Several years ago, I noticed the trend of people having a “word for the year.” Especially in Christian writing circles, people would use this word to guide their goals and interactions for the year.
I have tried coming up with an official word of the year (even praying for one), with mixed results. One year I felt, deep in my heart, my word was “connection,” and then I ended up staying home most of the year with health problems and other issues. I did connect with the tv remote and lots of chocolate, though.
Recently (as I write this post toward the end of December 2021), I have been reviewing the past year and thinking about the next one. I am not saying it’s my OFFICIAL WORD OF THE YEAR, but here is what I have been pondering: perspective.
The definition of perspective is “a point of view, a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something.” That hits me in the gut.
A few days ago, I was getting something out of one of my kitchen cabinets. A can of food came falling out, and I felt frustrated. Two years ago, my wife and I moved to a much smaller home with a lot less storage. Why do I have to cram everything in like this? Why do I have more room?
I had a catch in my spirit. I live in Eastern Kentucky, and, right before Christmas, a devastating tornado rolled through the Western part of our state. Many people lost their homes and all their possessions. Those folks would probably love to have a house like mine, small as it is.
Right there at the kitchen counter, I repented and thanked God for a roof over my head and abundant food in my cabinets. It is all about perspective.
What does this have to do with writing? EVERYTHING. How often do we lament that we aren’t making more progress, not getting those big contracts and assignments? What if we chose to be thankful for the things we do get to write? Even for the small, seemingly inconsequential pieces? Even if a smaller piece touches one person, it is worth it.
Changing perspective often encourages thankfulness. Did I sign a big book contract in 2021? No. Did I make some valuable connections and write some smaller pieces for different outlets? Yes. I’m truly thankful for the opportunities I was given in 2021 and look forward to what’s in store for 2022. I’m trying not to lament over the things that didn’t happen.
Perspective. Could it be THE word of the year? I guess time will tell.
Carlton Hughes, represented by Cyle Young of Hartline Literary, wears many hats. By day, he is a professor of communication. On Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, he serves as a children’s pastor. In his “spare time,” he is a freelance writer. Carlton is an empty-nesting dad and devoted husband who likes long walks on the beach, old sitcoms, and chocolate—all the chocolate. His work has been featured in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Dating Game, The Wonders of Nature, Let the Earth Rejoice, Just Breathe, So God Made a Dog, and Everyday Grace for Men. His latest book is Adventures in Fatherhood, co-authored with Holland Webb.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), the character Atticus Finch says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.” As authors, this is what we do when we choose to write in the first person. We come as close as we ever can to experiencing the world from a perspective that’s not our own. Writing fiction in the first person then is a leap of empathy and imagination, but the challenges this point of view (POV) poses are technical, as well as psychological.
Some writers experiment with POV, trying out omniscient third, close third, and first, before settling on a narrative approach for their book. But when writing my debut novel, Bronte’s Mistress, I was never in any doubt as to whose voice the story needed to be told in. Not only was my book a response to one of the most famous first-person novels ever written, Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 Jane Eyre (“reader, I married him”), but my protagonist, Lydia Robinson, was a woman who’s been vilified through history as being responsible for the Bronte family’s demise. What would she say if she could tell her side of the story? I wondered. And, equally importantly, How would she say it?
Writing Lydia forced me to enter a world (1840s England) in which, even wealthy, women had few choices. She doesn’t own property, she’s never voted, she has no access to divorce. And it also made me confront the technicalities of writing first person prose, a few of which I’ll share with you today.
Placing your narrator in time
You’ve decided you’ll be writing in the first person, but this is just one of a series of hard choices. Now that you have the who, it’s time to think about the when. Will your first person narrator be telling the story from a point in the future? Will they know the story’s destination from the very first line? Think of Charles Dickens’s titular character David Copperfield (1850) or Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).
Choosing a retrospective viewpoint has the potential to make your story more didactic. It’s easier for a character to draw conclusions or moralize with the benefit of hindsight. And there are other advantages. For example, if your character is going to undergo a significant transformation, the older protagonist can excuse, explain or apologize for the behavior of their younger self, maintaining reader sympathy. This makes this choice popular for writers of bildungsroman.
