Notes from Minnesota 

Hey Freelancer!  

I'm on a mini-vacation and will get you up to date on all the incredible Minnesota happenings next time.

Have a fabulous (and profitable) week,

Beth

P.S. Be sure to check out our best sellers. Here's the link

Beth's Hot Pick of the Week  

I've been freelancing for nearly 15 years and one of the most important lessons I've learned during that time is the importance of continually “filling my cup.”

With words pouring from your fingertips, if you don't allow the creative flow to fill your mind, you can easily run into such dreaded conditions as “writing blocks,” “unproductive streaks,” and “dry-well syndrome.”

Ah, but preventing these conditions is a simple as cracking open a book and allowing your imagination to ignite.

I have yet to meet a writer as prolific as Billie Williams. This woman writes like her hair's on fire, churning out novels and nonfiction every time we speak.

And she's good. Very good.

We've been lucky enough to publish three of her titles... all creativity igniters... and am tickled pink to bundle them together in one easy download.

Now you can get all three of Billie's books - “Writing Wide: Exercises in Creative Writing,” “Spice Up Your Writing: Write to Entice,” and “Characters in Search of an Author” - as an instant download for a special discount. All the details are here.

Highly recommended. :)

Spare the Garlic 

Billie Williams

Excerpt from Spice Up Your Writing: Write to Entice 

Garlic

When you write, spare the garlic. You can separate the garlic bulb into cloves. Each clove has the potential to distance your reader as its strength does not diminish merely because its size does. Therefore keep in mind each word, sentence, paragraph, chapter needs to be written with the reader in mind. Your reader wants no garlic between him and the characters in your book. (Unless of course your main character is a vampire - but that’s another story.)

Writing from the heart allows you to put some of yourself into your writing. I’m not suggesting using yourself as a character, though every character you write probably does have some element of you in it. Think of your characters as your children, off spring, your cloves separated from the parent garlic to be planted alone to become more of what they once were. The seed of what you want them to be.

Most all writing courses and many books on writing cover point of view. In the analogy of garlic to reader, point of view is their reaction to the amount of garlic you use. Point of view according to James Frey just refers to where the narrator stands in relation to the other characters and to the events in the story, i.e., who is holding the camera and the microphone. Are you standing close enough so that your reader needs to focus where you want him/her to?

For instance first person, the “I” as in Susan Isaacs Shining Through viewpoint limits the author’s ability as to how he can impart story knowledge to the reader, but it pulls the reader in close to the character that is the “I”. The reader begins to feel a closeness, a friendship with the character whereas the first person objective narrator holds the reader at arms length. Elizabeth George in Write Away uses an example from Ernest Hemingway’s Indian Camp as a sample of this type of narrator. Or you may look at Stephen King’s The Dead Zone for how this is done.

Both authors know how to use the first person objective narrator creating an aura of intrigue about a character or situation. This view point offers the reader the least degree of intimacy.

The objective Viewpoint remains outside the character at all times. Writing journalistically, like a reporter, like a cop on the beat, “just the facts ma’am”-the writer/narrator gives only the facts in this view point. This viewpoint gives up a portion of control over the readers as well as all attempts to manipulate him. Objective viewpoint offers the reader the least degree of intimacy as we said before. Its purpose is to keep readers at a distance from the story, to make them critical observers of the events.

Omniscient View Point: narrator is the one who knows, sees, and hears all with rather god-like authority. This narrator knows the inner workings of all the characters. This viewpoint gives the writer the freedom to explore everything and anything that supports the novel’s theme, furthers the plot, or reveals characters. These are the decided advantages of this point of view.

The omniscient narrator sounds like a story teller. Able to impart a sense of history behind his/her characters and at the same time revealing something about them such as what’s in their hearts or minds and gives the narrator more control over the story. Alice Hoffman’s book Second Nature is but one example of this type of narrator/viewpoint.

Then we have multiple Character Viewpoints: That is deciding to tell the story through one or more characters who are taking an active part in the story. Evan Marshall’s The Marshall Plan For Novel Writing shows you how to use this method effectively. In this view point you limit yourself to revealing only what your chosen viewpoint character would see, know, think, or feel in each scene in which he/she is participating. You can change viewpoint character when you change a scene if you wish, or a paragraph, but use care here to avoid head hoping. This does however; give you freedom to know more, to impart more to your reader.

Compare the single or the multiple viewpoint first person. In the first person, the narrator stays with one narrator throughout the story which gives the reader the opportunity to identify strongly with the character. It creates a sense of intimacy and adds to the authenticity of the novel.

Using the third person single viewpoint character, the narrator sees through the eyes of one character as he/she and all events are filtered through this single character’s consciousness. You write about the character, other than capturing his/her tone you do not adopt his persona or walk in his skin. The advantage of this narrator is that it invites the reader to become intimate with one character whose motivation can be thoroughly explored. The challenge of this viewpoint is he/she needs to be present in every scene for you to present it to your reader. If this character isn’t in a scene, you can’t present it to your reader.

A third person narrator flits like an invisible bird says Orson Scott Card in Characters and Viewpoint. “This narrator is a story teller, plain and simple; we ignore her and listen to the tale.”

Closeness implies an examination of the workings of the character’s mind. Distance implies an observation of his actions.

Points to remember:

First Person - must reveal the narrator’s character - it is distance in time-tells the story looking backward.

Third Person-is distance in space-never a person who is actually there-always an invisible observer.

The omniscient narrator can tell more story and reveal more character in less time that it takes the limited third person narrator. That’s the greatest advantage.

Limited third person can’t let readers see as many different things in a short period of time, but it gives readers more intimacy, more up close and personal time.

The overwhelming majority of fiction today uses the limited third person narrator. Most readers read for the sake of story. They want to immerse themselves in the lives of the character, and for that purpose, limited third person is best combining flexibility of omniscient with the intensity of the first person.

To read some more examples of these two narrative viewpoints see the following:

1^st person - The Last Film of Emile Vico, by Thomas Gavin

Omniscient - Unicorn Mountain, by Michael Bishop

Which, according to Orson Scott Card in his book Character and Viewpoint are some of the very best examples around.

EXERCISES:

1. Write a paragraph using the first person - the “I” narrator.

2. Re-write that paragraph turning it into one done by the omniscient view point narrator.

3. Re-write a second time this time using the limited third person narrator.

Can you see and feel the difference? Which feels more natural to you? It is good to experiment with writing in various view points. If you are stuck and a scene or story isn’t working very often if you switch viewpoint characters you will be able to continue probably creating a better narrative at the same time.

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Now you can get all three of Billie's books - “Writing Wide: Exercises in Creative Writing,” “Spice Up Your Writing: Write to Entice,” and “Characters in Search of an Author” - as an instant download for a special discount. All the details are here: http://filbertpublishing.com/triple.html

P.S. You can use this article free of charge on your own website or zine. Just don’t make any changes and be sure to include the entire byline. Enjoy!

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I Recommend:

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