Common Writing Questions Part 2

 My last entry addressed some questions that come up with unfailing regularity on the writing sites I frequent. today, I will continue with these questions. Again, these answers are my own opinions, though they're based on the consensus that generally emerges from discussion threads on these topics and from my own research.

Can a book have the same title as another book (or are titles trademarked)?

No, individual book titles are not copyrighted or trademarked. However, titles associated with franchises (like, say, Star Trek), or titles for a series of books (for instance, the famous Harry Potter series) often are. But if you're worried about the title for your individual book duplicating the title of another individual book that does not incorporate the name of a franchise or series, it's most likely not an issue.

An example of two contemporary novels with duplicate titles

In fact, a quick search for a book of a given title on Amazon reveals that it's exceedingly common for books by different authors to have the same titles.

Whether it's a good idea or not is another question. It's probably not great to have the same title as a classic work, or as a well-known work in the same genre. Publishing another fantasy novel called A Game of Thrones (even if the title hadn't been incorporated into that of a successful television franchise) is a bad idea, for instance, and you could get in trouble if it looks like you're actually trying to capitalize on George RR Martin's success by "passing off" your own work as his.

But some names are more generic than others, even so. A search of the title The Stranger, for instance, finds (in addition to the English translation of Camus's classic), a number of more recent novels.

Another thing to be aware of, if you're pursuing trade publishing (the route by which you submit manuscripts to agents and/or publishing houses), there's a very real chance your "working title" will be changed prior to publication. Editors often have a better idea than writers do what is potentially attention grabbing.

Is it bad to write in present tense?

Nope. The approach is fairly popular in YA fantasy (Wendig's Under the Empyrean Sky uses a deep, limited third pov in present tense), but there are plenty of examples in adult fiction too. Like with anything else, think about the effect you're trying to produce and strive to do it well.

Juliette Wade has a nice blog piece about writing in present tense.

http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-not-tell-story-in-present-tense.html

Italics for a character's internal thoughts: Is it okay to do this?

This is a question that can probably be answered by grabbing some books down from your own shelves. Some writers use this technique, some don't. It's a function of voice and style. Some use it for some character povs and not others. In his First Law trilogy, for instance, Joe Abercrombie made heavy use of italicized thoughts for Glokta's pov, but not for his other pov characters. A few stipulations, of course. They're usually used to show first person and/or present tense thoughts in an otherwise third-person, past-tense narrative. And of course, you wouldn't show the thoughts of a character in this way unless you're writing in omni or limited third (and for the latter, only for the pov character).

Italics for telepathy: also okay?

Some authors do this. Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lacky come to mind. If you're also using italics for directly worded thoughts, be sure your context and tagging make it clear whether something's being thought or said.

How about for flashbacks?

I've seen published novels that do this, but many people claim they dislike reading long passages that are italicized. My personal belief is that if you are writing a long flashback sequence, one that represents a genuine scene break, you should write it as a properly framed scene and not rely on font style to cue the reader. But this is also something that one's editor or publisher will weigh on heavily on.

Novel length: How long is a novel supposed to be?

Technically, for adult fiction, anything longer than novella length (40,000 words) is a novel, but this doesn't mean that a 45,000 word novel is long enough to be terribly marketable in most adult fiction markets. It also doesn't mean your 200,000 word opus will be an easy sell, even if it is epic fantasy.

This site is often sited as a good summary of average word count ranges for different genres, in the US at least. Does this mean something longer or shorter won't sell if it's really good? Of course not, but it means that agents might be more leery, as there will be fewer places for them to submit it.

Another way to get an idea about normal word counts in a given genre or subgenre is look at the submissions guidelines for publishers who take your genre and see what they stipulate for word count. There can be quite a lot of variety, even among Big Five subsidiaries. I blogged about word counts in debut secondary world fantasy novels a while back, and in fact, there are a number of longer ones that have been published in recent years. This is a small number of titles that probably do not resemble a random assortment of what's been published in recent years, and it does not mean that longer novels are easier to sell overall.

What is point of view?

Point of view (or narrative viewpoint) is the "eyes" through which your story is told. A writer has many options, including:

1. First person (narrator is in the story and uses terms "I" or "me" to refer to him or herself).

2.  Second person (narrator uses "you," as if addressing the protagonist, or as if the reader were the protagonist).

3.  Third Person (objective third, omniscient third, limited third). All characters referred to by name or as he/she etc.

There are different approaches, narrative depths and voices within each of these as well.

This site has a good overview of the different points of view.

What is deep point of view?

