Deep POV--Lesson 1.2 What Do Your Characters NOT Know?

In the last lesson, we talked about how having a deeper POV meant considering your story from the perpective of a specific character and staying inside their head. This means what they feel, your readers feel. What they taste and smell, the readers taste and smell. In other words, you write through the senses. This is tricky, because you have to be careful to not describe things your character cannot possibly experience from where they are positioned in the story. 

Here are some common pitfalls:

1) The character "didn't notice"--If you are writing from their POV, how would they know they didn't notice something? The only way to convey that to your readers is... well... they have to notice it at some point, right? 

Let's suppose your character did not notice that their dog slipped out of the house while they were stepping outside to see how cold it is. Do you guys do that? In Kentucky, where I live, the weather changes in an instant. Even in the summer, I'll step out on the back deck to see what it "feels" like outside. Do I need a light jacket? But this is normally early when my senses aren't fully awakened. That's key. Put your character in a mindset where they wouldn't notice. I don't notice a lot of things when I first wake up in the morning. 

Then, consider how the character would eventually realize the dog is missing. What observations would they make with their senses? 
They see? No dog. So they might have a thought. Where is that crazy dog? 
They hear? No little pawsteps. No jingle of the tag on its collar
They smell? Maybe dog food as they're opening a can or putting dry food in a bowl
Maybe taste and touch not so much in this scenario, but you get the point. 

Okay, so let's do this from 1st person POV. I'm going to color the deep thoughts in green. Notice how I don't have to put these thoughts in italics. And how I'm not sticking to all the grammar rules. 


See how I showed readers that the dog was missing without actually saying the dog was missing? That's a great writearound for show/don't tell. 

And now, 3rd person POV:



2) The character sees something that's behind them or in a different room

Try this exercise. Find a place in your home to sit and only focus on what you can see and hear. I'm in my living room right now. It's 4:30 am and my oldest son is still up gaming with his friends. The only reason I know he's gaming is because I hear him. He could be sitting up there picking his nose or eating a bowl of cereal, but you couldn't prove that by me. The only evidence I have that he's awake is I hear him. And I distinctly hear him saying the things he says when he's gaming. That's all I have to go on. 

Now, let's suppose he comes out of his room. I'm downstairs in a living room chair. He's at the top of the stairs. I hear his door open, but I still don't see him. I can't know what he's wearing right now. I'm assuming his hair is messy because of the time of day, but I don't KNOW it. I do know that my neighbor is wearing a long sleeved black pullover and getting into his white Ford F150 because I can physically see him out the window.

The worst offense of this pitfall is when we have the characters planted somewhere fixed in the room and something happens behind them. For example, a mother might be standing at the kitchen counter doing dishes. We write that a small child drops a glass in the floor and it shatters. She wouldn't see this until after it happens and she turns to look. She'd hear it. Maybe feel tiny glass shards striking her bare feet. Hear the kid shrieking. But she wouldn't even know it was a glass until she looked.


The order of things really matters here. Also, notice how we've established the mother/son relationship without directly stating it by using the phrase cherub-faced boy, BUT we didn't say that until she pivoted and could actually see him. 


3) The character sees their own face. 

Nelson gives the examples of "Face flushed, eyes spitting fire..."  and "Gaze crackling, a low growl rumbled from his throat." She points out that the character cannot know that his face is flushed, but can rather feel the telltale signs of it, like warmth in the cheeks. They can't see their own eyes (even giving the color of them is a POV shift). They can't see a scratch on their face or blood. They'd feel it. But not see it. So obviously the character above is meant to be angry. We need physical body reactions that show anger.


There's a great book I use regularly for this called The Emotion Thesaurus. It's a collection of all the physical actions and body responses that are associated with specific emotions. And see how the addition of the thought deepens her anger? This example might be a bit over-described, but I wanted to make it clearer for learning purposes.


4) Characters seeing who can't physically see.

Another interesting perspective here is when characters wear glasses or contacts. We tend to throw these things on as descriptors and then forget to treat our characters like they're vision impaired. I had an interesting experience with my oldest son at his last eye doctor visit and purchasing his new glasses and contacts. For the first time, he really cared about how they looked on him. He made me take pictures with my cell phone because he couldn't see himself in the new glasses. And then, when he had the contacts on, he stood in front of the mirror forever. HE'D NEVER SEEN HIS OWN FACE BEFORE WITHOUT GLASSES! That completely blew my mind. 

So, to be realistic in your stories, if you have a character who needs vision correction and they're just waking up in the morning, they should slip those glasses on before trying to read something. 

Until next time!!!