Continuing the series running concurrent with #NaNoWriMo, here is another question a writer should ask of a short story or section of a novel:
Does your story stay with the chosen viewpoint
and distance?
Third person or first person viewpoint makes little
difference. Almost everything that is seen or occurs should be filtered through
the viewpoint character’s thoughts or senses. Omniscient viewpoint is a trap
marked “Authorial”, and it is all too easy to cross the dividing line. Is this
story about your characters or how you feel about your characters? Get off the
page and let them do their own thing.
If readers start a story close in to the third person
viewpoint character, sharing his every thought, keep to that distance, don’t
push readers to arm’s length during action sequences. If you have difficulty
keeping so close in, return to the opening and match the distance to that used
later in the story. The flow should be smooth, part of a single whole. Nothing irritates readers more than working their way through a text to discover near the end that the viewpoint character has been hiding a pivotal nugget of information when all else has been shared with the reader.
Check out other posts in this November series:
#Editing Tip 1: Does your story start in the right place?
#Editing Tip 2: Is your story overloaded with description?
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