On the other hand, a retrospective first person can distance us from the character in the moment, alienating us from the action, and even intruding on scenes with overly expositional commentary. A retrospective first person can slacken the tension too. A first person character is already unlikely to die, but the existence of an older narrator pretty much precludes this possibility. If you write historical fiction like me, you might also have to pinpoint an exact year from which your protagonist is speaking, giving you a second time period to research and understand.
In Bronte’s Mistress, although the book is in the past tense, Lydia Robinson tells her story as if she’s in the moment and living through the events of the novel vs. relating the events years later. For me, this decision made sense as I wanted readers to feel viscerally with Lydia as she enters into an illicit and dangerous affair. However, I did occasionally miss the tools a retrospective first provides, like giving me the option to foreshadow more overtly.
Experiencing your story through their senses
Writing first person means your story can only contain what the protagonist knows, but this advice goes beyond questions of plot.
Seeing the world through the narrator’s eyes means describing each new setting through the lens of what they would observe—and in the order in which they would notice every detail. Your characters’ senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch) become readers’ only points of access to the world around them. This isn’t a movie where you can start with an establishing shot before zooming in on the face of the character we’re following!
This means you have to be careful that your descriptions seem to fit within your character’s realm of experience. Can your narrator really detail different types of weapons? (Maybe yes, maybe no.) Can they see another character’s expression from so far away?
Watching your metaphors
Linked to this, is the difficulty of handling imagery (for instance, simile and metaphor), when writing in first person.
As with your descriptions, your images need to ring true to the character whose perspective you’re writing from. Would they know these words and think these thoughts? Crucially too, is this an appropriate moment for them to be thinking poetically? Or are you sacrificing believability because you’ve fallen in love with a sentence, phrase or image? If your character starts thinking in too many similes, they may seem distracted from the task at hand.
People have their favorite images and points of comparison, and these are dependent on their interests. Tapping into this can be a great way to establish your character’s personality, but you may also run the risk of making your imagery repetitive. In Bronte’s Mistress, for instance, my character Lydia is a good musician, so she often uses musical metaphors. This was a helpful guide for me, as music gave me a lot of scope to play, without the imagery I employed ever feeling out of place in her narration.
Offering other perspectives
Finally, one of the toughest parts of writing first person fiction is the danger for overidentification between the writer and the protagonist. How can you show that you disagree with your character’s views or actions, if you’re writing from their perspective?
Here, other characters’ voices (e.g. through dialogue) are crucial. Include others’ views to cast doubt on your protagonist’s conclusions or to hint that they might be unreliable. There is also potential to use irony in the same way, having “what happens next” totally contradicting what the first person narrator has thought/said previously.
In Bronte’s Mistress, I had another device to help me do this. I inserted letters addressed to Lydia at various points in my narrative, allowing me to showcase viewpoints that were in opposition to hers, and, of course, play around with additional first person voices!
I hope some of these tips have been helpful to those of you writing fiction in the first person. Writing using the “I” may seem straightforward, but when the going gets tough, remember that what you’re attempting is truly extraordinary. You’re stepping out of your own skin and into someone else’s. What could be more miraculous?
Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the nineteenth century. She has two degrees from the University of Oxford, including a Master’s in Victorian literature. Brontë’s Mistress is her first novel and is available for purchase now. By day, Finola works in digital advertising. Find her online at www.finolaaustin.com, or connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
It took 11 months after my accident before I was finally released from doctors’ care. That season was more than just recovering from a gruesome life-altering accident. It was a time when I had to adjust to my new normal.
Over 20 years later I’m still not used to it. There are times I encounter new challenges, but despite what life throws at me, I understand each challenge has its reward.
Processes to help me learn patience and how to listen.
Setbacks to make me stronger.
Rejections to grow my desire for my goal.
As I look back from this side of my recovery, the process changed me just as much as my disability has.
Regardless of how and why, here I am over two decades later walking when I’m not supposed to, eating on my own, and taking care of myself, despite what I was told by my doctors.
Actually, physically I’m in better health than a lot of people half my age. The struggles and long recovery have made me a better person. Now I get to reap the rewards of nearly a year of hard work. But, the cliché holds true, it wasn’t about the destination, but the journey to reaping the rewards.
Rewards?