This is an approach or style that can be used in first person or limited third person where the voice and perceptions of the point of view character are presented in a very intense and immediate way. The purpose is to make the reader feel very close to the action, as if he or she is seeing and feeling the story through the protagonist's eyes as it unfolds, rather than being told it from a greater narrative distance.

Here are a couple links that discuss how to write deep point of view.

http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/11/16/deep-pov-whats-so-deep-about-it/

http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/2011/11/checklist-for-deep-pov-in-1st-or-3rd.html

What is close third point of view?

I'm not sure. People mention it sometimes in writer's forums, but it's not in any of my craft books, and googling it comes up with nothing. I suspect it's a misnomer for "deep" point of view, or possibly just limited third.

If there's such a thing as "deep" point of view, what is "shallow" pov?

If the world really were arranged into binary pairs, then there would logically need to be a shallow pov to offset deep. Some writers say they resent the implication that anything that isn't "deep pov" must be shallow writing. But few things in life are all-or-nothing, and viewpoint is another example of this. While deep pov proponents can sound a bit like they're preaching about the One True Literary Way sometimes, pov exists of a continuum, and stories written at a greater narrative distance can be just as "deep" or compelling as stories written in deep third or first. In fact, some readers find continuous immersion in deep third to be exhausting and want or expect the narrative camera to be drawn back sometimes. The challenge lies in knowing when and how to do this effectively.

Omniscient versus Head Hopping

What's the difference between omniscient point of view and head hopping? Omniscient point of view is telling the story through the eyes of an all-seeing, all-knowing narrator who is usually not a character in the story (unless they are a first-person pov narraotr who has supernatural or transcendent prescience for some reason, as in Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos). This narrator can relate the thoughts and perceptions of different characters in the story, and he/she can share things that none of the characters in the story know. But the narrator does this from the outside. This creates more narrative distance than limited third, but it allows the author more narrative freedom.

Head hopping happens when someone dives deeply into the pov of more than one character within a scene. It can result from a misunderstanding of what an omniscient narrator is supposed to be, or is can result from someone trying to write in limited third without properly cued pov changes.

This blog does a good job of explaining what head hopping is and how it differs from the skilled use of omniscient.

http://kayedacus.com/2011/01/11/debunking-writing-myths-omniscient-pov-is-bad/

Multiple point of view characters. Is there a rule about how many I can have?

No. First-person novels most often have just one, but it's becoming increasingly common for there to be multiple first-person narrators. Jaida Jones and Daniel Bennet use this approach in their fantasy novels, and Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible does it masterfully. The main thing to consider is how you're going to let the reader know you're in a new pov (named scene or chapter breaks are common) and how you're going to establish very clear and distinct first-person voices for each character.

It's far more common to have multiple limited third person pov characters. Many modern epic fantasy novels are written this way. An example I've read recently is Joe Abercrombie's First Law series. He writes in a fairly deep pov, and the voices of each of his characters are very distinct and permeates the narrative as well as their dialog. Not all authors do this to the same extent as he does, but it can work very well. One thing to consider if you don't want your tale to swell into a 200k or more word epic is whether you need as many characters as George RR Martin uses in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. The ideal number of viewpoint characters is the number needed to tell your story.

Prologues. Are they loved? Are they reviled? Are they ever necessary?

A prologue is an introductory chapter that contains information that's not part of the main story but it is required to set it up. There are different kinds of prologues, and some of these have become more or less fashionable in fantasy over the years. Prologues are something that many readers (and editors and agents) say they hate these days, but they still seem to be pretty common in published novels.

One piece of advice I've seen is to write your novel, starting with chapter 1, and try to weave your back story and essential world building into the main narrative in intriguing little dribbles. If you (and your beta readers) still think something's missing that's vital to the story, go back and add your prologue. What you should probably think long and hard about are those "in the beginning" kinds of history lessons, or a scene that shows your protagonist being born, or something like that. I've heard that these have become somewhat clichéd in fantasy in recent years. This is my personal opinion, but prologues that aren't constructed as scenes, where something is shown in real time, and where a character isn't at the center, are less likely to draw the modern reader in (modern readers have, after all, many things competing for their attention besides your novel).

Here are a couple of pieces on prologues.

http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/07/06/pros-and-cons-of-prologue/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/7-deadly-sins-of-prologues-great-novel-beginnings-part-2/

This is a good stopping point for now. The next entry will cover a third cluster of common questions.

Questions About Writing That Pop Up a Lot on Writing Forums

I'm a moderator over on a fantasy writing site, and we get a steady influx of members. I've also participated in the Cascade Writers Workshop three times now. Over the years, I've seen some of the same questions pop up over and over again. Many of them are questions I myself had not so long ago. So I've compiled some of the more frequent ones and have provided some answers.

