Over-commercialization

While most children’s authors are out to entertain, educate and inspire, there exists the danger of over-commercialization. Once a children’s book or youth reader succeeds at a certain level it becomes a “property” and begins to “spin-off” into other product and program categories. For example, the author may find her characters on clothing, translated into toys and games and appearing on food and beverage packaging.

The dilemma becomes how to determine when a property is over-commercialized. There are three classifications that any product or program falls into: GOOD FOR KIDS, NEUTRAL, and BAD.

‘Good’ products

Products and programs that are GOOD for kids include sports toys, school supplies, developmental toys, and most books. Products that are NEUTRAL are a little trickier in that used wrongly or to excess these products could be harmful. Neutral products and programs include clothing, TV programming and food & beverages among many others. These products and programs need to be monitored and managed by parents and caregivers.

‘Bad’ products

Then there are those that are just plain BAD for young people. These include many videogames – especially those with violence and with inappropriate sexuality. The Bratz dolls have been criticized in this regard. This BAD category also includes inappropriate internet content and the obvious such as tobacco, drugs and guns.

‘Neutral’ products

Where most children’s authors might get into contracts that end up being bad for kids is in the neutral category. An author must determine if allowing their characters to appear on food and beverage packaging, for example, will result in harm at some level. If the food or beverage content has excessive sugar or other ingredients that may be harmful it would be best to stay away. As cute and loving as Barney, Dora, the Muppets or the Webkinz pets are, they can end up hawking harmful products.

Keeping your characters clean

The key is to keep these three categories in mind. Continue to ask yourself: Will my book’s content – especially its characters – ever promote anything that may turn out to harm children in any way? If so, decide against it and keep your nose and your character’s noses clean.

Crafty tip: make sure you read the small print about commercial spin-offs in your contract; not just who earns what, but what products may be endorsed. Ask your lawyer or agent to ensure that the contract is worded in such a way that you retain control over what products you may be associated with in future.

Dr Dan Acuff is the co-author, along with Dr Robert Reiher of Kidnapped: How Irresponsible Marketers Are Stealing the Minds of Your Children. He offers an evaluation service for children’s and YA authors and inventors of toys and games. His website, Stories Toys Games also has free advice for authors with tips on how to consider the psychology of young readers in your writing.

Related posts:

1. Writing for children: Picture books
2. Writing for children: sex, love and romance
3. Writing for children: mysteries and thrillers

Eleanor Patrick

Sue Brownless

TCW: Why did you decide to co-author a book?

Sue: We both wanted to write a children’s book around a mix of fantasy and reality. When we met at a course and found we could spark ideas off each other, it was a natural step to try and use that. In the midst of a ‘well why don’t we’ moment we decided to write a book for a competition Eleanor had just read about. It gave us a deadline. That book was ‘Farlkris’ and it was joint runner-up for the Kelpies Prize in 2005.

Eleanor: We had the idea jointly while drinking coffee and hearing workmen outside opening up the pavement, from where the sound of dragons lurking in the depths seemed to emanate. There didn’t seem to be a problem about writing a dragon story together – though of course, we hadn’t tried at that stage, so it could have seemed rather a naive decision in retrospect. Luckily, it wasn’t.

TCW: What are the advantages and disadvantages of co-authoring?

Sue: The main advantage is that there are always more ideas, someone else to ask, the story isn’t just in one person’s head, and it helps you through those writers’ block moments. One of us always came up with a line of thought that tweaked the plot and solved the problem. Having someone waiting for the next bit to arrive is good, too. No dodging deadlines or slipping out of tricky bits. The biggest disadvantage is the logistics of getting two people to write together. We don’t live near each other and it was all done electronically.

Eleanor:  The advantages are clearly two heads instead of one on the tricky business of inventing a good plot. Out of lots of options at each stage there are two people coming up with possible additional ways to deal with the event or a better alternative to brainstorm on. That has to be good, so long as you have respect for each other’s abilities, which we do. The disadvantages were mostly technical – sending sections back and forth for reading, agreement, correction and editing; making time in busy schedules to meet together for planning and decisions; agreeing the way forward for marketing and other post-publication dilemmas.

