​            What’s a POV or point of view? In writing it is the story’s perspective. In other words, it’s who’s narrating.  The POV is important to how you want to tell your story.  One type of POV can provide a greater intimacy in your narration, while another type of POV may engender greater excitement and thrills in your narration. There are three basic types of POV that parallel the three basic persons of personal pronouns: I, you, and he, she or it, or better known as first person, second person, and third person. Lets look at each in turn:

• First Person POV. The first person narrator is considered the more intimate as the narrator is a person in the story. But, also because the narrator is just one person it is limited. In other words, your detective walking the crime scene cannot know what the criminal is thinking as he flees the country. Let’s look at an example of first person POV from Lee Child’s novel Kill Floor, the first of his Jack Reacher series: “I was arrested in Eno’s Diner at twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.” Using first person POV you’re able to enter the head of your narrating character, explore his thoughts and feelings, his wants and dislikes. But, you can’t do that with anyone else in the story.
• Second Person POV. I must confess I’ve never read a novel that used the second person POV. It’s very rare and takes an accomplished writer to pull it off.  We usually think of writing in the second person POV for technical writing, advertising, or song lyrics. In the novel or short story it can sound like one of those “chose your own adventure” games if not done correctly. When written well, the second person can pull you into the action and increase the sense of urgency and intimacy of your story. After all “you” are in the story. Here’s an example of the second person POV from Jay McInerny’s Bright Lights, Big City: “You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy.”
• Third Person POV. The third person POV is probably the most familiar POV to most people. After all that’s how we tell a story about someone else. You know: “He went to the store just at closing time and when they wouldn’t let him it, he kicked in the door.” The third person POV can be subdivided into third person limited and third person omniscient. In the limited POV, a character is discussed in the third person and everything is seen through that person’s eyes. This form of POV has the advantage of providing some of the intimacy of the first person POV and the luxury of changing to a different character’s point of view. The disadvantage is that it is limited like the first person POV so that the POV character cannot know what others are thinking. One example of third person limited POV comes from Earnest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea: “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him.” In contrast, the omniscient POV narrator sees and knows the thoughts and actions of every character. We can see this in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin: “They attacked him in various ways; with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all; and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful.”

When you begin your next novel or short story choose your POV wisely based on the story’s need. Be careful, your work could skyrocket or suffer based on your choice.
            Next time I’ll review the details of various do’s and don’ts for writing different points of view.

​            You’re writing the final scene of your great sports novel. The underdog football team is in the fight of their lives and behind by a six points. The protagonist, the running back, gets the ball with two seconds left on the clock. You write, “He got the ball from the quarterback and ran through the hole for the winning touchdown with zero seconds on the clock.” OK, the underdog wins. But, your closing sentence is a bit anticlimactic. Perhaps a better closing sentence would be, “He got the ball from the quarterback, stumbled through the hole and stretched getting the nose of the ball across the goal line with zero seconds on the clock.”
            In the first sentence the biggest action is “ran”. In the second, the back “stumbled” and “stretched”.  Those two verbs conjure up more specific action than the weak “ran” and, as a result, gives the sentence a greater immediacy, thus adding more excitement to the ending of the story.
            In the above example “stumbled” and “stretched” are strong verbs. So, what’s a strong verb?
            A strong verb describes the action in a specific manner evoking a clarity and conciseness to the sentence.  Notice four attributes of strong verbs: descriptive, specific, evocative and conciseness.
            One source I found divided weak verbs into linking verbs and vague verbs. Linking verbs are the “is, are, was, were, be, being” verbs. They don’t really reveal any specific action. Vague verbs operate just as the name implies. They talk about action but don’t deliver the specifics. For example “run” can mean saunter, sprint, dash, gallop, etc. What kind of running was actually performed?
Using strong verbs means there are some things to avoid:

• Avoid the “to be” verbs. These are the “linking” verbs I mentioned earlier, the “is, are, was, were, be, being” verbs. They link the subject to the predicate but little else. For example, if describing your character’s height, instead of writing: “He is tall.” Say, “He rockets to the stratosphere.” Maybe a little wordy, but “rockets” arouses a much more vivid picture of the character’s height.
• Avoid the passive voice. The passive voice combines a linking verb with another. This may go over in business writing, but for fiction the passive voice really slows things down.  It goes like this: “The bird was singing early this morning.”  The linking verb “was”, in this case, combines with “singing”. It’s better to say, “The bird warbled at the crack of dawn.”
• Avoid “he said” and “she said” (in some cases). In the past when attributing a character’s statement, writers avoided the familiar “he said” or “she asked” for more colorful phrases such as: he interjected, she bellowed, he roared, or the double entendred he ejaculated. In recent years many books on writing have shied away from recommending such “purple prose” and have emphasized returning to the simple, “he said”. But, the pendulum has started to swing back, not completely, but in a reasonable way. For example, your archeologist hero has been captured by the villain and sits tied up in the dungeon. The bad guy is desperate for the treasure map and leans in close. “Where is the map?” he asks. In this case “ask” is a weak verb. How about? “Where is the map? he demands. “Demands” conveys the villain’s desperation better than “asks”. But, do us all a favor and use those strong attributives sparingly.