The dictionary defines a reward as, “A thing given in recognition of one’s service, effort, or achievement.” Rewards are a result of hard work and take time to receive. There were times during my recovery I thought I would never get to where I wanted to be physically. Each negative result only made me want to succeed more. Failure was not an option.
Writing is a business and it works like any other business. Contracts aren’t given to just anyone with a good idea. Successful writers do the prep work and put in the time to get where they want to be. As I learned during my rehabilitation, anything worth achieving is worth fighting for, even when the struggle is unbearable.
This is especially true if we plan to reap the rewards of a long-term writing career. One of my life hacks is to mimic people who are where I want to be. This is why so many artistic fields now offer “masterclasses” to help others achieve success. Below are a few tips from successful writers.
1. Develop good habits – Most beginning writers will have to balance their writing with other responsibilities.
2. Use your limited time wisely – Before you sit down to write, think of ideas, remind yourself of where you left off in the story, or make a mental plan for what you want to accomplish during that session. Some writers strive for 2,000 words per day.
3. Network with other writers at conferences – Conferences are an invaluable help if you’re looking to network with other writers, publishers, and agents.
4. Find an agent – publishing via a traditional publishing house means you need to find a literary agent. These professionals are the gatekeepers of the publishing world.
5. Build a relationship with an editor – Editors are a hugely important part of your publishing process.1
My recovery wouldn’t have been a success if I’d done it my way. The rewards I gained came from working together with countless therapists, nurses, and doctors. As I look back now on who I used to be and what I could do pre-accident, I am amazed at how much I learned and what more I can do now than before. Recovery, like writing, is a process—and that process changes our perspective on what matters.
Perspective?
When I was younger I thought I was indestructible and life was at my fingertips. This thinking caused me to take everything for granted. My disability humbles me and keeps me on my toes.
I can vividly remember in college wanting to be a writer, but having nothing unique to write about. I can even remember praying for inspiration to write a screenplay that would touch the world.
Since my accident, I have worked with other disabled persons and shared my story. I am also inspired to write encouraging movies about people with disabilities. My accident changed my perspective on writing and life alike.
Too many people, especially writers look at success as the goal and miss the journey. Success may never be riches and fame for most writers. Success looks different to each of us.
Writing full-time.
Traveling the world.
Huge book sales.
Or a simple byline.
In one of my favorite books on writing Jerry B. Jenkins concludes with this, “I’m living my dream as a full-time freelance novelist, writing about things I believe in and care about. And you can too. The path is crowded and the passage long, but the reward is worth it. You can write for the benefit of your soul. And you can write to reach the soul of another. Welcome to the journey.”2
For some, the journey may be the only reward they receive from a writing career, for others it may be a New York Times best-selling book. Personally, each baby step I take both in writing and in my physical recovery, I know I am reaping the rewards.
Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at Spiritual Perspectives of Da Single Guy and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.
The carbine was still jammed and Jim couldn’t do anything to fix it. He finally tossed it aside and cursed the shoddy Adronni weapon manufacturers – maybe their world would be next on the alien invasion tour. A shrill whine filled the air, and Jim pressed himself tighter against the debris-covered groundcar. A scant thirty feet away the earth erupted in blue smoke. As the remains of a prefab shelter rained harmlessly over his powersuit, Jim took inventory. A Gilgamesh repeater pistol, a single frag, and a suit of armor with a busted rebreather. As long as the reptilians didn’t gas him first, he’d probably live long enough for one of their walker units to plasma-blast him in the chest. He sighed. No, there was one last thing he possessed – the souls of his charred comrades pushing him on to avenge them. Jim unholstered the pistol and peered around the corner. Time to move – vengeance would be his!
On the surface, the above paragraph looks like an action scene. It’s dripping with tension, and Jim’s fate looks pretty bleak. But even an action-packed paragraph can be used to build your world. In fact, study it a minute and try to identify some of the foreign storyworld elements.
We’re not sure what kind of weaponry Jim has (laser? projectile?), but his attackers clearly have plasma weapons that explode in puffs of blue gas. And we can guess based on the grisly state of his allies that either the plasma weapons burned them alive or that the aliens have some other kind of burning weapon.
