Week Thirty-Five: Narrative POV and Tense Choices

I've talked about narrative point-of-view (POV) on this blog before, and brushed against the use of tenses in narrative, but never looked at either of those in any depth.

I have two new novels out this week.

One is an indie (self-published) short romantic novel written under my quirky romcom persona of Beth Good: THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB.

The other is published by Hodder & Stoughton under a new name, Hannah Coates, and is a feel-good Christmas tale for the whole family entitled BERTIE'S GIFT.

I'd like to explore the widely-differing techniques I used for these books, as they come at POV and tense from totally opposite ends of the narrative spectrum.

 BERTIE'S GIFT is a first person, present tense narrative in the voice of the eponymous Bertie, a young and highly inquisitive beagle.

Yes, that's right. It's written in the voice of a dog. And in the present tense, which means the reader is right there from the first sentence, living the story as Bertie. It's a fast, snappy and exciting choice for a feel-good action story, so perfect for BERTIE'S GIFT.

THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB, on the other hand, uses third-person narration and the past tense. This choice came about largely because the events in the book are seen through the eyes of two narrators, Crystal and Emma, and using first person would have been too confusing (for me, let alone the reader) when switching between narratives. Plus, third-person POV more naturally lends itself to the past tense, I personally feel, so the latter choice came along with the former.

This may be because 'She walks across the room,' has a more sinister and 'knowing' feel than the more traditional, 'She walked across the room.'

We're accustomed to the past tense in storytelling, and indeed it makes more logical sense. The past tense is an author or narrator looking back on events with some degree of hindsight, just like the oral storytellers of ancient, pre-lettered cultures. 'Once upon a time' is still a magical invocation. It allows us to settle down for a gripping yarn, secure in the knowledge that we are to some extent passengers and not in any danger from this story. However scared we may get, it was all over long ago!

Present tense narration, on the other hand, puts us right in the picture - with no escape. We open a book and find ourselves in the position of an unseen observer, an inadvertent eavesdropper, hiding behind the sofa or the arras. An uncomfortable - and potentially dangerous - position to be in. (Remember what happened to poor Polonius in Hamlet.) It can make us feel complicit in events, like a bystander who fails to step in and help at some crucial moment. Thus the present tense lends itself to narratives that deliberately push our boundaries as readers: horror or spy stories, thrillers, chillers, psychological fiction, and so on.

I was also aware that THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB is a romantic novel. I had no desire to stand out as unusual in narrative terms - and so put off romance readers looking for a quick comfort read - and while things are rapidly changing in women's fiction, past tense is still the most common choice for traditional romance and its sister genres.

I could easily have chosen present tense for both books, however. I've written a string of books in the present tense over the past couple of years, and it's becoming a far more natural mode of expression for me than when I first tried it. Present tense is also trendy right now, great for engendering a sense of urgency and immediacy, and can feel quite strong as a narrative technique. Perhaps a little too strong. Like an onion.

So while it's useful for writers hoping to make an impact straight out of the gate, and draw readers deep into the heads of their characters, present tense can also overpower your narrative if it's not right for the story.

I've often been asked, 'Should I write my new novel in past or present tense?' My answer is always, sit down and start writing your story without considering that question.

Whatever comes most naturally in your first few lines is probably the correct choice.

To force a story to be told in a particular tense over some technical or external consideration (because it's fashionable, for instance) may lead to later changes of heart, massive and painstaking rewriting, and then misery, followed by flip-flopping and more massive rewriting to 'fix' it. This is often because the chosen tense can inform the way you tell a story, and just changing the tense can lead to narrative issues you didn't intend.

I've done this myself, fretting over technique instead of devoting my energies to the storytelling. So don't worry too much about such choices before beginning your novel. Just start to write in an instinctive way, and the right person and tense should come naturally in your very first line ...

To combine present tense with first-person POV is the most in-your-face way of telling a story, as I do in BERTIE'S GIFT, and is hugely trendy at the moment.

The immediacy and emotional impact of that combination makes it an absolute winner for people raised on film and television, where they can follow lovers into the bedroom, and murderers or victims right up to the moment of death - and even beyond. They're not so keen on 'Once upon a time' anymore - though there's still a perfectly valid place for that technique, and indeed it may become fashionable again in a swings-and-roundabouts way.

At Killer Women Fest last weekend in London, I went to a workshop run by Tammy Cohen and Amanda Jennings, where the use of second-person narration in psychological fiction was briefly discussed. We all agreed that, while it's quite powerful to read a 'You walked across the room' narrative - and second-person can feel very creepy indeed in a psychological thriller - it should be used sparingly. More like garlic than onion, to continue the metaphor.

But I then went home and made use of that insight, as a dab of second-person POV might help solve a dilemma in a current work-in-progress. It may not make the final manuscript but it's worth trying. Everything is worth trying.

