POINT OF VIEW By Morgan Mandel

BACK TO BASICS is my new weekly Wednesday blog for mysteryturtles.blogspot.com, designed to explain the fundamental writing rules and concepts.

Here's a sample of this week's blog:

Beginners, as well as seasoned writers, will do well to follow the basic precepts of writing, although in some instances, as in the case of exceptional writers, the tenets can be broken.

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC - POINT OF VIEW
First of all, What is Point of View?It's the perspective from which a story is told. When writing a novel, an author must decide who is telling the story. Based on that decision, the author will write in either first, second or third person.

FIRST PERSON - Using "I" throughout the manuscript.
SECOND PERSON - Where "You" is the descriptive.
THIRD PERSON - When HE or SHE is used to describe the main character.

Once you've decided which person you'd prefer to use, you'll need to clearly define what the person sees, feels and experiences. When that character takes the stage, everything should be from that character's point of view. He or she cannot see or hear or know about anything outside his or her realm.Example: A character can't see what's happening in another room with some other character without actually being in that room.The author should make it obvious to the reader whose point of view is being used in each instance or confusion and/or irritation will result. Switching back and forth is called Head Hopping and a sign of a novice writer.Skillful writers can travel from one to another character's viewpoint in the same paragraph, but the general rule is to keep in one point of view for each scene or even an entire chapter. When a switch is made, it should blend in with transitions and not be abrupt.

The exception for employing various points of view is the choice of using omniscent point of view, where the author is almost like another character looking down at the main characters and describing everything that happens to each person. Very skilled writers can pull this off, but it's not the general path to follow.

Following the tried and true rules will show publishers and readers that you understand the basic concepts of writing, so remember to follow them when considering point of view in your manuscript.

Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com/
www.myspace.com/morganmandel
http://bookplace.ning.com/
http://mysteryturtles.blogspot.com/
http://acmeauthorsling.blogspot.com/

Scared Silly

I read the scariest thing ever, with apologies to Stephen King, Dean Koontz and our own Master of Macabre Rob Walker. It isn't a book, but more of a pamphlet, a journal, a magazine as it were. Like a werewolf , it comes out once a month to turn my blood cold.

It is ... (shudder) ... something to scare a man out of his back hair.

I can barely tell you.

Its pages are so scary... so frightening ... terrifying ... and ... um ..., other words that describe fear. Fear that causes your muscles to petrify as chemicals of unhappiness surge through your body, springing up goose bumps along the way.

I must speak the name of this periodical, though my mouth refuses to utter its simple name... so I will type it instead with shaky fingers.

It is ... (eek) ... READER'S DIGEST.

Yes, you heard me.

Reader's Digest.

You scoff. I can tell ... only because I have incredible powers of perceptiveness (my wife snorts in disbelief). You mock my gentle wisdom ... the warning that I spread to save those who read this magazine for its insight, humor and stories of human courage.

But have you read the other parts of the magazine?

You know, those parts that come with an eight point font disclaimer that takes up a whole page or three ... that no one ever reads because it's an eight point font disclaimer that takes up a whole page or three.

The stuff having to do with ... health?

Yep, Reader's Digest is chock full of stuff dealing with what they laughingly call health. For with hypochondriacs like me, that's not a good thing. For you see, I am susceptible to the power of suggestion. If there's a mosquito in the room, I feel itchy. If someone yawns, I yawn. And if someone gets skin cancer, I start watching my moles with squinty-eyed suspicion.

I've learned all kinds of scary things about health by reading Reader's Digest. For instance, did you know that your bowels have a temper? I didn't. Why if you eat the wrong things, it might get irritable and go Postal on you. And I learned by reading RD's learned pages, that even though I might feel wonderful, cholesterol might ... even as I type ... be packing my arteries with stuff that will make them explode.

Do you know the signs of a heart attack? Me neither, until I read RD. Thanks to their friendly words, I know that the signs of a heart attack are chest or upper body discomfort, shortness of breath, cold sweat, nausea and lightheadedness. After reading this, I broke out into a cold sweat, clutched my hands to my chest which seized up so that I couldn't get a breath and almost passed out.

I also learned that back and joint pain might mean that I have prostate cancer, a rash might be Lyme disease, and that my severe headache was not from having teenaged girls, but more likely from an aneurysm. And my blurred vision isn't me getting old - it's macular degeneration that can be reversed by the wonderful drug Avastin, which will also treat my colon cancer. Lucky me.

So call me a hypochondriac, but I'm going to stop reading the medical stuff. I think I'll skip right to "Humor in Uniform."

(whistles tunelessly and reads).

Aargh!

I hurt my funny bone!

Norm

www.normcowie.com
The Adventures of Guy ... written by a guy (probably)
The Next Adventures of Guy ... more wackiness