TCW: Which one of you came up with the Scordril concept?

Sue: Scordril was a character in the first Lothian Dragons outing, ‘Farlkris’. He was such a great character, with personality, he just had to have a central role in the next one.

Eleanor: It was a joint idea at the time of the other Lothian Dragons book, which we wrote first. The Kelpies Prize for a book set in Scotland had a deadline about five months after we were discussing the ‘dragons underground’ idea, so we set the book in East Lothian and proceeded from there to meet the deadline. Those Scottish visits fuelled the plot ideas for both ‘Farlkris’ and ‘Scordril’.

TCW: Did you do some preliminary work to see whether or not you could create a single voice?

Sue: We’d had a try at it with ‘Farlkris’ so it was easier and more intuitive with ‘Scordril’. We’d considered the need for a single voice that time and we even had a style sheet of things we had to remember, such as the mind speech and ‘tone’ of the dragons being different to overgrounders. But it gelled quickly and we didn’t need to keep that. The characters found their own voices and that helped us enormously.

Eleanor: No, but most of the teething problems were sorted for the first book, which is being published second, as it follows on chronologically from ‘Scordril’. For that, we wrote a style sheet to make sure we were in agreement about certain things – all stuff we do automatically now.

TCW: Is the ‘voice’ closer to Sue’s or Eleanor’s ’solo’ voice or is it a new creation?

Sue: It is a new creation. Naturally, there will be elements of each of us in there as we write, but by the time we reached the editing stages we realised we had forgotten who wrote some of the individual passages, and genuinely couldn’t tell, so the answer to that must be no.

Eleanor: To start with, you might have deduced who wrote what – though this was not divided between “dragon” and “human” as some thought it might be. We both wrote our fair share of both events. But after editing together, there was no difference in the writing anyway. I was always staggered by Sue’s good ideas (we only had the plot outline on cards) and she was always impressed with my bits. I guess our individuality might show in which ideas we thought of as we wrote, but that isn’t a style thing so much as content.

TCW: How do you actually work together?

Sue: We look at plot – talk it through, bounce the ideas around, and a structure forms. Once we have a plot summary for the whole novel we write it on cards (full set each) so we can rearrange the order if needed and write it separately, bit by bit. We take turns throughout and both write dragon and human bits. One of us would write and then email it on for review and mark-up on screen with coloured text, then suggestions would be made where we differed or had an idea. We’d meet up with our hardcopies in hand to discuss it over a coffee, somewhere, and reach an agreement. One of us recorded the outcome in the master copy and then it was safe for the other to set away writing the next bit. That took a lot of controlling.

TCW: Did you employ an independent editor? If not, how do you maintain editorial quality control?

Sue: No, we didn’t need to. Eleanor is an editor with years of experience, so I was happy to let her have main editorial control on the grammar and such. Also, our process meant that by the final editing of the draft anyway there’d been two pairs of eyes to pick up typos our spell checks would miss and inconsistencies in plot, say, as we went along.

TCW: Is Kelsey Drake going to write other books?

Sue: Well there is ‘Farlkris’, which Kelsey wrote! We’re hoping that will be book two. Now that we know the dragons really well we’d need to tweak that a little for publication. We’ve also ensured the underlying characters/plot are pointing to a third book, with a working title of ‘Yordis’.

Eleanor: Book 2 was written first and just needs revising and editing. After that, who knows?

TCW: Are either of you working on solo projects?

Sue: I’m working on a children’s novel. It is very near to completion of the first draft. I started it when I did my MA Creative Writing at Northumbria University and it is another blend of fantasy and reality. No dragons though!

Eleanor: I am plotting a book for children set in Seahouses – I like locations that readers can visit. That’s why we wanted Lothian Dragons set in places that exist, rather than writing a pseudo-medieval fantasy. This mix of reality and fantasy does make it harder for agents and publishers to see which slot it should occupy on the shelves of bookstores – though Borders does not seem to have a problem, now Scordril is published.

