In which Rolanni is fed up with book larnin'

[rolanni]

Yesterday, alostgirl posted a query about handling POV shifts to genreneep. A buncha helpful people chimed in to offer advice, and I did, though I rarely do so. Follows one of the reasons I'm so seldom helpful in open fora. It will, I fear, constitute a Rant, because, y'know, I'm Just Not In A Very Good Mood Today, and will be decently hidden behind a cut.



In giving my advice, I noted that I am a headhopper, and use a variety of techniques for signaling a change of head, among them: hitting the enter key twice and starting the new POV; making a new paragraph and starting the new POV; making a new sentence and starting the new POV. The point being that, whatever you do and however you do it, you-the-author do not want to be so clumsy that the reader is kicked out of the story.

Well enough.

Comes jenwrites who advises making POV changes at chapter breaks, which is fair, reasonable, and workable. But then she says, "...I think it also makes for much cleaner, much more thoughtful writing on the part of the author. If you jump back and forth willy-nilly, it takes a lot less thought to construct a good narrative."

Since the object of the exercise, so far as I understand it, is to construct a good narrative, regardless of how much work -- or thinking! -- might be required, I thought that I hadn't perfectly understood her point, so I asked it using less thought to construct a good narrative was a Bad Thing.

And comes the answer: "Not necessarily, but I prefer to read a narrative that the author has put a lot of thought and craft into over one that's just slapped together organically. If you know you're shifting POV with every chapter, then it's very likely to make you plot things out more thoroughly than if you just switch back and forth at will."

First, the dismissal of an organic novel as being "slapped together," as if writing organically were some lesser and not very cleanly practice guaranteed to produce inferior books roasts my groats, but that's just me.

Let's take a look at "...if you just switch back and forth at will." Now, dammit, this is MY book we're talking about here, right? Whose will ought to prevail in the writing of it?

Also? Being forced to set up the structure of the story ahead of getting any actual story written (you know -- the Fun Part) is more likely to inspire me to go read comic books on the couch than it is to plot things out more thoroughly. I don't like to plot things out thoroughly. The stories I've written which were plotted out thoroughly in advance, IMO, lack the energy that informs those stories which were slapped together organically. As a reader I look for energy (i.e. "stories that rock"), and am willing to forgive all kinds of "error" in structure as long as I also get engaging characters and consistent worldbuilding.

Which feeds into my gripe with yet another comment made in thread. From green_knight we have the following: "Headhopping never used to disturb me right until I internalised PoV. Nowadays, it's a major turnoff - the story cannot 'rock' when it's badly written, and the better I become, the more stories fall under 'bad'."

This is nonsense. It makes the assumption that all headhopping is bad writing (and that a good story badly written can never transcend the writer's skill, which is clearly not so, or all of us who have published a first novel would never have published a second), that it's never done well, that it's never necessary to story or to character development, and that writers who employ this technique are BAD WRITERS. I happen to headhop because I like to headhop. It's fun to play with viewpoint. Not only that, but occasions of well-executed headhopping have never once inspired me to throw a book across the room.

Genre fiction is not Literature, folks. You are not competing with Shakespeare -- no, bad example; Shakespeare played all kinds of word and structure games. Um... *thinks*... Ah.

You are not competing with the God-Shakespeare college professors labor to create in youthful minds. You are competing with what's on the tube. You are competing with multiplayer computer games. You are competing with let's go to a movie tonight. You are competing, in Damon Knight's perfect phrase, for Joe's beer money.

Writing is not, as kaygo once put it, a hair shirt. The myth that you must suffer for your art is just that -- a myth. Life is already much too full of suffering and pain. And rules. If your writing isn't feeding something in you that resonates contentment, or joy, or just plain fun -- you're in the wrong line of work. There are jobs a-plenty that strangle your joy with rules. And they're all much more financially rewarding than your writing -- or mine -- is ever likely to be.

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder at people who still care enough to deconstruct writing that much. I don't begrudge them the time they spend on it if they find it entertaining and engaging, but I stopped doing it when I realized it had become a form of artistic navel-gazing... something I did as a palliative against the inevitable slams of the industry.

"Well, here's rejection letter #212, but at least I know what good writing is...!"

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Someone is following me around on amazon panning my books for sins of style that I know I don't commit, because I do micromanage it to that level (I'm a stylist, it's what we do). All I can conclude is that they were rejected by this publisher, and may have been critiqued for those sins, and they have to take it out on somebody.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

That makes unfortunate sense to me.

It's an industry that does not foster sanity, ours. There is no pattern, no rhyme or reason to success in it. Such a fickle lover makes crazed men and women of us all.