Note that these are based on discussions I've had with other writers and on various blogs and craft books I've read as well, but in the end, they're my own opinions.

Active Versus passive voice.

Most of us were told at one time or another not to use passive voice in our writing, but many people are unsure of what passive voice is.

Some people think that any use of a "to be" verb in a sentence is passive, but this is not true. Passive voice is when the subject of a sentence is the recipient of its action. So in the above sentence "most of us were told at one time..." is passive voice, because most of us (the sentence's subject) is being acted on by its verb (told). The second part of the sentence "but many people are unsure..." is not passive, because the sentence's subject is performing the action. "Many people" is the subject, and they're performing the action of being unsure.

It's really more accurate to think of clauses within sentences as being active or passive, rather than the sentence itself, because complex sentences can have multiple clauses. Consider the following sentence:

"I went to the fair and was approached by numerous people while I was there."

The first part (I went to the fair) is active, while the second part (was approached by...") is passive.

You can also have a passive clause with no to be verb: "Racked by stomach cramps, I raced to the bathroom."

The first part of this sentence (Racked by nausea) is passive.

While the overuse of passive voice can indeed make writing cumbersome and roundabout, it has a place. For instance, rewording the sentence "Most of us were told at one time or another not to use passive voice..." requires us to actually state who did the telling so we can turn them into the subject of the sentence.

Our teachers told most of us not to use passive voice..."

This works well enough if we want the focus of the sentence to be on teachers, but if we want the recipient of the action to be the focus of the sentence, then keeping it passive is appropriate.

Like anything else, use it mindfully and for a reason.

Chapter Length

How long should my chapters be, and should they all be the same length? This one comes up a lot on writer's groups. The best way to answer this is to grab some novels down from your overflowing bookshelves (if you're interested in writing fiction, I'm assuming you're also a bookworm) and see for yourself.

The answer, of course, is that answers can vary in length from a single sentence to tens of thousands of words. The average length of chapters in a book will depend on the pacing, the structure of the story, and personal preference. Some writers (Pratchett is one) don't use standard chapter breaks at all. And many writers vary chapter length quite a lot within a given novel. Typical adult novel chapters are between 2000-5000 words long, but some are longer, and some are shorter. Use the approach that works best for your story.

Describing a character when you're writing in limited third or first person.

This one comes up a lot. Obviously, you can't randomly zoom the camera out when writing in character pov, and mirror scenes tend to be clichéd. So how do you show the reader how your character looks if you don't want him or her to come off as incredibly vain or self conscious?

The first question to ask yourself is how much detail does the reader need? Is the precise color of your protagonist's eyes or the precise shape of his or her nose important? Most readers are pretty good at drawing a decent mental picture from a few generalities. There are some details of appearance that can be important, however. Maybe your character has some feature that makes him or her stand out or that makes other people react to him or her in a certain way. Say your character has a hideous scar, or is of a different race than most of the people around him or her (sadly, most readers will assume a character is white, unless shown otherwise).

In these cases, it might be plausible to show other people reacting to the character's appearance and possibly to have the person thinking about his or her appearance. For instance, someone calls your protag "Ginger," or asks him how the weather is up there, or stares at the scar on her face. Another technique is to have the character responding to the appearance of another person. In the beginning of Jay Lake's novel Green, the protagonist is seeing a white man for the first time, and her reaction to his appearance leaves little doubt that darker skin, hair and eyes are normal to her.

Inciting/initiating event versus plot catalyst

This is one of those pesky terminology questions, because different writers and editors will use different terminology for the same concepts. Typical stories have something that gets the ball rolling at the very beginning of (usually by the end of the first chapter). It is sometimes called the inciting event or initiating event or first plot point. This represents a break in business as usual that nudges the story along. In character-driven stories, it's most often something that happens to the character directly, but sometimes it can be something that happens off camera, or in a prologue. Regardless, it will disrupt the life of the main character or characters.

Stories that feel like they have ridiculously slow starts often are so because the inciting event happens too late.

The plot catalyst typically happens later on in the story (10-15% in usually), but still in what can be considered the first "act." It can be an event, another character, conflict etc. that forces the protagonist to make a choice about whether to act in some way. It's sometimes called the point of no return, because once it happens, there's no way out for the main character(s) but through.

Stories where it feels like the protagonist is wandering aimlessly for too long are often missing this element.

Is it all right to write characters who are a different gender, race, sexual orientation or culture than myself?

Yes. If it weren't, then many classic works of literature would never have been written. If you're writing something about or from the point of view of a culture or life experience you're not very familiar with, however, it's probably a good idea to do your homework, and to spend some time learning about stereotypes and potential pitfalls. Research what cultural (mis)appropriation is and how to write about other cultures, or create new ones that integrate aspects of existing cultures, without doing this. And run it by a reader or two who can tell you if you've made any gaffes.

