Writing Fiction First Person

When I open a book and see it is in first person--where the main character personally tells the story—I expect an eloquent revelation of the emotional concerns of the character. In most cases, that's not what I'm finding. More times than not, I read a regular story told with a limited viewpoint. Often the story suffers because the emotions of other characters aren't revealed. Most of the books I've read could have been changed to third person without missing a beat. Nothing was gained by the first-person presentation, and I've occasionally found myself frowning when the "I" became really obvious; "That's right," I think, "This is first person," having forgotten the assumed style. A first-person viewpoint can allow for a more active voice, and in today's book marketplace active voice is a definite plus, but there are many pitfalls in using this voice. One of my own titles was a first person story. I recall the discipline it took to maintain the tone and voice of the character; there is no room to deviate. Yet in books I've read deviations are many. Examples:

1. A first-person character spoke of himself and acted like someone of minimal schooling, and yet many of the passages (through this first-person voice) used language and observations that bespoke a higher level of education.
2. In another book, the first-person adolescent protagonist was lamenting her strict and limited cultural upbringing, yet used metaphors and references beyond the scope of the aggrieved lifestyle and her age. This disparity was enhanced by the story being told in present tense—there was no distance of time to assume she had acquired the knowledge after she matured and left the community.
3. Another problem arose when the protagonist voiced a preference or prejudice, but didn't exhibit the emotions that go with the stated feelings. In one section, the character admits having the willies in a unclean environment, yet she didn't show discomfort when entering a dirty, rundown warehouse.
4. Really disturbing is when the protagonist becomes a sort of Houdini or Superman, reading post-a-note messages upside-down and half obscured on the desk so the reader can learn the information, or realizing someone is carrying an expensive brand of wine by identifying the cork emerging from the edge of the carry bag.
5. The worst problem occurs when first-person characters know bits of information that aren't revealed in their presence. To circumvent this, I read many books where the author resorts to the Device of having the character meet someone who knows all and proceeds to tell it to the protagonist. This slows the story to a halt, with too much discourse and not enough action.

Writing first person should draw the reader into the environment and emotions of the story: what the protagonist sees is what the reader sees; protagonist emotions and interests determine how other characters and circumstances are viewed. The main thrust of first person should be the impact events have on the emotions and psyche of the protagonist. If this personal impact isn't developed, the story becomes rather like someone telling about their vacation and giving way too much information (the shorter the better with first person). And like a vacation story, what's happening is only shown/told through one person's eyes. If that person isn't highly intuitive, extraordinarily impacted by the events, or marvelously eccentric, everything becomes rather bland. If you are writing a first person story (or planning to) here are some suggestions.

· Avoid the use of third person-type sentences: "I looked across the street and saw a dog running up the alley." In first person, it isn't necessary to identify the character—there is only one. If something is shown (the dog running) it's because the first-person character saw it: "Across the street, a dog ran up the alley." This corrected sentence provides a more active voice, and it insures the first person viewpoint.
· The same is true with emotions and sensations. "I went outside and felt the cool breeze on my face..." Saying "I felt" isn't necessary; just give the sensation and reaction: "The cool breeze felt wonderful after the stuffiness of the room." (More information, more action, no "I", no "felt")
· Avoid overusing the pronoun, "I". If the voice is strong, it shouldn't be necessary—as with the "breeze" example above.

A few examples of well-constructed first-person stories: Contemporary - Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, Historical - The Accidental Spy, by J. R. Lindermuth, Science Fiction - Muse of Fire, by Dan Simmons. (Please leave a note about those you've read and liked.) If you haven't read these, sample them at least, and think about the construction. A good test: In a paragraph, if you don't lose anything by substituting "he" (or the necessary third-person pronoun) for "I", then the first person isn't working. Writing in first person is more difficult than many people believe. When done correctly, it is excellent; when it's a bit sloppy--well, it's a bit sloppy. Of the recent first-person titles I've read, only one in four have been well constructed.

Compound Words

© 2008 Kae Cheatham (Previous published on a Goodreads Blog)

When I proofread or copyedit, I am always on the lookout for those compound and combined words (such as lookout, copyedit and proofread) that can be so troublesome. Improper forms of these English language anomalies occur even in published books. When do you use the hyphen? When are the words combined or separated? There are no reliable rules.

