I enlisted the help of an editor for my WIP. The gist of the feedback was that the story feels very "literary" but the narrative feels more commercial, which comes across as little off base from the story. Plot is sound and characters are well-developed. The advice was "go deeper" -- more show, less tell, more interiority. This is written in omniscient POV, which the editor advised was probably the right choice given the time spanned and number of characters. I've been trying to rewrite the same chapter now for three months (!), but I'm struggling to find the right voice. I've been devouring literary novels and short stories, even copying some of it (longhand and typing) to try to get a feel for the cadence. No dice. This morning it occurred to me that I should try to rewrite the chapter in first-person POV because it might force more intimacy. After that, I would rewrite back to omniscient POV. Has anyone tried this? Any other "go deeper" ideas?
Maybe try writing from the original POV but 30 years later, looking back on the events from a broader and wiser perspective. Or maybe write it with all the characters 10 years old. Or with a totally different outcome.
Why did the editor feel it's not "deep" enough? If all you gotta do is show more and do less tell, then just do that - what're you rewriting POVs for? Scour your MS for instances of tell and think if it wouldn't be better shown, and done! Omniscient POV also doesn't mean you can't zoom in to give the internal thoughts and feelings of one particular character - so I would have thought that's more likely your problem. Knowing when and how to switch into the close POV while remaining omniscient, as it were.
The voice isn't "literary" enough to match the rest. Show/tell is part of it, but also adding more interior reaction to exterior action, as well as weaving more of the theme throughout. I think the adding in interior reaction may be the part tripping me up, because as I've been working internal thoughts/reactions/etc. into the existing draft it feels forced and stilted and flat. I thought maybe trying it in 1st person for might make it flow more naturally, if that makes sense.
This sounds like what I was writing about - that switch to going into a character's head from time to time writing as an omniscient narrator. It's difficult however to actually help without seeing the writing.
Thanks for this, @Mckk. That definitely is part of it (switching into a character's head). I had a fair amount of that before, but not enough. My attempts at adding stuff just felt . . . well . . . added without actually adding, if that makes sense. Maybe I was struggling for authenticity? Idk. Good news is that rewriting in 1st seems to be helping me drill down (and effectively describe) what the character is thinking/feeling. I'm relatively green, so I think this is a skill I need to better hone . . . with the hope/goal of having all those emotions flow more naturally without all the rewrites.
Oh, when you said writing it in a different POV, I assumed you meant from a different character's POV. That's a well-known trick to find the core of a scene if you're stuck. Write it up from the antagonist's POV, or a supporting character's. It's surprising how well it works.
I switched a pov once from third to first. Didn't quite work. I found that allowing some of the background, themes, actions etc do double duty allowed me to show more emotion. Sometimes writers forget when they describe it can be used to reveal something about the character's inner struggles not just their taste in furniture or restaurants. Example - in a YA book I read in the 80s the mc lived with her uncle who ran the town dump. They were very anti-social and as the girl describes their home she goes into detail about their belongings noting only two chairs at the kitchen table - I didn't realize how brilliant the detail was until they had a guest and needed to find another chair - it foreshadowed how unwelcome that guest was. The chairs were also described as wood and that the mc and her uncle loved natural things. Plastic is used in the novel to signal the new intrusion on their lives with the friends they make - the 'unwelcome' guest a female janitor who loves plastic knickknacks and the mc's new friend who uses plastic. When the uncle keeps the janitor's lost butterfly hairclip under his pillow it signals his acceptance of her and of a world he's rejected. I think when you can pull the details towards evoking your theme is when you can achieve that closeness regardless of the pov you choose. Because the choices will help to signal to the reader what you mean without saying it.
I've read a few novels in my time that switch pov or person-perspective mode. One I particularly liked was David Brin's the Uplift Trilogy because he not only switched perspective and person but one of the switches was in the form of a diary. "Alvin's diary" was a clever little idea to me because there is one caveat with first-person perspective - and that is we know the protagonist survives, otherwise they wouldn't be around to recall the tale and tell us. A written book like a diary, on the other hand, is first-person but could stop at any minute, with a note of 'there are no more pages to this book'. It kept the tension with Alvin's tale up when he went through dangerous moments and we didn't know if he would make it. Brin literally used it as a tension device at certain moments, with Alvin writing "I left a copy of what I've written so far with such n such, just in case we don't make it past this next stage." Subconsciously informing the reader that this diary could end at a moment's notice. An example of when changing person is useful is something more dear and close to home for me, in the fact I use the person's pov for plot and informative reasons. Namazu, the cheeky, flamboyant Japanese hacker in my own novels (and my avatar), would totally give the game away to a ton of story secrets if I ever wrote a scene from her perspective. Her story is told from the viewpoint of her business partner and friend, Raz. And when she has to appear in scenes without him, I tell the story from the person she's interacting with instead; not only because of those plot reasons but because it allows the reader to experience Namazu through fresh eyes of a person that has never met her before - which often is the reader's viewpoint, too. Both the pov character and the reader are then in the same boat. They learn things about her that Raz doesn't mention often because he's worked with her for three years. There are lots of other ways to take advantage of perspective and character viewpoint like these examples. I find the key to making it work for you is not just thinking about it on a story level - but thinking about what you want *the reader* to experience and why.
This applies if the book is going to be written that way, but I think OP is talking about switching POV as an exercise to free up creativity and break out of a rut. That accomplished, you then write the scene in the right POV. Correct me if I'm wrong @HeathBar .
Exactly right, @Xoic. Thanks to all for the insight, though. I'm happy to report that the exercise helped -- I won't say worked quite yet, but definitely helped to get me out of my rut (great way to describe it, @Xoic). I've read author interviews where they describe exercises like this, whether toying with POV or tense, or rewriting a chapter from memory (the theory being you remember the important stuff and not the fluff), or even rewriting an entire novel, etc., etc., and I remember thinking -- OMG, that seems like so much unnecessary work! But, alas. Here I am. I've been writing this for 4+ years and it's been "finished" 4+ times. But it's my first novel and I'm still figuring out what I'm doing. Hopefully that makes the next one go faster.
