More About Point of View

I've been asked to explain more about point of view. Basically, the first thing a writer needs to do before writing a story is to decide who will be telling the story. Will it be a character who will refer to themselves in the first person, as "I"? Or will it be a narrator who will tell the story from a little distance, telling about a certain character, such as "Joe", as in "Joe said." Or perhaps you want your narrator to be a roaming camera, able to see, hear and know all.

For instance, your main character, let's say his name is Joe, is telling the story, so the pronoun used throughout will be "I". This is "First Person Point of View" and only those things that Joe sees, hears, or could possibly know, can be written about in the story.

First person and Third person are the points of view most commonly used. With third person, we have a couple of sub-sets. Someone outside the story would be omnicient, meaning 'like God' and able to see and hear and know everything about everyone in the story. Limited third person means a "narrator" telling the story as if they were inside a character.

Moving from one character to another should be done very carefully. If not, the reader will be confused and have to keep flipping back through the pages to work out where they are viewing the story from.

A simple way to understand point of view is to think of it as a camera device:

• implanted into one character's head, unable to move from there, with the story told by that one person who addresses himself or herself as "I". This is First Person Point of View.
• implanted into one character's head, and able to move from there into the head of another, but only after all pictures and sound have been removed. Thus, the 'camera' does not take any information from one character to another. The character that has the camera implanted is the one who will be named, as "Joe said" or "Joe did or thought"; then "Mary did or thought" and so on. This is one sub-set of Third Person Point of View.
• implanted into only one characters head, and stays there for the whole story. With this point of view, the character will be named as, "Joe said" or "Joe did this or that" or Joe thought". This is a limited Third Person Point of View, meaning that it is limited to only one character.
• able to move freely into the heads of all characters, knowing everything, but not letting the characters know everything unless the character has seen, heard or experienced it for themselves in the story. The omniscient narrator sees everything from within and without, is able to roam above and through the characters. This is Omniscient Point of View - like God, able to see, know and understand everything about everyone.

I hope this explains it a little better for the person who posted a comment. The only other thing I can suggest is that you read a selection of books and try to see for yourself how the writer reveals the story - whether it's from the view of one character only or from many, or from within or without the character/s.

Punctuation - the colon

The function of the colon is:

• To signal the special relationship between the parts before, and the parts after it. (Every man and woman has three aims: to live, to love, to learn.)
• To introduce a list. (I have mailed to you the following items: copy of cash book to year end, cheque butts, and deposit slips.)
• For the introuction of a formal or long quotation with such words as reads or read and writes or write. (Graeme Kinross-Smith, in his "Writer: A Working Guide for New Writers, writes of Virginia Wolf: "[She] expressed, more cogently than Richardson or Joyce perhaps, the ideas that led to the new way of looking at the world in fiction.") Note that a colon is also used before the subtitle of a book, as above.
• The colon is also used to: separate information, as in chapter and verse (John 3:16); act and scene (King Lear, Act Three: Scene Two); hour and minute (8:20 a.m.); volume and page reference (World Book, 8:320).

There are more but too many to list here. Every writer should have a good book on punctuation on their bookshelf so make this a priority for your reference library.

Punctuation – the Apostrophe

The apostrophe is one of the most misused punctuation marks in the English language, and its misuse is growing. The apostrophe is used for the following reasons:

• in place of a missing letter in contracted words, such as don't instead of do not, it's instead of it is, they're instead of they are, or an omission, such as the year of '66.
• to indicate possession, as in Tom's ball, Descartes's theorem, the judges' rulings. (Note that adding the apostrophe and an extra 's' to a word that already ends in 's' produces a different sound to that when only the apostrophe is added.)
• to indicate possession to the last word in a phrase or a compound – my mother-in-law's couch; the Member for Canberra's vote
• to indicate possession for joint ownership, the apostrophe is added to the last name on the list, for example, John and Mary's anniversary. If the thing is not owned jointly, use an apostrophe for each name, as in John's and Mary's birthday
• the apostrophe is also needed when you want to indicate a duration in time, for instance, in one minute's time…… or after ten years' experience…….
• you will also add an apostrophe to the word before a gerund, for example, In the event of David's resigning…… Note the two separate meanings in the following sentences, just by adding or not adding an apostrophe: I object to the visitor's speaking Italian. I object to the visitors speaking Italian.
• Use the apostrophe with certain plurals, such as do's and don'ts and M.D.'s

Don't use the apostrophe for phrases like one's and two's – this should be ones and twos, or for the '60's – should be the 60s, or the sixties.