TCW: From a business perspective, who handles what?

Sue: We share the publicity. Eleanor handles school visits and arranging book signings. I tend to liaise with the publisher about ordering print runs and quantities, keeping an overview of the financial aspects, and book numbers. (FYI, Sue is a qualified accountant and internal auditor - Ed)

TCW: With author percentages already so low, is it financially viable to co-author a book and split royalties in half?

Eleanor: Some years ago, Hamish Hamilton published one of my children’s books called ‘Splat!’ which was illustrated by Paula Martyr. I’ve always been sad about the splitting of proceeds (royalties and PLR) but recognise that the book was not viable without the illustrations. With Scordril, the book would not exist without the impetus of both our ideas, so yes, income is halved, but better half of something than all of nothing. We are more concerned with breaking even and getting the book out there and enjoyed than becoming millionaires at the moment. That can come next.

TCW: You’ve chosen to self-publish through Matador. This of course will give you a higher author percentage than with a mainstream publisher. Was that one of the motivating factors?

Sue: It was a conscious choice to self-publish with someone that Writers' and Artists' Yearbook were prepared to recommend; we liked the look of them and their process. The higher author percentage was a factor but that is offset by the cost and risk that we as authors have to bear, and may be eroded anyway by the route the book takes to the reader.

Eleanor: No. We simply didn’t like the constant “this is a great book”, “I love the characters”, “I’d love to take this on but the market is so difficult at present” kind of replies that we were getting from agents and authors. Time was passing inexorably without us getting the deal we wanted and felt the book deserved. And it’s much more acceptable to self-publish nowadays, though it’s harder work. In retrospect, there was the plus of commissioning our own cover – most publishers consult but overrule. In one bookshop, the events manager took one look and said, “At least you’ve got a brilliant cover.”

TCW: What marketing campaign do you have planned?

Eleanor: We have done all the usual things: leaflets, flyers, phoning, showing, contacting bookshops, libraries etc, telling people with whom we’ve had connections in the past, and arranging to give talks and author visits. To keep track of all this, we set up a shared Google document, which we can both add to and comment on as we go. We also have a website and blog.

TCW: What criteria will you use to judge the success or otherwise of the Scordril project?

Sue: We’re already getting good feedback from readers and that has to be one criteria. We’re also selling well and have had to have more books printed, twice! We aim to at least cover our costs.

Eleanor: Oooh, that’s a difficult one. From my point of view, that’s writing a book that people read and enjoy as we hoped they would. In which case, even to date, that’s what we’ve done. Finishing the writing of a good book is definitely a success not to be pushed aside. So is publishing it, if you don’t lose money you can’t afford to lose. But actually connecting to readers who say how much they loved it, well that’s the fire in the dragon’s mouth. For a short time, the readers have lived what we’ve lived, and seen what we’ve seen – and that’s something you can’t put a price on.

TCW: What would you tell Crafty readers who are considering either self-publishing or co-authoring a book?

Eleanor: If that’s what you need to do for any particular project, go for it and solve the problems as you find them.

Eleanor will be signing books on Saturday 20 December at Borders, Fort Kinnaird, Edinburgh; and Sue will be joining her on Saturday 17 January 2009 at Borders Silverlink in North Tyneside, 12-4pm. Drop by and say hello. Apart from a great read, you might just pick up some tips on how to market and promote your own book.

Related posts:

1. Legal thriller by name, but not by nature?
2. Independent publishers – an author’s perspective
3. Book Club: The Book Thief

A covering letter should be no more than one side of an A4, use a business letter format and include:

• Your address and contact details
• The date
• The publisher / agent’s contact details
• A salutation (Dear …)
• A summary sentence (Re: …)
• A paragraph that sums up the main genre, market and theme / concept of the book
• A paragraph about your writing credentials
• A concluding paragraph.