And most of all, be aware that everyone is first and foremost an individual. No character can be a generic representation of his or her gender, orientation or culture, anymore than you yourself are.

But aren't you supposed to write what you know?

Write what you know is probably the most mis-cited, misunderstood piece of writing advice in existence. If writers could only use settings, experiences and characters that they have lived directly, or about which they are experts, most novels would never be written.

Write what you know means you are supposed to bring your own lived experiences to the table in your writing on order to create believable and emotionally authentic responses, but it doesn't mean that every character must be (or should be) you, or that you must have personally done everything your characters have. Use your capacity for imagination and empathy, not to mention your experiences with different people and situations, to create realistic, three dimensional characters.

And be willing to research things too. Never been in a battle? Don't just study historical records of real battles (though this is a good start). Read first person accounts of people who have.

This is a good breaking point for this week, but I've got plenty more FAQs that come up on writing forums and in workshops.

Link to Article About Male Gaze and PoV violations in Fantasy

I just ran across this issue on male gaze and pov (written by Kate Elliot) from a SFF fanzine.
Anyone who's read very many of my entries by now knows that I'm interested in gender issues as they pertain to writing. I'm also interested in point of view in fiction and in the ways authors use (and sometimes abuse) it. Kate Elliot refers to the problem of "omniscient breasts," which is what happens when the male gaze creeps into a point of view that is supposed to be female. Thought it was interesting, as it sums up something that I probably don't notice quite as often as I should, but that still jars me out of a story's narrative sometimes: a female character, written in limited third pov who seems just a little too consciously aware of certain parts of her own body.

I strongly suspect that writers of both sexes are often unaware of the fact that they're doing this. The most interesting part of the article was one male's interpretation of her writing when it was truly written from a female pov.

I remember reading a passage in GoT where one of the female characters seemed to be oddly aware of the size and shape of her own breasts, and of the way they jiggled beneath her vest. It made me roll my eyes a bit, because if a woman wrote a male pov along those lines (he felt his firm, tight you know whats jiggling inside his breeks as he walked across the room), I think many male readers would throw the book down in panic.

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012/09/guest-post-the-omniscient-breasts-by-kate-elliott/

Pesky POVs

I'm taking a little stab at discussing craft today. I always feel a little phony doing this, since I'm not a professional writer. So I've written this as much to consolidate my own learning process as to be seen as a writing guru dispensing pearls of wisdom that no one else can provide.

I've done enough critiquing of other writer's stories by now to notice that some people have more trouble with point of view (pov) than others. Traditionally, most fantasy stories are written in third person, and recent years, most are in some form of limited third (with occasional dives into omniscient for prologues, introductory chapters or transitional scenes).

The greatest area of difficulty seems to be with writers who do something called head hopping. Usually, head hopping is accidental, but occasionally, I've read a scene that looks like it was written by a kangaroo on cappuccino but the author defends his or her approach by saying it's all right to head hop, because it's written in omniscient.

This often spawns a discussion (which can become heated) about authorial voice and whether it's a good idea for a beginner to try and write omniscient in the current market and whether stories where the reader is tightly tied to what the protagonist senses and knows are more engaging than ones where the reader can be aware of things the characters are not. But these debates bypass the fact that third person omniscient does not feel like head hopping when it's done properly. To put it another way, saying you are writing in omniscient does not make head hopping okay.

There are a ton of bloggers out there who have done a good job of discussing the various points of view in writing and who refer readers to various published works for examples. I'm going to take a different approach with this piece. I took a very short snippet from a chapter in my book that takes place at a party (the original is written is a fairly close or deep third pov) and had some fun rewriting it into different povs and as a head hoppy passage. I am hoping that it illustrates the differences in a fairly concrete way.

Limited third person (deep or close):

Jarrod smiled stiffly as Master Eammon introduced him to a bewildering array of people. Councilors, entertainers, academics--the mage seemed to know all sorts. Everyone's eyes lingered on his face for an extra second before flicking politely away.

Tesk flashed him one of her heart-stopping smiles. "Don't worry about them." Her green dress showed just enough silky-smooth skin to make him tingle in ways he didn't want to think about in public. How had he ever thought of her as ordinary? He averted his eyes before she caught him staring like the damned fool that he was. No woman in her right mind would welcome attention from a battered husk like him.

This is very similar to how it might be written first, except for the pronouns. This is my favorite pov to read and write, but I'll admit that I do hybridize it with a more detached pov sometimes, especially in scenes where I need to clarify that something is a thought or a realization or whatever, or when doing so just makes things feel a little clearer.