Single-word combinations and compound words can have different meanings, such as workout (n) or work out (v); freehand or free hand, wind bag or windbag. It is important to use the proper spelling to be certain readers know what you're talking about.

Here are examples that show the variations:
• You can go to the courthouse, but not to the highschool;
• use a coffeemaker, but not a coffeecup;
• Drink from a wineglass, but for the plain stuff, use a water glass;
• Houses can have a backyard (adj. & n.), and courtyard (n), yet front yard is never compound.
• Then there is bedroom, while livingroom and diningroom are incorrect (space between words, no hyphen), yet bathroom is okay and so is mudroom and workroom.
• Spell the word teenage, yes; but middle age is not compound, while middle-aged (adj.) has a hyphen.
• Snow plus another word is almost always compound: snowfall, snowshoe, snowplow, snowmobile, snowblower. Same with foot and door.
• But take special care with words beginning with half, variations are abundant.

If you type a word as compound, and the spellchecker (not spell checker, although spell check (v) is correct) gives it a red line (not to be confused with redline, which refers to the upper limit of acceptability), go to the real traditionally-bound, turn-the-page dictionary to see which spelling gives the meaning you want. Check, then double-check those pesky words to get your manuscript in the best possible form.

The following are correctly spelled, although they are often misspelled in publications. Do you see a pattern?
(Not)

airship, air force, airhead, air conditioner (n), air-conditioning (n), breakeven (n), break-even (adj), cutback, doorjamb, dark-haired, shorthaired, fair-haired, longhaired, long-sleeved, long johns, chuck wagon, street-smart (the same meaning as streetwise), longtime (adj.), long-term (adj.), long-standing (adj.), anklebone, cheekbone, hip bone, wellborn, well-bred, well built, cross-legged, crossover, crosscut, cross section, nerve-racking (also spelled nerve-wracking), landgrab (n), land-grabber (n), windowsill, windowpane, window shade, workday, pent-up, streetlight, majordomo, major general, searchlight, shoreline, workpeople, townspeople, firsthand, neckband, make-believe, make-do, makeover, make way, pinprick, wingspan, midday, midyear, mid-afternoon, day-to-day, show-and-tell, short-circuit (v), short circuit (n), wide-eyed, openmouthed.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg (not ice berg).

Paint with Words

Paint With Words, © 2003. 2010 Get It Together Productions, All rights reserved

Writers are artists, and keeping that in mind will really improve what you write. When developing scenes, the image of the environment is evoked by the writing. The manuscript (soon to be book) is the canvas, sentences and phrasing are the brushes; your words give color. All this creates Sense of Place; Sense of Place is vital to fact and fiction; it's an element of writing most readers appreciate, even if not consciously. Readers want to feel as if they are in the scene.

Some writers overuse adjectives with the mistaken belief that this will offer sense of place. But saying "the elegant house" isn't enough. That abstraction has little substance. "The well-landscaped house set on a knoll overseeing the valley" might paint a better picture. Another attempt to set a scene is to list things.

Brenda looked around. The room had a brass coffee table, and a bright sofa flanked by two Queen Anne chairs. Three prints were on one wall, with the sheer curtains hanging at the wide window. Two ornate candlesticks set on the fireplace mantle.

Brenda has become a camera, with no emotion attached to the description. The above paragraph might work better:

Brenda liked cozy look of the bright sofa, flanked by Queen Anne chairs. She admired the three Monet prints, and fingered an ornate candlestick on the mantle. Scents of lilac wafted through the wide window, as a breeze billowed the curtains. The books on the brass coffee table caught her eye.

This second paragraph uses only nine more words than the first, yet inserts the character into the description of the room; hence, the reader learns about the room and the character.

Painting with words is not just a fiction element. Creating sense of place is important in nonfiction, too. A manual might read:

When managing a large office setting, it's important to develop good interaction between employees.

Large office setting is rather vague, and so is good interaction. To give this sentence sense of place, it could be written:

When faced with multiple workstations, harsh lighting and the continual background noises of telephones and copy machines, it's important to encourage dialogue with all employees.

* * *

But fiction is where this element of writing is most useful, and the sense of place in any scene becomes stronger when it is reinforced throughout a paragraph or section to enhance the story. Take a look at a scene of a man whose car has broken down on a stretch of Kansas back road; here are the basics: Robert stood in the July sun beside his useless car. He looked around, but didn't see any houses.

