbled down. I only captured the basic details of what he said and not much of the flavor. (He accompanied his discussion with many examples drawn from literature, including an impressive number of memorized quotes.) POV seems like a basic aspect of writing, but it's amazing how many authors still get it wrong.
    Point of View
    The decision of which POV to use when writing a novel is one of the most important a writer can make. POV is one of the fundamental tools of writing and must be chosen wisely. Regardless of which POV you choose, you should do so deliberately, knowing why you chose it and what you're doing with it. The wrong choice of POV can doom a project.
    First Person:
    Written from the POV of the narrator, in the "I" form.
    When used properly, the first person is "a glory." But alas, it is usually not used properly.
    First-person is especially popular with new writers, because it seems so easy -- you just write like you're talking, right? Wrong. That's the pitfall. If you write like you talk, like you're telling a story orally, your writing will probably fail.
    The first person