Limited third (more detached):

Jarrod smiled stiffly as Master Eammon introduced him to a bewildering array of people. Councilors, entertainers, academics--the mage seemed to know all sorts. Jarrod noticed that everyone's eyes lingered on his face for an extra second before flicking politely away.

"Don't worry about them." Tesk flashed him one of her heart-stopping smiles. Her green dress showed just enough silky-smooth skin to make Jarrod tingle in ways he didn't want to think about in public.

How did I ever think of her as ordinary? he wondered. He averted his eyes, knowing he was staring at her like a damned fool. He doubted that any woman in her right mind would welcome attention from a battered husk like him.

This is similar to the previous passage. We're still only getting Jarrod's pov and we're still seeing inside his head, but notice how I've changed the wording in a few places. I'm tagging some of the things Jarrod is noticing, doubting or thinking as such, rather than simply stating them directly. Also, there is an extra paragraph break, since turning Jarrod's thought about Tesk not being ordinary into a tagged "internal dialog" creates what is, in essence, a new speaker. So we need a paragraph shift.

Third omniscient:

Jarrod smiled stiffly as Master Eammon introduced him to a bewildering array of people. Councilors, entertainers, academics--the mage seemed to know all sorts. Everyone noticed Jarrod's scarred and branded face and stared for an extra second before remembering their manners and looking away.

"Don't worry about them." Tesk flashed him a smile, knowing full well that her green dress showed just enough silky-smooth skin to make Jarrod tingle in ways he didn't want to think about in public.

Completely unaware that she'd selected the dress with him in mind, Jarrod averted his eyes. How did I ever think of her as ordinary? he wondered. He doubted that any woman in her right mind would welcome attention from a battered husk like him.

Writing this was a bit harder for me, because I don't generally write in omniscient, and few of the books I've read in recent years are written in this pov. I had to pull some of my older books from my shelves for a refresher on how the authors did it. Someone more used to writing in this pov could probably provide a better example than I have.

But notice how we now are privy to some information that Jarrod isn't. We know that the people Eammon is introducing him to actually do notice his face and it's not just Jarrod's perception that they do. We also discover that Tesk wanted Jarrod to notice her dress, even though Jarrod doesn't know this. What I did not do was present "deep" thoughts from different characters without tagging (or present deep thoughts from different characters in the same paragraph).

I've encountered some conflicting advice about how important a strong narrative presence is with omniscient. It's certainly stronger and more noticeable than it is with either type of third. There is a type of omniscient (exemplified by CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia) where the narrator is almost a character in the story at times. With the narrator telling you the story, you're less likely to get confused when he or she tells you about what different characters are seeing and thinking, because you are really inside the narrator's head. But not all omniscient narratives are exactly the same. Examples of more modern novels with omniscient povs would be The Hitchhiker's Guide books by Douglas Adams, and even parts of the opening chapters in JK Rowling's Harry Potter Books (though she then reverts to a more limited third for pretty much the rest of each book).

Head Hopping:

Jarrod smiled stiffly as Master Eammon introduced him to a bewildering array of people. Councilors, entertainers, academics--the mage seemed to know all sorts. Everyone noticed Jarrod's scarred and branded face an stared for an extra second before they remembered their manners and looked away. Did they have to stare at him?

"Don't worry about them." Tesk flashed him a smile. Hopefully, he wasn't feeling too self conscious. Her green dress showed just enough silky-smooth skin to make Jarrod tingle in ways he didn't want to dwell on in public. How had he ever thought of her as ordinary? Completely unaware that she'd selected the dress with him in mind, he averted his eyes.  He doubted that any woman in her right mind would welcome the attentions of a battered husk like him.

This scene violates a couple of rules, which make it hard for a reader to follow it (well, I know I can't follow it, and I wrote it). Firstly, we are switching perspectives/pov in the same paragraph--and in back to back sentences at that. Secondly, we are Putting untagged, "deep pov" type sentences (how had he ever thought of her as ordinary? and Hopefully, he wasn't feeling too self conscious) in the middle of paragraphs that have more than one pov/perspective presented in it. Not tagging the pov in an omniscient scene will confuse readers. It's a bit like mixing two flavors that are delicious separately but yucky in the same dish.

Omniscient is a tough pov to get right, though there are some wonderful novels that make use of it. I am a firm believer that there are few (if any) hard and fast rules in writing (well, commas splices are always bad, I think). But if your reviewers are confused or say they think you're head hopping when you're shooting for omniscient, it probably means you haven't gotten it quite right.