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fiction writing

omni vs. head-hopping

February 7, 2019 by L.S. Johnson

cover of Still Life by Louise Penny

I’ve been reading Louise Penny’s Gamache series with a kind of fascination – not for the mystery element, which is fine, but for the POV.

It reads to me as omni, though I know plenty of other folks call it head-hopping, and they’re not exactly wrong. The image that I couldn’t get out of my head all through Still Life was of rocks being skipped across the water – just these brief, rapid dips into people’s heads. At times it’s poignant, at other times distracting – until you start to see how all these little insights are adding up.

It does, however, solve one problem of multiple POV, which is that it spares Penny from having to fully inhabit the characters, or make difficult decisions about balancing plot and pacing with creating a fully-fleshed worldview. I have no doubt that Penny knows her inspector inside and out, as she does Clara and perhaps a couple others; but for some characters it’s enough to give a few pithy inner reactions and move on. It can be a useful way to bridge moments without having to elevate yet another person to a full player in the story.

The rule of omni, as I was always taught it, is that the story is being told by an all-seeing narrator. And I think Penny’s work just slides over the line. While there isn’t a dominant Author Voice, there is a sense of containment throughout, of information being doled out very carefully.

I’m reminded too of the longago end to St. Elsewhere – perhaps that snow globe is a better fit than the skipping rocks?

Filed Under: Reading Tagged With: craft, fiction writing, Louise Penny, POV, Still Life, writing process

35 minutes

January 22, 2016 by L.S. Johnson

Ozymandias-Watchmen

There was a thread online about villains and tropes relating to such and it prompted me to think of this moment, though I think of it fairly often as it is. I’m old enough that I first read Watchmen when it was in (gasp) issues, this new thing from DC; it came out  right when I was starting to look past the oft-predictable adventures of my Marvel and DC staples towards indie comics, the darker X-Men stuff, and soon this new imprint called Vertigo . . . heady times, I tell ya.

I still get residual chills from this panel. Because I had expected it all, you see: the description of the nefarious plan, the fierce fight to stop it that would probably injure or kill one of the “heroes”, and then the return to a world that never knew how close it came to destruction . . . I thought myself above such things, and yet I wholly expected the story to go that way. It was a lesson in how some structures become so deeply ingrained we don’t even realize it; it’s why, I think, I’m hypersensitive to any kind of story “rut” I fall into.

35 minutes. Not even five, or ten. Long enough to exercise, eat something, watch a little television. It’s a long time, 35 minutes.

Filed Under: Process Tagged With: fiction writing, Watchmen

neuroscience and fiction / david foster wallace 2

March 21, 2012 by L.S. Johnson

so with my dfw rant still knocking about in my head a bit, I saw this in the river of text that is twitter:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html

and if i’m reading it correctly, i think it gives some credence to my soapbox demands for richer language.  it’s not only that fiction makes you a better person, it’s that the details of fiction are what really engage the brain, that how the story is conveyed is as important (perhaps moreso?) than the tale itself.  precise nouns, sensory adjectives, metaphor—all the ways that we can stretch our language past dick and jane are how we reach into our readers’ minds and keep them hooked.  plot may keep the conscious mind turning pages, but it’s the language that stimulates the brain and makes the experience enjoyable, even pleasurable.  Hurrah for words! Hurrah for detail, for rich prose, for slow fiction!

Filed Under: Reading Tagged With: David Foster Wallace, fiction writing, writing advice

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