Let’s look at some of the subtler elements though. Take the use of the word “groundcar.” What is the implication there? Obviously a “groundcar” is a type of vehicle distinguished from some other type. An aircar? A hover car? We don’t know specifics, but use of that word reveals that methods other than ground-based vehicles are used for transportation in this world.
We also get a glimpse into the intergalactic relations. First of all, these reptilians are not only invading Jim’s planet but have apparently been on “tour,” invading many planets. We don’t know if “Adronni” is a company or a race of aliens, but we do know that either Jim or his military outfit purchased firearms from otherworldly suppliers. This establishes that the storyworld has interplanetary trade.
All of this could be done from a detached, third-person omniscient perspective, but the story is told from a deep, although third-person, POV. This not only conveys the gobs of storyworld information above, but it also does two other things: 1) it gives the action emotional impact. Sure, the battle scene is only a paragraph long, but you’re emotionally involved in the character. It inspires you to read onward and learn Jim’s fate, even as your imagination processes the alien elements. And 2) the world is shown with Jim’s particular biases. A comment like “shoddy Adronni weapon manufacturers” shows us Jim has preferences in firearms and the Adronni-supplied weapons are apparently not among them. This doesn’t mean his preferences are necessarily right, and a different character’s POV may reveal a different perspective on the carbine and its manufacturer. Your storyworld’s inhabitants, like those in the real world, won’t always agree on things.
This isn’t to say that every paragraph in your 90,000-word manuscript must be packed with exotic storyworld elements, but the first few chapters should do so as much as possible. And if you’re trying to get your audience attached to your characters in that same timeframe, doing so from a close, ground-level perspective can really help.
Last year, my favorite novel was Monster Hunter International written by Larry Correia. A contemporary fantasy novel like this doesn’t need as much storyworld explanation as a distant-future sci-fi novel, but the author does equally amazing jobs at world-building and deep character exploration. I’ve also just started Marc Turner’s When the Heavens Fall, an epic novel with some well-developed fantasy elements and several great POVs. A final verdict will have to wait since I haven’t finished it yet, but thus far it’s a great read and exemplifies some of what we’ve discussed here.
That’s all for now. Next month we’ll kick off a series on alien and fantastic biology. Until then, let me know if there are any other storyworld elements you’d like me to explore in this space. Thanks for reading!
Have you ever received a negative review of your writing? You know, the kind that makes you want to crawl under a rock and never write another word?
I have, and it hurts. It didn’t matter that I also received several good reviews, nope, it didn’t matter at all. I focused on the negative words and allowed them to affect my mood and actions – I beat myself up for days or weeks. The key is to mine the gold from a negative review, and then move on.
That’s where the problem comes in: it’s hard to “move on”, much easier to wallow in the condemnation pit. Yes, it’s a choice, and it all comes back to what I believe to be true about God (He called me to write), myself (I am gifted but not perfect), and others (people have different opinions). Here’s what I learned from my experiences…and I’m still learning how to walk this way.
Negative words aimed at us are going to hurt. Let them hurt. It’s OK. It’s human. Have a good cry, punch a wall, talk to a trusted friend. Then when the emotions have subsided…
Look for nuggets of truth in what was said – take the words to God and ask what He has for you. None of are beyond needing correction, or improving our work. Also remember that what the enemy intends for harm, God intends for good. Once you’ve mined for truth…
Thank God for their review. Maybe God will lead you to thank them, too. Either way, going through the experience is a gift God can use to make you stronger in Him and better at what He’s called you to write. Don’t forget to…
Bless the one who spoke / wrote the negative words, out loud. The spoken word is powerful. Believe the best about them, bless them, and ask the Lord how you can pray for them. Keep on praying until you feel released to stop, which is usually when the emotions of the event are gone. Finally…
Expect negative reviews – not everyone will like your writing. Plus you have a message of hope to get out and an enemy who wants to discourage you at every turn. What better way than to try and shift your focus away from God and what He’s called you to do.
Like a miner, sometimes you have to blast through a whole lot of rock to get to the diamonds and gold. Ask God for help, and choose to do things His way: forgive, bless, be thankful.
[bctt tweet=”Take the time to mine the gold from a negative review. Then move on. #almostanauthor #amwriting “]