For example, if Beatrix Potter was going to write a covering letter for The Tale of Peter Rabbit it might go something like this:

You can use this form for any fiction query letter. If you are submitting a novel, you would simply say ‘I have attached a synopsis and sample chapters for your consideration’. With a picture book you submit the whole text.

If you would like some help crafting your covering letter and synopsis, visit The Crafty Writer services page. Next week we will look at how to write a synopsis.

Related posts:

1. Children’s writing competitions
2. My First Poem competition
3. Non-fiction – how to write a proposal

Image courtesy of ginieland

The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy

Although these genre have much in common, the essential difference is that Science Fiction broadly deals with the ‘theoretically possible’ (although often improbable!) whereas Fantasy deals with the impossible (although that doesn’t mean everything in the story is impossible). Science Fiction takes the existing world to another dimension; Fantasy creates entirely new worlds and infuses them with a degree of familiarity. See for example Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ fantasy novels. The most recent, Wintersmith, won the British Bookseller’s Children’s Book of the Year (2007).

The difference between Fantasy and Magic Realism

Although some critics place them both in the same basket, strictly speaking, Magic Realism is a genre in which fantasy elements such as magic or the supernatural enter a realistic, natural world without the reader questioning their presence. Clay by David Almond is a good example of Magic Realism.

Fantasy as ‘crossover’

Long before Harry Potter, adults were secretly enjoying ‘children’s’ literature in the form of fantasy. The Lord of the Rings was originally categorised as a children’s book, as were Orwell’s Animal Farm and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, even though all three deal with very adult themes. It is really only from the late 1970s and early 80s that fantasy was given its own shelf in the adult section of the library. So is there still a dedicated children’s fantasy genre? I think so. Although it has much in common with adult fantasy (similar plot lines, conventions etc) there are things (common to all children’s writing) that set it apart, such as: child protagonists, age appropriate language, sanitised plot lines (no or limited sex and violence). In addition, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy suggests that what sets children’s fantasy apart is the theme of transformation. This is a fantastical metaphor for the age-old theme of ‘coming of age’ that is found in most children’s writing for the 10+ group. As Lisa Tuttle explains in her Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction:

It is the ability to experience either a transfer of self from place to place or through time, or a change in being (from poverty to riches or from beast to beauty). The latter process is particularly important as it allows the child to come to terms with its own change from child to adult.
(Tuttle, p119)

Common fantasy sub-genre in children’s writing

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy suggests six common sub-genre:

• Worlds in miniature (eg Mary Norton’s The Borrowers)
• Secret gardens and hidden worlds where children can temporarily escape from real life (eg The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis).
• Time fantasies where children travel to another era or encounter ghosts from the past. (eg Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet)
• Otherworlds (secondary worlds such as Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Ursula Le Guin’s Earth Sea)
• Wish fulfilment (Mary Poppins, PL Travers)
• Animal Stories (eg Dick King-Smith’s The Sheep Pig aka Babe!)

General fantasy conventions:

The following are the main conventions you’ll need to be aware of when writing fantasy:

• The fantasy world
• Myths, legends and fairytales
• Magic
• Archetypes
• Landscape with meaning
• Maps
• Journeys
• Suspension of disbelief and internal logic

The fantasy world

Ever since The Lord of the Rings, the stock setting for most fantasy books is a pre-industrial one, with much in common with Earth’s Middle Ages. However, ‘futuristic’ fantasies are becoming more common as the stock setting has been done to death.

Myths, legends and fairytales

Elements of Celtic, Arthurian and Central and Northern European mythology are easily identifiable.

Modern fantasy has its roots in fairy tales, myths and legends – an imaginary past more than a real one. It is therefore less concerned with novelty and innovation than with old stories retold. Even the most inventive and original fantasy tends to look back to earlier epic tradition and what might be considered eternal truths.
(Tuttle, p22)

Magic

This is an almost essential element, as without it, ‘logical’ explanations would have to be found for fantastical events – that would make it Sci Fi, not Fantasy. Critics of Fantasy say that often the ‘magic’ reflects forms of occultic religion, unsuitable for children.