So don't be afraid to experiment with POV and tenses, but remember: if it feels right, it probably is right. And vice versa. Just like cooking up a sauce, always go with your gut.

BERTIE'S GIFT is out Thursday 20th October.

THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB was out yesterday, only 99p the ebook. Ppb coming soon!

Week Twenty-One: Narrative Choices

Week 21 - my blog comes of age!

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who has bought the ebook of this blog so far. Every single purchase is vastly appreciated. And thank you to those who have spared the time to review the book too. It has seven 5 star reviews so far!

You really do make a difference to a book's success by buying and reviewing. So thank you.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I expanded the first 20 weeks of this How To Write A Novel blog into a great value ebook, and you can download it for only £1.99 here:

21 WAYS TO WRITE A COMMERCIAL NOVEL.

So, onward and upward!

This month I've been looking back through some advice I gave to writers a few years back when editing women's fiction for Salt Publishing. While rummaging through those old documents, I found some interesting thoughts on narrative voice and point of view characters, and decided to share them on the blog.

The voice you adopt for each novel is a vital thing. It informs your entire book from line one, and can make or break a story. Yet it's surprising how few writers invest serious time in considering the voice or voices they have chosen to tell their story. This is something I've had to think about quite frequently myself over the past year, because even though I have nearly thirty published novels, and dozens of short fiction titles out there, you never stop learning new tricks in this business, however old a dog you become.

So I thought I'd discuss narrative voice this week.

Choices over the kind of narrative voice we use in each story seem to happen instinctively for most people. This may be because voice comes first for them, like a whisper in the dark, or because experienced writers have an instinctive grasp of the whole from the part.

To expand on that last idea, the first scene, the first line, even the very first word you choose to write: these should automatically inform the book to come. They tell us upfront who's speaking - and perhaps as crucially, why. They may suggest character, plot, motive, context, even ultimate destination. It is not too far of a push to say that the first page of a novel can behave like a blueprint of the whole novel. Macrocosm and microcosm in perfect harmony. The big in the small, and vice versa.

At least, that's the ideal. How does your first page measure up?

• Check your first line. Does it intrigue? Does it suggest? Does it cause a double-take?
• Have you in some way invoked the magical territory, as the storyteller does with the traditional line, 'Once upon a time ...' ?
•  Is the character whose voice we hear powerfully drawn enough from word one to make us stop and settle down to hear his or her story?
• Voice is the writer's as much as the character's. What about your first page tells us what a special writer you are and why it would be worth reading your book?
• Can we 'see' what is going on? This is a visual age so don't neglect to build a picture in the reader's mind. Whatever you see when you close your eyes and think of that first page, THAT is what you need to draw with language.
• Clear, broad, generous, confident gestures. Don't skimp. Give them the works.

Giving the reader the works ...

The novel I'm working on right now is becoming an impromptu experiment with point of view. This is mostly designed to obfuscate - great word and much-underused - a plot twist that I need to keep buried as long as possible, but also to solve a narrative-specific problem I had. The jury is still out on whether it will work, but right now the book is being written in both first person and third person.

Fussy? Possibly. Confusing? Maybe that too, but I do want the reader to be pushed a little off-balance by the telling. Hopefully though not so much of either of those that the book will fail because of it.

Intention is everything with narrative choices. Doing something like that - splitting the narrative in some unorthodox or risky way, or stretching it out to include more than two or three point-of-view voices, for instance - just because it sounds like an interesting idea ... That's never wise. It's a literary move, perhaps. To experiment is a natural urge for an avant-garde writer, and thank goodness someone is doing it for those of us who can't. Genre writers tend to follow a smoother, better-worn path where narrative is concerned. The tried and tested. But the slippery narrator is everywhere today. The strange but intimate little voice in the ear, spooking and confusing and charming and intriguing the reader. That's what many editors are looking for right now. Only it takes nerves to go after that with real gusto. To take the inevitable risks and hope someone left the safety net in place. Because sometimes, when you do it, even the editor who asked for such things specifically may back off, saying, 'Actually, no. It doesn't quite work. Good luck elsewhere.'

These are some of the obstacles we face as writers. The stick, and nothing but. The poisoned carrot. The hand that turns out to be empty when we tap it. The bottle of air.

So why keep writing?

I know why I keep writing and trying to sell novels, by hook or by crook. To eat, for sure. To pay my bills and keep a roof over my children's heads. But also because I cannot countenance making my living, or whatever scratchings I can make if a living is denied to me, in any other way. Despite all the hard knocks and betrayals, this is still the business for me. Putting down a word like the first stone in a drystone wall. Then another. Then another. Then another. And watching a new world begin to take shape from that silent accretion. Because the rush of a well-wrought sentence is better than cocaine.

QUESTION: If your narrator is not secretly you, who the hell is it?