Not terribly interesting, is it? Perk it up a bit: The hot July sun bore down on Robert.
The time of year has been added! Now this must carry through the scene....beside his useless car.... can be painted: Robert wiped sweat from his forehead and squinted toward his useless car. Wiped sweat (it's hot) squinted (it's bright). He looked around, but didn't see any houses... would work better as: The surrounding fields of ripening wheat seemed unending, without a single roofline or driveway in sight.

Good sense of place also engages all five senses. Include colors, smells and textures in descriptions. Here is Robert revised:

The hot July sun bore down as Robert backed from his vehicle. Why now? he wondered. He wiped sweat from his forehead and squinted at his useless car. He could smell hot metal from the engine. A puddle of radiator fluid stained the gray asphalt a sickly green. His sigh was barely audible in the dry wind, and the surrounding fields of ripening wheat seemed unending, without a single roofline or driveway in sight.

* * *

Weather and nature also establish a sense of place. A story based in the tropics could be rife with descriptions of humidity, vivid sunsets, blown sand, myriad scents and colors from vegetation; on the negative, these areas also have hurricanes, riptides, mosquitoes, sink holes and sharks.

With a few well-placed phrases, a writer can provide a definite picture and sense of place. Doing this will strengthen characterizations and greatly add to a reader's enjoyment of the final product.

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A version of this article was first published online in 2004, and in 2005 was purchased by the Ontario [Canada] Knowledge Network for Learning for use in their online classes.

A Word on Words

This article, © Kae Cheatham, was first published in The Roundup, (Western Writers of America) December, 2003

Are your characters killing your history with their words? That could be happening if you aren't careful with your vernacular. Vernacular refers to those words that are native to a region, a people, or an era. The meanings of some words change, and some words used today didn't even exist in the 19th century.

I had always been aware of this, but until a few years ago I never realized how jarring a wrong-era word could be in text. At that time I took an assignment as rewrite editor for a children's historical fiction book. The setting was the Revolutionary War, and I carefully reworked the story and characters for that era. The company had wanted 15,000 - 17,000 words, and although my revised manuscript met that criterion, the story was shortened. An in-house editor assumed that task, and I didn't see the book until months later when a copy of the finished product arrived at my door. I gave it a read and came across the phrase in dialogue "You'll be joining too if Major Ward okays you."

Okays you? Surely I hadn't written that. I was certain that the word OK or okay wasn't in use until the 19th century.

At my computer, I pulled up the manuscript file I had sent to the publisher. Okays you was not there. Neither were other words of dialogue, such as impressive (used as an exclamatory) and protective barrier rather than redoubt. But okays you bothered me the most. I grabbed my dictionary. Sure enough, this word (and all its derivatives) was of 19th century coinage---not something an 18th century character would say.

I'm certain fourth or fifth grade readers will not be bothered by this glitch, but a misused word in historical fiction can garner negative responses from knowledgeable readers and reviewers. Mistakes are easy to make. In the last century, we have been bombarded by a variety of frontier stories and historical works in all forms: books, documentaries, movies, television shows both serious and snide, well researched and sloppy. Misinformation abounds. Just as an elementary school reader will process 'okays you' without blinking an eye, so have fiction writers of history often used words without thinking--without checking.

The "cowboy" era (1867-1900) has always been a favorite of readers and writers alike, and words associated with that time have permeated writing about times prior to that period. Is what we read always right, and is what we write correct? Here are some words to test your knowledge of often-used vernacular. chaps (as clothing), cowboy boots, cowboy hat, cowpoke, dogies, double-dealing, giddap (giddyap), hoopla, jeans, lariat, latigo, shill, shootout, sidekick, tarp, tomfoolery, waddies (referring to cowboys), yahoo.

The words in use prior to 1870 are: chaps, cowpoke, double-dealing, jeans, lariat, tomfoolery and yahoo. Yahoo goes back to the 18th century, and jeans is from two centuries before that. Of the remaining words, only dogies, hoopla, and latigo were in use prior to 1890. The terms cowboy hat (and boots) and shootout that today give an instant western image, are of recent vintage, with shootout popping up in the 20th century.

Therefore, an 1872 rider should not say "Giddyap [c. 1897], horse; we have be there for the shootout!" Also incorrect would be a California forty-niner reporting, "My sidekick [c. 1906] and me found gold at our first dig." Nor would someone before 1887 refer to his sideburns, or speak of an angry person as blowing a gasket (c. 1889). [Other words to check: glassies (marbles), long johns, mystique, potbelly stove, six-shooter (as opposed to six-gun), pushy, underdog.]