Archetypes

Fantasy is rich ground for Jungian psychologists: the wise old woman, the divine child, the young hero or heroine sent on a quest, helpful animals, a walled castle, the wasteland, the dying king, shape-shifting tricksters, dragons and unicorns. These archetypes have a pre-existing meaning for the reader, and are, to a degree, expected to appear in some form or another.

When they’re handled well, these familiar characters have the ring of truth about them, and seem both familiar and yet original; but if the author is lazy or unskilled they’ll come across as cartoons or clichés.
(Tuttle, p21)

Landscape with meaning

In fantasy, the landscape or ‘world’ that is created has equal importance with character and plot. However, resist the temptation to go overboard on description, and only include as much as is needed to further characterisation and plot.

Maps

Since Tolkien, these have become almost de rigeur in helping your reader to picture the world you have created.

Journeys

Much of fantasy fiction writing has a journey of discovery or ‘quest’ at its heart. We accompany the POV character on his / her journey, and this helps us to navigate through the new world.

Suspension of disbelief and internal logic

When writing fantasy you will expect your reader to suspend their disbelief as they enter your world and take it as you describe it. However, this doesn’t mean that anything goes. Every fantasy world has rules or laws that cannot and should not be broken. Characters need to act within the restraints of these laws. For example, dragons derive energy from the sun and can’t stay on the ground for long (‘Glint’, Ann Coburn, p26). As the creator of this world, you make up its rules, but you too must be subject to them.

A writing exercise:
Create your own fantasy world and write a story set in it. Ask yourself:

1. What is the name of your world?
2. What does it look like?
3. Who lives there?
4. Describe a typical child in your world.
5. Is the world at peace or at war?
6. If at war, who is the enemy?
7. If at peace, what threatens that peace?
8. Who rules your world?
9. What are the ’10 Commandments’ of your world?
10. What happens if someone breaks them?

Now write your story.

Related posts:

1. Science Fiction, fantasy and Faith
2. Writing Romantic Suspense – When Love Gets Mysterious
3. Writing historical fiction 3 – using fact in fiction

Firstly, some of them have very long ‘lead times’. A lead time is the time from commission or acceptance of your article / story / poem until it actually appears. Aquila is one of only a few magazines in the UK that publish children’s fiction, so I wasn’t about to say no, “I’d rather take it elsewhere”. It’s the fourth piece they’ve published of mine in the same number of years, so I’m aware that patience is essential.

As the new writing editor of Plain Truth magazine I frequently get emails from writers frustrated at how long it takes for their work to appear. For that section of the magazine, our average lead time is 12 months, but 18 months is not unheard of. We only publish five times a year and only use one new writer per edition.

So my advice to new writers is: find out a magazine’s lead time so that you won’t be disappointed when it takes so long for your hard-crafted words to finally be read. And realise too that you will usually only get paid on publication, not acceptance.

FAQs

1. How long should I wait before sending my article to someone else?

I try to let writers know within four months whether or not I will use their material. But I think it’s acceptable for a writer to politely query after three months. And I mean politely! I’ve had writers demanding to know what’s taking me so long – and that’s simply a short-cut to the bin. If you’re told that a decision hasn’t been made yet, or that you’re still in ‘the queue’, give it another three months and enquire again.

2. What if I was told my article would appear by a certain date and it hasn’t?

Try to get a date of publication at commission. This may change if the editor later decides that your article will be more suited to another edition. In an ideal world they should tell you, but frequently they forget. So if your article doesn’t appear by a certain date, a polite enquiry is certainly in order. If at this point they don’t give you a firm publication date, I think you’re well within your rights to withdraw the article and send elsewhere.

3. Can I demand a kill fee?

A ‘kill fee’ is a percentage of the agreed payment for the article that may be paid if publication falls through. This is common in the USA and Writer's Market will give you an idea of the kill fees on offer. Sadly, the UK industry doesn’t work the same way and kill fees are rarely if ever paid. Ho hum. For more on what to do to ensure you get paid, check out my article What to do when you don’t get paid. If you want to know how to approach editors have a look at Writing proposals and approaching editors, which is part of my free non-fiction writing course. The same advice is applicable to short story writers and poets too.