Using strong verbs provides for more concise, more specific sentences. Which means better writing in the long run.
            Google “strong verbs” and you’ll find articles with a listing of strong verbs. Print out one the lists and keep it near your computer. Let it remind you that there are verbs much more powerful than the vanilla ran, said, did, came, is, etc. Use the alternative strong verb and watch your writing soar. 

​            If you write thrillers or action/adventure novels you have to write action scenes. They are part and parcel of the genres. Jack Ryan and Jack Reacher have never sat in a rocking chair waxing eloquent. They are men of action and that means action scenes.
            There are guidelines for writing action scenes or at least suggestions that seem to work. In my writing I’ve found six points that help keep my action scenes on track. They are:

• Keep the scene short. Action scenes by nature are fast paced and therefore shouldn’t take long. Think of the car crash you may have witnessed or the police shootout video you may have seen on the nightly news. These are very violent and generally very brief events. It’s likely why in movies the action scenes are often shot in slow motion. 
• Keep the paragraphs short. This is a corollary of the first point. A short scene made of short paragraphs increases the tension and moves the action along. There’s no time for rumination, no space for contemplating one’s navel. It’s the hero does A, then B, then C, then on to the next scene.
• Use action words and avoid adverbs. Obviously, since it’s an action scene your words should reflect the action. That means no lazy verbs. And no “-ly” modifiers. For example, instead of saying, “John ran very fast to the entrance,” say something like, “In a crouch John sprinted for the entrance.” And, avoid, “He drew his gun on the victims angrily.” Instead maybe try, “He pulled the gun intent on dispatching the victims with prejudice.”
• Make your dialog brief.  If your hero is fighting the bad guys he’s probably too winded to have a long conversation. So, short dialog is a must. Besides, a long conversation slows the action and takes the audience out of the immediacy of the scene.
• Avoid rambling internal dialog. This follows from the previous point. A long involved internal dialog about your hero’s childhood pet cocker spaniel has no place in an action scene. Like a long section of spoken dialog, long internal dialog will ruin it for your audience. Better to save the internal dialog for the moments after that exciting action scene when you allow your hero to decompress.
• Avoid long descriptions. Action involves moments that occur in a flurry of flashes and blurs. Descriptions should reflect that sudden, it was there one moment and then gone in the next, situation of action scenes.

           
            After viewing The Lord of the Rings movies I read the books.  And I noticed one interesting difference. Unlike in the movies, the battle scenes in Tolkien’s books were short and to the point. No drawn out descriptions, no long speeches, no lazy verbs. He used an economy of words that served the purpose of advancing the story.
            Take a page from Tolkien’s books and make those action scenes short and sweet.

​            I’ve been blogging about loglines for the past two weeks, now. And, it occurred to me that there’s another type of “line” that I ought to mention. And that is the tagline. It’s another device derived from the movies and should not be confused with the logline.
            OK, you say, just what is a tagline and what’s the difference between it and a logline? A tagline is, according to Merriam-Webster, a reiterated phrase identified with an individual, group, or product. In business, its called a slogan and is designed to promote a given product or service. What do you think of when you hear, “I’m lovin’ it” or “Just do it”? If McDonalds and Nike don’t instantly come to mind you’ve probably been living on Mars for the past fifty years.
            Of course, the logline is a very brief synopsis of the story designed to whet your appetite for the movie or novel.
            In movies the tagline plays the same role as a product’s slogan. It is a catchy phrase designed to evoke some exciting or poignant aspect of the movie. I’ve read that the most famous movie tagline of all is, “In space no one can hear you scream.” It’s from Alien. Movie taglines are used in a variety of venues: the movie poster you see in theaters, on DVD cases, and spoken and/or displayed in trailers.
            Taglines can be gleaned from a variety of sources:

