Barbara Millerteaches in the Writing Popular Fiction graduate program at Seton Hill University and is Reference Librarian at Mount Pleasant, PA. Public Library. She has published historical romances (one of which was nominated for a RITA), mysteries, and young adult books and is now writing Regencies for Cerridwen Press.
She lives in a creepy old farmhouse with her husband, a pack of unruly dogs and cats, and guppies too numerous to count. You may email Barb at scribe@zoominternet.net.
Regency Writer Masters Deep POV But Can’t Give up Her Historical Fix
After writing seven Regency-set historicals for Harlequin as Laurel Ames and four for Pocket Books as Barbara Miler, I was in despair at the shrinking Regency market — especially since I wanted to try my hand at traditional Regencies.
Was it me who had caused Regency sales to drop off? I went back and reread all my historicals, looking for reassurance that my career was not a fluke and that I am leading students in the right direction.
It was a relief to discover that I still love my characters and frequently I surprised myself with dialogue or a plot twist I’d forgotten. You really start to wonder about your memory when you are twenty pages from the end of one of your own published books and wondering how you are going to wrap everything up.
The only unpleasant surprise was that I had not mastered point of view until I had been writing for seven years. Since I started back through the books in reverse order the change was reassuring. The early books are still good stories, but I used to change POV too frequently, give POVs to not just secondary characters but minor characters as well, including a couple or horses. I had even slipped into the dreaded omniscient POV.
Noting when I did these things leads me to some conclusions. Mastering deep POV is linked to mastering showing rather than telling and avoiding back story. Any time I summarized past history I was tempted to tell it and get it out of the way, floating from one POV to another as needed. Now I treat back story like old wine. I don’t get it out often and serve it in small doses only to readers who have gotten to know the characters already. This has the added advantage of making each book a mystery. The reader has to wonder about the character’s internal conflict and try to guess until I show them what makes the character tick.
Although it’s sometimes necessary to present an opening in omniscient POV and zoom down to the characters, this camera-like opening is easy to avoid if you have mastered deep POV. It’s best to start the book deep in the POV of one of the main characters and with a line of dialogue even if they are talking to themselves. This is natural if you know the characters really well before you start writing the opening.
I take my heroines on walks with me and work out their personalities and quirks as the dogs and I explore the farm. The heroes I take to bed with me, usually after they have fallen off a horse or been shot. That’s when they introspect on their past the best. A good dose of regret can hint at a inner conflict and make the man more mysterious than labeling him.
By the time I start the book I know both characters and can write a scene with valid emotion to it. It may not reveal the deepest problem the character has but a longstanding one is good. I also give my characters enough family to be provoking. If a character is a orphan they still need secondary characters to aggravate them.
And finally I have figured out how to eliminate the minor POVs by having the POV character guess the thoughts or emotions of the minor characters for the reader. Of course the POV character can also read in the other main characters’ faces and actions any nuance not delivered by dialogue.
Mastering deep POV means knowing when to go shallow as well. During action scenes or when the character is hiding something, you stay in shallow POV. It provides a contrast to those plunges into deep POV when the reader can really empathize with your character. Cerridwen came to my rescue by publishing Music Master last October and now Two Hearts in April. Of course I publish in other genres, including a series of cozy mysteries, a middle grade series and a paranormal that still freaks me out. (Cerridwen will also publish Eye Walker, the paranormal detective series no one wanted to look at. But the Regency is my home. I don’t know if it’s the language, the clothes or the horses. I just feel like I fit in there.
E publishers both keep alive small niche markets and are willing to take chances on the bizarre or innovative. Most of the recent trends have come out of the e-publishing marketplace. The large publishing conglomerates are too ponderous to switch gears that fast.
Grace Montrose is a passionate auburn-haired beauty so in love with the theater that she does set design and costuming secretly at the Pantheon. Brandon White, Earl of Morewood, a bored aristocrat, writes plays he pays to produce at the Pantheon under the pen name William Marlowe. He is trying to create the perfect woman with words since he has never met her until he encounters Grace. Brand and Grace are both looking for friendship and intellectual stimulation but find far more in each other. Yet Brand is afraid to even mention marriage since Grace has been hurt in the past by managing men and unwanted offers. His heart has been bruised by fortune hunters as well. A murder at the Parthenon and a disaster backstage prompts them to sacrifice their reputations to save the play and bind their two broken hearts together forever.
What a great article – loved it! Nothing grates as much as sudden or unnecessary pov shifts, they makes me want to chuck a book across the room. I really liked what you said about leaving some mystery about the characters for the reader to guess at. That keeps me reading, for sure. It’s exhausting, having great chunks of backstory lobbed at you in the very first chapter.
Thanks so much for this, Barbara, I’d love to read more of your writing articles. And thanks Jenyfer for posting it. Good luck to you both!
Jane x
by Jane Richardson, writer May 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 amHi Barbara,
You made me laugh about giving your horses POV even.:) I enjoyed this post very much and will mention it on my blog. Thanks for sharing how you approach writing. Also I’ve been thinking of submitting to Cerridwen so nice to see you and Jenyfer are published by them.
Jenyfer, thanks for doing this interview with Barbara!
by Diane Craver May 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 pmHi Barbara:
I LOVED this article. I’m still relatively new to publishing and writing, so I’m slowly learning the differences between deep POV and shallow. I recently read a book published by a very small publisher that had POV hopping everywhere. Even though I liked the plot/story line, I gave the book away when I was done because it was so badly written.
I, too, love traditional Regencies. They are my favorite to write and read, so I understand your disappointment. I will check out your books and hope you will check out mine.
by Denise Patrick May 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 pmHi everyone! Barbara has been having some trouble getting her computer to talk to Blogger so she can’t comment herself, but she really appreciates all of your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
by Jenyfer Matthews May 24th, 2008 at 7:14 pm