Punctuation - Quote Marks and Commas

When you have finished your first-level edit, you need to go back over your work and check all punctuation marks. Punctuation marks go inside quotation marks, not outside. If you've made this mistake often, use the search and replace option to fix these. Check to see that you have used the same type of quotation marks throughout the work, that is, one quote mark or a double quote mark.

Check to make sure that you haven't used too many commas or other 'stop' signs for your reader, or too few. Sometimes, the wrong placement of a comma can lead to confusion. I recently read an article about food and diet and came across this sentence: "Don't eat any foods, that contain fats or sugars." It's a poorly written sentence anyway, but the comma makes it seem as if the writer is advising the reader not to eat any foods! The sentence would have been better written thus: "Don't eat foods containing fats or sugars.

An unnecessary comma is more of a distraction than none, so only use commas where they will promote easier reading.

Editing Process

After completing an edit of a passage, check it again to see that your work is seamless. When we change one thing around, others parts are affected. Make sure that each sentence blends in with its neighbours, and that no scars or amputations are obvious. Your reader should not be able to detect where you have cut, added, or moved words and sentences around.

W. Somerset Maugham said that "A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem like a happy accident."

Our Rich Language

The English language is rich in words and phrases that convey meaning. Use words that will conjure up the sight you want your readers to see. Ensure that the imagery you are using will appeal to your readers' senses and that it will help them to visualise, to put them into the world you are creating on the page. For truly descriptive work, use metaphors and similes; but don't just put them in for the sake of it, and use them sparingly. Make sure that your metaphors are not obvious – you want to guide your reader, not drag them by the hair! The words you use, the similes and the metaphors, should all enhance meaning.

Aristotle said: "The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor." In Greek, metaphor means 'transport'; the idea is to transport a meaning from one realm to another - something like language in stereo. But make sure that your metaphors are seamless, woven into your story subtly - a string of metaphors strung together just for the sake of it would make very boring reading.

A metaphor can make us see familiar things differently. Our language is rich in meaning; use it well and make your work shine.

Qualifiers

Weed out all those unnecessary qualifiers, described by E.B. White as: "leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words." Some are ludicrous, contradictory and very fatal, while others diminish your ideas. If deleting the qualifier is not enough, find one good, strong word that will do the job, and use it. Adjectives and adverbs are all very well in their place, but if used to bolster a weak sentence or a weak verb, cut them out and find stronger verbs.

Remember that it is far better to show, than it is to tell.

For example:
(poor writing)
The train suddenly picked up speed. Before long it was going very fast, so fast that it swayed dangerously as it sped down the track.

(edited version)
Without warning, the train increased its speed. Passengers, jolted from their morning papers when the carriages rocked wildly from side-to-side, gasped and lunged for hand-holds.

As you can see, the first piece of writing is weak; there is no life in it. The second is better; the reader can see and feel what the characters are experiencing. Words like 'suddenly', 'very', and 'dangerously' are the weak links here so I cut them out. Then, rather than 'tell' the reader what was happening, I used words that would 'show' the action. Stronger verbs, such as jolted, gasped, and lunged, help to create the atmosphere I was aiming for. As you can see, adverbs have their place too; I added 'wildly' to enhance the effect I was trying to achieve but a final edit might see me remove it altogether.

Consider editing as a cleaning chore - you are cleaning out the redundant, and polishing up what remains. If a sentence can stand without a word, cut it out. If the sentence, or the passage does not convey quite what you want to say, add words or sentences, or re-write it all together.

Remove every word that is there just for the effect.

Above all, aim for strong writing by eliminating all those words that weaken it.