Related posts:

1. IC Iraq – new lifestyle magazine launches in Baghdad
2. Getting started with non-fiction writing
3. Non-fiction – how to write a proposal

‘Grown-up’ favourites

Most ‘grown up’ readers still list talking animal stories as their perennial favourites, particularly those with a sociological or religious sub-text such as Alice in Wonderland (1865), The Wind in the Willows (1908), Animal Farm (1945), The Chronicles of Narnia (1949 – 54), Watership Down (1972), Duncton Wood (1980) and the His Dark Materials series (1995 – 2000). A recent Book Trust poll in the United Kingdom, which asked adults to vote for their favourite children’s book of all time, has placed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in first place and Winnie The Pooh in fourth. And although it is not strictly a talking animal book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar munches its way into second. Other talking animal stories in the top 10 are The Gruffalo, The Wind in the Willows and Alice in Wonderland. That’s 60% for those of you whose reading is better than your maths.

Do publishers listen when animals talk?

So is it true that publishers won’t look at talking animal stories? Not according to Laura Backes’ article Straight Talk About Talking Animals. While it may be difficult for new writers to get their talking animal friends through the door, she believes that if you knock loud enough, you might get in:

Twenty years ago “talking animal stories” were everywhere. Then, in the early 1990’s, many editors decided they didn’t want to see these books anymore. Of course, established authors like William Steig never stopped populating their stories with chatty mice or frogs, but beginning writers had trouble getting talking animal books past the slush pile. Now the tide has turned again, and it appears that every publisher has new picture books featuring animals with something to say.

Wind in the Willows MK II?

So if you can’t stop those little critters from populating your imagination, why not let them out? The Kenneth Grahame Society are launching a competition to find a sequel, prequel or related story to the classic The Wind in the Willows. Stories must be a homage, written in a similar style, to a length of 5,000 words – an average chapter in the original book. There are three prizes of £500, £150 and £100 and a selection of the best writing will be published in an anthology. Closing date is 30 June 2008. Watch out, Toad is back on the road!

Whilst on the subject of writing competitions, the Nestle’ Smarties Book Prize, one of the few leading awards that asks children to vote for their favourite books, is sadly coming to an end. It’s been running since 1985 and past winners have featured JK Rowling, Lauren Child, Anne Fine, Quentin Blake, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson and Chris Riddell. What a lot they’d got!

You might also want to check out this list of some more children’s writing competitions. And if you’re looking for a little inspiration, have a look at my articles on:

• What makes a good children’s book?
• Writing for children: picture books

Related posts:

1. Children’s writing competitions
2. What makes a good children’s book?
3. My First Poem competition

First Prize

Spencer Perkins, Age 3

My name is Spencer and I go to preschool
My best friend is Abbie who is really cool
I watch Robots on TV
Playing with water is lots of fun for me
Pudding I just love to eat
And sometimes a lolly pop for a treat
Blue is a colour I like a lot
A beautiful bike is the best present I ever got
My favourite person is Mummy who is a gem
So this, my first poem, is just for them!

Spencer’s poem received top honours because of its use of alliteration. He may not realise that’s what he’s done, but it suggests a writer with an instinctive feel for words. His picture of the ‘Beautiful Bike’ suggests that Spencer is currently in his Blue Period.

Second Prize

Alicia Simpson, Age 3

My name is Alicia and I go to preschool
My best friend is Emily who is really cool
I watch Sky Plus on TV
Playing dressy up is lots of fun for me
Mince and dumplings I just love to eat
And sometimes sweeties for a treat
Yellow is a colour I like a lot
Purple dog is the best present I ever got
My favourite person is Reece who is a gem
So this, my first poem, is just for them!

