I
recently read an excellent novel called The Catch by Tom Bale. Tom is one of
the undiscovered gems of UK
Such
was the brilliance of the writing, I campaigned to my editor at Crimesquad.com
to make Tom Bale our Author of the Month for April. He duly got that honour and
my review and interview may be found here.
The
novel focuses on a tired friendship and moral choices and uses multiple
viewpoints to tell the story. As my own humble work in progress uses multiple
viewpoints I was keen to seek the author’s opinion. So here it is.
Everyone’s
got a point of view. That might be true in life, but not always in fiction –
and the matter of perspective is one of the most important decisions that a
writer has to make.
It
was Graham’s recent question on the subject that made me appreciate how strong
my preference is for writing in the third person with multiple viewpoints. Even
as a reader, I have to confess that I sometimes recoil if I pick up a book and
see it’s written in the first person. The story has to be all the more
compelling to overcome my reluctance to spend an entire novel inside the mind
of just one character.
After
all, if prose fiction has a unique selling point, surely it’s that it allows
the writer to convey what his or her characters are thinking? We can explore
their deepest fears, secrets and desires in a way that’s simply not possible in
other forms of storytelling: cinema, theatre, gaming and so on.
And
if you have the ability to reveal that inner dialogue, why limit it to only one
or two characters? I tend to like populating my stories with a large cast, so
it seems natural to explore the viewpoint of most, if not all, of my main
characters. It certainly helps to enrich the story – and in crime fiction in
particular, I think it’s a lot easier to create complex antagonists if you can
explore their motivations and reveal their psychological make-up.
Switching
viewpoints helps to keep the story fresh and interesting. Adding the viewpoint
of a minor player can be a great way of providing insight into the main
characters. In my novel BLOOD
FALLS
But
for all my love of multiple viewpoints, there’s one strict rule that I try to
adhere to: no head-hopping. That’s when we’re privy to one character’s thoughts
in one sentence or paragraph, and another character’s in the next. Not only is
it confusing, but it also has a strangely unsettling effect, jolting the
readers out of the story. Far better, I think, to use scene breaks to denote a
change of viewpoint, much as a filmmaker will switch between cameras to tell a
story from different perspectives. Used effectively, it’s a device that can
bring your characters to life as vivid, three-dimensional people.
Massive
thanks from me to Tom for this post.
April
is the month for guest posts so here is the line-up to date.
22nd
– Matt Hilton
29th
- Howard Linskey
To
follow later in the year
Tom
Cain / David Thomas Guest Blog
Lee
Child Interview
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