This does not mean that a writer whose backdrop is the 1870s should feel restricted to using words only available at that time. An author's narrative voice does not have to ascribe to the language of the era. As long as narration is consistent in tone and language, it will be effective (A narration that has the tone of a pensive philosopher should not veer off into down-home storyteller language). But correct vernacular is necessary in dialogue. Characters must adhere to the language, be it proper English or slang, of the day.

For instance, the reasoning of an 1860s character may be described in narration using these words: The whole wonderful affair enticed Barthelia to study the mores of her benefactors. But do not use that 1890s word, mores, in dialogue. Barthelia wouldn't know to say "It was wonderful! That's when I began studying their mores."

Definitions of some words have changed over the decades, too. The term cowpoke, for example, had its beginnings in the 1840 East and referred to a person who took the menial job of riding in railroad cattle cars to jab the steers so they wouldn't lie down. Yet since the 1870s that word has been attributed to someone working cattle from horseback and is the basis for the word cowpuncher (c. 1875). But beware of referring to "early cowpokes" in 1863 Colorado Territory; that would be incorrect because the railroad hadn't yet extended that far West.

Okay! Let's look at okay. As an adjective or adverb, usage began in 1839; OK or okay as a noun, in 1841; as a verb form, okay (okays, okayed), in 1888, and okey doke in 1932. This information was found in Webster's Collegiate 11th Edition (In Webster's, the earliest date of the word's usage is in parenthesis following the etymology of the entry.) Other lexicology books are A Dictionary of the Old West by Peter Watts, Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Dictionary of American Slang, and The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s; glossaries of many nonfiction books are also helpful. Because I often write stories set prior to 1850, I refer to Chambers 20th Century Dictionary to get the British slant on definitions. Historical journals and folk songs also contain rich phrases from other eras. By using these sources to double-check (c. 1944) your characters' language, you can avoid anachronisms. This will keep your history honest, and prevent picky folks (such as I) from frowning through your book.

Where to Start

© 2010 Kae Cheatham/Get It Together Productions

I once belonged to a writers group that endearingly referred to itself as Rough Beginnings. Nearly every member, at one time or another, experienced the stunning realization that what they thought of as a great start for their novel, was either superfluous or would work better as Chapter Five.

Gauging where your story might begin is often difficult. It is tempting to set the scene with detail about the surroundings, about how people look or talk, or a reflection on what brought the protagonist to this point. But these days, that is not guaranteed to hold a reader. With the mega tasking and instant contact that makes up today's lifestyle, people expect to get "hooked" at the get go.

Certain genres have characteristic styles that shouldn't be ignored, but all beginnings are a matter focus. Home in on the important action that delineates your characters and sets up the story. Meandering too long through flashbacks or hectic urban lifestyle, or daily tedium won't get it done.

Here's an example: a story involves a woman returning home to help out with the family business that is being threatened by takeover from supposed friends. One beginning could tell from where the woman was returning and how she felt about the move as she took in the changed surroundings. But it would be better if action involving the main story was forefront:

She arrives to find the head of the sales department has just quit after a stormy argument with her brother. How she handles this will tell a lot about her character. Once the crisis is dealt with, she and her family subside into a bit of chitchat that will give the nuts and bolts of her situation. "How was the flight from Cleveland?", "Have you decided to sell your condo?", etc.

When starting a new manuscript, it is useful to develop a timeline for the story. This timeline should include the background story as well as the elements of action. The sequence of events, and how and why your protagonist reacts can be critical. Some events might be better if they take place "off the page," with the characters discussing what happened; this would give an opportunity to show reactions and emotions of more than one person. Other events might not be needed in any kind of detail, and are merely your personal reference for story development. Often, this detailed list making reveals clues on where to start.

Once the timeline is completed, start writing--without dawdling over "is this the best opening?". Complete the entire first draft; try not to look back and second guess your efforts. After the entire story has been written, go back and assess its development. Characters and the story line usually change during the course of actual writing, and those changes will affect where the story starts.

No formula or plan will present a foolproof way to start your fiction manuscript, but a bit of organization and list making can get you closer to a dynamic beginning that will grab an editor, agent and reader.