Alicia was a close second because of her choice of visually striking images and quirky phrases. You can see more of Alicia’s colourful self-expression in her picture of ‘Sweeties’.

Third Prize

Sophie Trattles, Age 4

My name is Sophie and I go to preschool
My best friend is Sarah who is really cool
I watch CBeebies on TV
Playing with dolls is lots of fun for me
Bananas I just love to eat
And sometimes yoghurts for a treat
Purple is a colour I like a lot
An expensive telephone is the best present I ever got
My favourite person is Jane who is a gem
So this, my first poem, is just for them!

Sophie received third prize because of her wide vocabulary (and healthy eating choices!). If this had been an art competition her fabulous picture of ‘Jane’ would have won first place.

Congratulations to Forward Press, Westerhope Village Nursery and the parents of all the children who entered for developing a love of words at such an early age. For more on my recommendations for good children’s books go to my article on Picture Books, How to Choose a Good Children’s Book and the picture book section of my Bookshop. You may also want to help HIV / Aids orphans in Africa by buying my book for 7 – 9 year-olds, Donovon’s Rainbow.

Related posts:

1. Talking Animal Stories – Wind in the Willows MK II?
2. Poetry: Tolstoy in Love
3. Writing for children: Picture books

This is the third installment in our free online creative writing course. In this session we will look at how choosing a point of view can affect your writing. Whose story is it? When did it happen? What relationship do you want the reader to have with your main character? Athough point of view (POV) is most often discussed in connection with prose, we will also be looking at poetry.

Exercise 8:
Look at the intro paragraph again. Is it in first, second or third person? What tense is being used? Why do you think I chose to write it like this? Look away now if you don’t want to know the answer!

The paragraph is in second person, present continuous tense. Which means, I am addressing you, the reader, directly (second person) as if you are reading it at the same time I am writing it. Why did I do that? … Pause to give you time to think … That’s right, because it gives the writing intimacy and immediacy. Through it you (hopefully) feel that I am talking directly to you. In theory, this should draw you into the article and make you feel welcome.

Exercise 9:
Let’s look at it again in third person past tense, then first person present. Compare both versions to the original and decide which you prefer. Why?

1. This was the third installment in our free online creative writing course. In the session we looked at how choosing a point of view affected writing. Whose story was it? When did it happen? What relationship was wanted between the reader and the main character? Athough point of view (POV) was most often discussed in connection to prose, we also looked at poetry.
2. This is the third installment in our free online creative writing course. In this session I look at how choosing a point of view can affect writing. Whose story is it? When did it happen? What relationship does the reader have with the main character? Athough point of view (POV) is most often discussed in connection to prose, I also look at poetry.

First Person POV

Choosing a point of view will affect the way your reader relates to your story and the characters in it. As we’ve already said, first person gives an immediacy to your writing, as if it is happening as we read it. This can create tension in the plot and intimacy with the main character. However, the narrator of the story (the one speaking in first person) is not always the main character. This creates a distance between the person telling the story and the one the story is about. When choosing to have an ‘off-page’ narrator, make sure this is the effect you want to have. A good example of this is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness where the narrator, Marlow, is searching for Mr Kurtz. Kurtz is the central character or protagonist of the book. Conrad’s choice of telling the story through Marlow keeps the enigmatic Kurtz at a distance so that we can identify with the narrator’s frustration of never getting close to his goal. In David Almond’s Clay however, the narrator and the main character are the same. Davie’s first-person narration enables the reader to get right inside his mind and share his nightmare with him. First person narration aids the writer in finding the ‘voice’ of a character. This is particularly useful in writing for children or young adults.

Our tendency as readers is to trust the voice of the narrator, but what happens when the narrator is untrustworthy? Take for example Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar, when we don’t know whether or not she is telling us the truth about anything. Again, if you take this tack, make sure you are prepared for the intended effect.