• They can come from a snippet of dialog. For example in Schindler’s List the tagline is “The list is life.” spoken by the Ben Kingsly character. In The Lord of the Rings the tagline is “One ring to rule them all”, part of the inscription inside the One Ring. Apollo 13’s tagline is Jim Lovell’s famous call to Mission Control, “Houston, we have a problem” (by the way, he actually said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”).
• Taglines can be derived from theme. In The Shawshank Redemption the tagline is “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.” Bram Stoker’s Dracula has this tagline, “Love never dies.” In Wall Street it is “Every dream has a price.” And, of course, hope, love, and greed play a large part in these movies.
• Taglines can also be variations of familiar sayings. Cocktail, a movie about a bartender who opens his own bar, has as its tagline, “When he pours, he reigns.” Or, how about “Here they grow again.” from Gremlins 2: The New Batch? And “A comedy of trial and error.” from My Cousin Vinny.
• Some taglines ask a question. The tagline for Arlington Road asks, “How well do you know your neighbor?” How about Notting Hill? It inquires, “Can the most famous film star in the world fall for just an ordinary guy?” And, Ocean’s Eleven wonders, “Are you in or out?”

            A few taglines have been so successful that they live on while their movies have faded into obscurity. A good example is “This time…it’s personal.” How many times have you quoted this tagline? Quick, tell me what movie it’s from. Bet you didn’t get it. It’s from Jaws: The Revenge, by the way. Yeah, I know, a real stinker.
            Like movies, novels can have taglines also.  A tagline can be a great selling tool. You can place your tagline on the cover of your novel. You can tweet it. You can even print it on business cards along with an image of the book cover and your contact information.
            Here are a few examples found on the covers of novels I chose at random from my adult daughter’s library:

• “It’s a crime she never meant to commit…” from Confessions of a Serial Dater by Michelle Cunnah.
• “What if your imaginary friend from childhood was your one true love?” from Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet.
• “Why trade up, if you can fix him up?” from The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne.

            I created two taglines for my new novel The Peril Protocol. I initially came up with, “Only by forgiving can we release the past.” I then devised a more descriptive one, “A serial killer. A deadly cure. A tragic past.”
            Try creating a tagline for your novel. It’s a great tool.  And, if it happens to become one of those iconic phrases that finds itself on everybody’s tongue, you could wind up with a bestseller on your hands. 

​            I have a confession to make. There have been times, while sitting in the dark watching the credits roll at the end of the feature film, I’ve secretly thought, Wow, the trailers were better. Yep, that’s right. I admit it. I love movie trailers. Those, one to two minute packages of excitement designed to whet your appetite for the real thing really get my juices flowing. I gotta see that movie when it comes out, flashes through my brain with the steady succession of trailers playing out on the screen just before the main feature.
            That same excitement can work for you by creating a logline for your novel.  Movies, obviously, are a visual medium so scenes accompany loglines for movies. But, your novel must evoke those same scenes in your reader’s mind by crafting your best blend of words. Of course you can create trailers for your novels with sound, music, and action.  But, words, I think, have a more enduring quality.
            So, what makes up a good logline? In researching this blog I’ve found articles with between 3 and 10 bullet points of what’s needed. I narrowed it down to four essential ingredients. My four components for the logline are:

• The hero. This should be a proactive person with a flaw. You want a multidimensional hero.
• The quest. Every story’s hero must have a quest. This can be a drive to change the situation for the better or a pursuit to a return to the status quo.
• The antagonist. What would a story be without a villain? Of course you villain can be a person or a force of nature.
• The conflict. Finally, there’s really no story without conflict, so hinting at the major conflict is a must.

There are a couple of things that you don’t necessarily want to include:

• The antagonist’s name. This is optional. If your hero has a very memorable name you might want to include it.
• The ending. This one is nonnegotiable. After all, how many times have you said to a friend, who’s seen a long anticipated movie for which you’ve just gotten tickets, “Don’t tell me the ending, I’m going to see it tomorrow.”

Here are some examples of loglines using my four ingredients:

• A well-meaning orphan, bent on rising out of the clutches of poverty and despair, combats the forces of societal status quo in order to seek wealth and love. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• A futuristic soldier must fight a near invincible enemy on distant planets as well as the life altering relativistic effects of interstellar travel in an effort to finally find contentment in a distant future world.  The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.
• This last one (I admit a bit long) is one I made for my new novel, The Peril Protocol : Talented physician Hope Allerd, M.D., gets a fellowship under the mercurial and enigmatic Dr. Francis Peril, inventor of the Protocol, a striking new cure for meningitis. Handsome but discredited reporter, Clive Andrew appears, claiming Peril is a horrific serial murderer. And Hope must now decide between the two men. When women are found brutally murdered, Hope investigates. As she digs further Hope learns she is slated for murder. Can she trust Clive, a man with a past, or will her mentor turn out to be her savior?  A gruesome death awaits the wrong decision…

 
            Try creating a logline for your own novel. Over time you’ll find some useful applications for it. And, it just might help your sales.