I originally posted this blog as an mcslist at Love Conquers, the blog of the American Title V finalists. Since the blog is now close and people have asked me about psychic distance in the last few months, I decided to repost it here:
You can see the original post and comments here.
I am quite a geek in the way I become a fan of musicians, films and other famous people. For example, I am currently quite obsessed with musician Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, the Lara Croft movies and author Caitlin R. Keirnan.
John Gardner (1933-1982)
In my quest for learning more about writing, I became a a huge fan (in a obsessive way) of John Gardner and his two crafts book, The Art of Fiction and On becoming a Novelist. I just love his take-no-prisoner approach and how he urge the writer to write daily and focus on constantly improving his writing , on not be satisfied with the mediocre. One of the concept I learned from him is the different ways Point of View (POV) can be used.
Yes, we have 1st and 3rd person POV (and in some strange instance 2nd person) but we have also various psychic distance within one POV. Most people are so into the very close POV, that they are telling us we cannot write in an omniscient POV, that we are bound to fail if we do and that modern commercial fiction must be strickly written in 1st and 3rd very close POV. I dare you to pick a Julia Quinn novel and start reading with POV in mind. What is it?
Hard to tell. Probably 3rd, but also close to omniscient in the very beginning. She usually quickly shift effortlessly to a close 3rd POV and we don’t even notice. That is because she is a modern master at playing with psychic distance, first telling us generally about the heroine, then slowly getting into her head. Then going back and forth (closer and further in psychic distance) during the story.
I would love to be able to do that, but so far, I have been very cautious and stayed with the very safe close 3rd POV. But I hope I can learn. For my list today, I leave you with John Gardner’s example of various psychic distance in writing, where at first we are very far psychologically from the character’s mind then go deeper and deeper into his mind.
- 1. In was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway.
2. Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms.
3. Henry hated snowstorms.
4. God how he hated these damn snowstorms.
5. Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul…
- (The Art of Fiction , John Garner)
Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)Have fun playing with this…if you dare…
Meanwhile. I’ll go obsess over Trent Reznor!!
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