While identifying with the main character / narrator is a strength of first person POV, it can also be a limitation as the reader is restricted to receiving the story through only one person’s perspective. It is tempting for novice writers to leap from one person’s POV to another to give a fuller picture, however this is considered bad practise. One of the first rules of writing is: stick to one POV. Some writers manage to get around this by attributing sections of a book or alternating chapters to different characters (for example William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury) but shifting within a scene or even worse, a paragraph, is a no-no.

Second Person POV

Second person point of view was very fashionable in the 19th century, when ‘Dear Reader’ was frequently addressed in the text, as if the narrator was just checking to see that they were still listening. Nowadays, it is not used as much in prose because it is considered self-conscious and unnecessarily draws attention to the writer. This is not always the case, however, and the award winning Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre uses second person to good effect (‘when you spot a jackrabbit it automatically spots you back; it’s a fact of nature, in case you didn’t know’), although he does not use second person throughout. It is quite acceptable to shift from first to second person, but not to third. The reason for this is that the character addressing the reader is the same in first and second person so the perspective does not actually change. One of the benefits of second person narration mixed in with first is a more conspiratorial tone. In this voice, as happens in Vernon God Little, the narrator may choose to shock or offend the reader as if daring them to continue reading.

It is difficult (and annoying!) to sustain a second person POV throughout a piece of prose, but is more achievable in poetry. It’s as if the poet is catching the reader’s eye and asking them to share in a moment with them:

‘Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life …’ (from ‘Baby Tortoise, DH Lawrence)

Third Person POV

This is generally the easiest point of view to write. It has the advantage of flowing naturally and allows the writer to describe how he or she sees a scene as if watching a film. It also allows the writer, to use another film metaphor, to move in and out of close-up and wide shots with ease. The ‘voice’ describing the scene is often called an ‘omniscient narrator’ as they have a God-like view. It is particularly useful in scenes with a number of characters and also in scenes with no characters at all. In third person narration we can see the outside of a farmhouse, the dying crops and starving animals, before we ever meet the farming family. Our knowledge of the character’s physical plight will influence our reaction to them at first sight. This of course can be achieved through first person – accompanying a character as he or she walks towards the farmhouse – but it will be filtered through the individual’s subjectivity.

The danger of third person narration is that the reader may feel alienated from the main character as we don’t know how they feel. This can be solved by using something called ‘third person intimate’ narration which has the advantage of an omniscient narrator while focusing intimately on one character thoughts and feelings.

For example:

‘It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano.’ (From E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View).

How do we know this is third person intimate rather than just third person? Because we are told how Lucy feels. But, unlike first person which would have the same effect, we are not restricted to her perspective alone. Later in the scene we suddenly switch to

‘Mr Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window (who) pondered over this illogical element in Miss Honeychurch.’

Past, Present and Future Tense

The POV of a piece of writing relates to who is guiding us through the text. The tense, tells us when the events of the piece happen. Past tense has the advantage of telling after the fact so that we are confident the narrator has full knowledge of what has happened and can reflect on its meaning on our behalf. It is also the easiest to write; third person past tense flows very easily from a writer’s pen. Present tense, like first person, has a sense of immediacy; we experience the events along with the writer. While it may be more intimate, it is less secure, as there is no guide who has been before. This adds tension to the text which can be very effective. Most books or poems are written in either past or present tense, but some mix them up. For example, Leaning towards Infinity by Sue Woolfe. I have yet to come across a book or story written in future tense (please let me know if you have) but some poetry is written in this form as a musing of things to come. It is not appropriate to mix tenses in sentences or paragraphs but can be done between larger sections of text. When this happens use a double line break to mark a shift in time.

Exercise 10:
Take a piece of creative writing that you have already done; either a poem or a piece of prose (perhaps you could use one of the exercises from our previous sessions). Firstly, identify whether it is in first, second or third person and its tense. Now play around with the POV. How does it change your intended effect? Which POV is best suited to the piece? Why? Now, play around with the tense. What difference does it make if it is in past, present or future?

Next week’s creative writing course topic is how to make your writing come alive and ’show don’t tell’.

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2. Creative Writing – Characterisation
3. Free Creative Writing course

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