Challenge #95
Aug. 19th, 2022 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivver posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tenminutesadayAnother Jerry Jenkins novel-writing sin! Today's is "Head-hopping" - that's switching the point of view between the characters in the scene. It's really tempting to do this when you want the reader to know what everyone is thinking, but it's like whiplash to the reader, jumping from head to head all around the room.
He writes: "The rule? One point-of-view character per scene. And it should be the character with the most at stake in the scene."
What this is means is, choose one character whose thoughts you can communicate to the reader directly. For the other characters, the POV character can only observe what they say/do and infer what they're thinking. (And the POV character may very well draw the wrong conclusions, which often is what makes the story interesting!)
The challenge today: Write a few paragraphs of two characters in a conversation, where the POV character is interested in the other and is trying to figure out if the feeling is mutual. Bonus points if you can make it obvious to the reader what the second character's interest level is but the POV character draws the wrong conclusion.
He writes: "The rule? One point-of-view character per scene. And it should be the character with the most at stake in the scene."
What this is means is, choose one character whose thoughts you can communicate to the reader directly. For the other characters, the POV character can only observe what they say/do and infer what they're thinking. (And the POV character may very well draw the wrong conclusions, which often is what makes the story interesting!)
The challenge today: Write a few paragraphs of two characters in a conversation, where the POV character is interested in the other and is trying to figure out if the feeling is mutual. Bonus points if you can make it obvious to the reader what the second character's interest level is but the POV character draws the wrong conclusion.