Deep Point of View

Kathrese McKee helped us all to dive into Deep Point of View at our July ACFW gathering. She began her presentation with two caveats:

1. WARNING: this material may temporarily spoil your pleasure in the fiction you read. Sorry.
   
2. This presentation will only give a beginning understanding about this topic. If you want more information download the booklet (written by Kathrese) entitled, “Mastering Deep POV,” please go to www.wordmarkeredits.com.

Her engaging presentation continued with a brief review of Point of View followed by a demonstration of a shallow point of view passage from Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories From Wayside School. 

Kathrese then provided us with an extensive and detailed list of guidelines for achieving Deep POV such as: avoid phrases like: she thought, she wondered, she wished or she remembered. McKee encouraged writers to sink deeper and said this would create a more engaging story. 

A writer who is trying to utilize Deep POV should be careful to avoid naming emotions: love, hate, like, or fear, and concentrate on conveying emotions through action, physical reaction, thoughts, word choice and sensory details, setting and dialogue.

Kathrese finished our time together with an opportunity to apply what we had learned. She gave us a passage from Tara Ellis’ novel: Infected: The Shiners, and each of us had an opportunity to re-write the passage choosing first or third person and reworking the Point of View to be Deep POV. A number of writers bravely shared what they had written and it was fascinating to see the different directions each writer took the piece. 

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Kathrese McKee is an author of YA fantasy, and she is the treasurer and official photographer of the WOTS chapter of ACFW. You can find her novels, Mardan's Mark and Healer's Curse on Amazon.

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Special thanks to Anthea Kotlan for covering for me this past week. What would I do without my friends?