Me, I am at the point where if I enjoy it, it worked. What more needs to be said? If someone else enjoyed it, even if I didn't, then it still worked. Just not for me. That is all the criteria that art needs... yes, and entertainment, too.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Someone is following me around on amazon panning my books for sins of style that I know I don't commit, because I do micromanage it to that level

OK, there's somebody with too much time on their hands. Sheesh.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I know at least one of those commenters has yet to be published. Don't know who the other one is behind the alias. Great that they're evolving a method that works for them, but I keep going back to my mom's first college English professor: "If I tell you it's a rule, you follow it. When you get published, you can do whatever you like." She meant of course that rules are for learning and understanding--but once you understand them, if you want to break them, you can.

"Head-hopping" is the Big Bad these days. You'd think it was a split infinitive or like, you know, a (gasp!) sentence fragment.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I can see how it *got* to be a big bad, but I don't understand why. *ponders* That makes no sense...

Ok, Tom Clancy headhops. A lot. I'm gonna beat up on him because he's a big name and thus more than one of us have prolly read his stuff. Clancy headhops to the point where I give up and read the book as a bunch of much shorter novels that all happen to cover the same events from different PoVs. Read through as one PoV, then start the book over from someone else's PoV, and continue on in this manner til I've read most of the book. I may not read all of the book, as there's a limit to how much more you get out of his stories by reading *all* the PoV threads.

But just because Mr. Clancy desperately needs an editor to smack him upside the head does not make headhopping bad. It means Mr. Clancy does it badly for me (and probably a lot of other readers).

Now, I quite happily will devour plays, which can be nothing but head and scenehopping. I like a fair number of authors who have multiple viewpoint characters, including a couple who rival Clancy for length and cast size (but don't inspire me to read the book as separate novels). So I'm forced to conclude that headhopping is a valid and important storytelling technique, and that putting a massive fence of rules around it makes it *more* likely that I'll get lost. Not less.

And well... it's relatively easy to check if your readers are getting lost I'd think. The glazed look and tendancy to put the book down is sort of a dead giveaway that you've got Big Problems.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

The danger with rules -- and I say this with a certain amount of trepidation, because of course your mom's English prof was right -- is the tendency of certain personality types to internalize them to the point of doctrine. This is one of the reasons I'm always hesitant to teach writing. When I do teach writing, I try to make the point that what I'm laying out are guidelines, and that they are infinitely flexible. That the power of writing lies in the skill of the writer, not in adherence to rules.

It's amazingly tough to get that across...

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

When I do teach writing, I try to make the point that what I'm laying out are guidelines, and that they are infinitely flexible. That the power of writing lies in the skill of the writer, not in adherence to rules.

You're right on, of course. When I teach it, because students tend to want rules and instructions and secret handshakes, I try to give them a general set of "If you do this well and understand how it works, you have a pretty good chance of writing a decent piece" techniques, then add that once they've mastered these, then they're free to break the "rules." Rules are usually about things that are easy to do badly and hard to do well. That's where I think POV became locked in cement in so many writers' minds. It's hard to write good omniscient, and it's hard to shift POV's effectively, so that became "never do it at all."

[magda-vogelsang.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm biased, since I prefer character driven stories to plot driven ones. Ideally I'd like both, but I'd rather have great characters than a wonderfully plotted book in which I don't give a damn about anyone in it.

That being the case, I enjoy seeing things from other points of view than just that of the title character or characters. If nothing else, if gives me insight into how the characters (and settings) I like are seen by others. It gives a richness to things that you can't get any other way, and you learn more about each character by seeing how they see the world and how they are seen.

I don't see why the change of perspective should only be made once a chapter. As long as it's clear that the POV has changed, I don't care if it happens more often (although certianly jumping around from paragraph to paragraph within a single scene could get distracting).

What does drive me nuts, after reading writers like yourself who are good at POV and at showing rather than telling, is when I read something where someone walks into a room they've never been in before, and you get a description of the room which includes things that wouldn't be apparent at first viewing, i.e. "...with a closed door leading to an enclosed porch in which the residents often enjoyed afternoon tea." Mind you, the book is in third person, so it doesn't really break the rules, but it feels odd to me, and I find it jarring.

Re: Book larnin'

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

If it communicates to the reader, and doesn't destroy a reader's trust in the narrative ... and there's still narrative lust, It's All Good.

The more I talk to people who don't read, either because they've learned that the way they read is "wrong," or that reading is "too hard," the more I think that the one thing that ought to be taught, but isn't is: Trust The Author. It's my job as a writer to entertain you. I may give you a rough ride, and I may exhilarate you, make you think, or laugh, or cry -- but I'm not going to let you fall.

Granted, some stories Just Don't Work for some readers; that is, as said below by the sagacious and wise kaygo why there are so many writers who write so many different stories in so many diverse and interesting ways. But, IMHO, that's a separate issue from trusting the author to know hisorher business.

[dievalkyrie-99.livejournal.com]

ARRRRGH!!

I've never posted here, I never will again (I promise) - but OH my.

I'm 40 - I've been reading non-stop and pretty much anything I could get my hands on since I was 14. I'm in the middle of packing a couple (thousand) books so I can move them, but if I had to do the typical desert island bit - all the books I'd take with me would be yours.

As for jenwrites - chapter breaks, unless done amazingly well, tend to throw me out of the story - especially if done predictably. I have been known to skip every other chapter with an 'oh, it's HIM again, PASS' - when I'm in the middle of a story the LAST thing I want to do is have how much 'thought' the writer put into the 'planning' of said book jump out at me. - I'll vote for the good narative, thanks.

As for green_knight - he needs to go back to school so he can write for professors - or maybe his only readers should be other authors? - "Bad" is surely in the eyes of the reader - and although I hold a major in English, and I do, every once in awhile, go back and read my favorite 'classics' - I would RATHER have wonderful characters embroiled in an interesting story than any amount of 'good structure'.

*I* could write a 'good' book. Structurally perfect, following all the rules, yadda - but I'd never want to read it!

YOU write. You write amazingly well. I find joy and laughter and food for thought in every book you've written, and could not POSSIBLY ask for more!

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I've never posted here,

Hi, there.

I never will again (I promise)

No need to be quiet on my account.

To be clear, neither jenwrites or green_knight were specifically ganging up on me. What corked me off was what I felt was their ...unnecessary rigor... in defining what constitutes "good" writing.

chapter breaks, unless done amazingly well, tend to throw me out of the story - especially if done predictably. I have been known to skip every other chapter with an 'oh, it's HIM again, PASS'

Right. It comes down to how well the author can pull the trick off.

As for green_knight - he needs to go back to school so he can write for professors - or maybe his only readers should be other authors?

No, no. Most writers I know started out as readers -- and we all read for different goodies, just like readers everywhere. Certainly, I know readers who read for structure. I don't, but that's just me.

"Bad" is surely in the eyes of the reader - and although I hold a major in English, and I do, every once in awhile, go back and read my favorite 'classics'

This is where I do think green_knight is being just a little too precious. He's claiming, in essence, to have achieved such a state of enlightenment that he can no longer enjoy the work that, presumably, inspired him to become a writer. Granted, some of the work that inspired me doesn't stand up well to re-reading, and perhaps isn't what I'd suggest as a place to start reading SF to a modern reader -- the John Carter novels spring to mind -- but I'm not going to disown them as an Influence. Speaking of head-hopping, I adored Hamilton's Valley of Creation when I was in high school -- and still found it enjoyable on a recent re-read. Yes, it's overwritten, but it still works.

*I* could write a 'good' book. Structurally perfect, following all the rules,

See, I couldn't. At some point the story would demand to go this way, or a character would reveal something that Changes Everything, and bye-bye structure. Sigh. I'm such a wimp...

[dievalkyrie-99.livejournal.com]

At some point the story would demand to go this way, or a character would reveal something that Changes Everything, and bye-bye structure

*grin* - which is why you're a successful (brilliant!) writer, and I never will be!

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Writing is not, as kaygo once put it, a hair shirt.

Boy, she's a smart one. Hope I can be her when I grow up.

Something that works for you won't work for someone else. That's why there's more than one writer and more than one reader.

We all have opinions, and we all read and write different kinds of books.

The only definite is that there is not one correct style, one correct way.

It is a sometimes difficult thing to admit, because it seems to leave things wide open and not provide much in the way of structure, but oh well. Such is writing.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

"There are nine and sixty ways of creating tribal lays, and every single one of them is right."

I have been known to growl about books that lack POV discipline, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way of doing it right -- you're not doing it to be lazy, you're doing it because it's right for the story.

As for "slapped together" I have written one book in omni with POv shifting and others in rigid POV order and I certainly never stop to plot things out in advance in any circumstances, because it kills all my interest in the thing -- not even when I have the structure all solid. Because structure and plot are different things, and thinking about them needs thinking on different levels, as people who want to make comments like that should know.

Sheesh. Is it that time of the month or is everything conspiring to be really irritating this last couple of days?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Is it that time of the month or is everything conspiring to be really irritating this last couple of days?

*Checks phase of moon*

Hmm. Waxing crescent.

Maybe it's the pollen count?

[deor.livejournal.com]

Single-character POV or multi, it doesn't matter to me as long as I don't get confused as to whose POV I'm 'in' at the moment.

I don't mind shifting POV. I do mind shifting POV in mid-stream-of-thought; I find it both disruptive and confusing, and it throws me right out of a story.

(There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, including this one. A storyteller who shifts POV on purpose for a specific effect, rather than just uncontrollably jumping around, can still be a pleasure to read. But the storyteller must be in control of what they're doing for that to work.)