Using Viewpoint Character to Show and Not Tell in Your Ficiton Writing

If you have ever taken a course on creative writing or read a book on the subject, you understand the importance of showing and not telling.  The showing verses telling aspect of fiction writing sets it apart from the way most of us were taught in school.  Reports and research papers both required facts without a lot of  the emotion or sensory perception afforded in fiction writing.  In fiction you must move from fact to feeling without telling your reader how or what to feel.  Doing this effectively requires that you allow your readers to experience your story world in the same way they would the real world—through their senses.  One of the best ways for your readers to experience your story world is through the senses of your viewpoint character.  One of the hazards of writing in the omniscient viewpoint is that it can limit the reader’s ability to fully experience the world within the story. 

 

In his article “Mastering Fiction’s First Rule,” Jack M. Bickham  breaks down the process of  showing, not telling, into four essential steps:

·         Selection of, and adherence to, a single character’s viewpoint

·         Imagining the crucial sense or thought impressions that character is experiencing at any given moment

·         Presenting those impressions as vividly and briefly as possible

·         Giving those impressions to readers in logical order

He says that when you stay solidly in a viewpoint character, you are less likely to lecture readers.  You are more likely to let the readers experience the story world as it is revealed through the thoughts, feelings and experiences of the viewpoint character.  What the readers experience is more real and more credible because they are learning and perceiving along with the viewpoint character. 

Stick with one viewpoint character per scene, and you will be more likely to show and not simply tell.

Fleshing Out the Characters of Your Novel or Short Story: Traits and Relationships

Once you have decided on your character’s sex, age, vocation, name, appearance, speech, attitude and mannerism, you can go to the next level of character development: traits and relationships.

Traits

In the book Creating Characters, Dwight Swain says traits are those ways in which characters react to particular situations.  He says, “What counts is that you be aware that people do develop distinctive ways of reacting to life’s demands, and that these reaction patterns tend to become habitual.”  For instance how someone reacts to certain situations can reveal whether he or she is selfish, unselfish, pious or honest only when someone is watching.  Reactions also reveal whether someone is considerate, a bully or a hypocrite.  Swain also recommends putting your character into “situations that will give her the opportunity to show the stuff she’s made of before a crisis arises, so your readers won’t be taken aback when Character behaves the way you need her to.”  Also, remember to keep your character’s reactions consistent with the trait or traits you have given him or her.

Furthermore, make sure again that you are showing and not telling.  If your character is irritating, put him or her in a situation that shows how irritating he or she is. Don’t just tell us your character is a bully, show us by placing him or her in a scene where he or she is actually bullying someone.

Relationships

One thing about your characters that is best established from the get-go is the relationships they will have and how they will react in those relationships.  For example, is the character married or unmarried?  Does the character have children?  If so, how many?  Does the story include any extended family? How does your character react to these relationships? Keep in mind that if your character has a wife and family at the beginning you will have to deal with them throughout the rest of the story. What about friends, enemies, et cetera? Establishing relationships early on may save you some rewrites. 

Showing your character’s reactions toward his or her relationships can add to your character’s depth.  An arrogant professor, for instance, may approach his relationships with his students with condescension in the way he speaks to them.  The predominant trait you choose for your character will greatly influence the way the character reacts and responds to relationships.  

  

Creating characters for your novel or short story is not always an easy task.  Swain says “Your most useful tool in handling the obviously complex issue of relationship in your stories will be habitual people-watching, coupled with reading both fiction and psychology.” People are complex, so your main characters will need to be also.

Handling Subplots in Your Novel

You may find that in plotting your novel you have additional smaller plots that pop up in addition to your main plot.  These are called subplots.

Subplots can add a great deal of depth depending on the type of story you have.  They can also keep the story moving during a lull in the main plot.  But just as a main plot must follow the path of conflict, crisis, and resolution, the subplot must do the same.

For instance, in Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson, a family gets shipwrecked on a deserted island.  Initially, they must face the daunting task of finding food and shelter.  Later, the two oldest boys decide they want to explore the island in hopes of finding other inhabitants and end up rescuing a girl disguised as a cabin boy, whom of course they both fall in love with. To complicate matters, the girl had been the prisoner of some pirates who decide to come for her. But the main plot is the family’s struggle to make the island as much like home as possible while maintaining the hope of getting off.

The battle over the girl’s affection is a subplot with its own conflict or complication, crisis, and resolution.

Complication or conflict: the brothers find out the cabin boy is actually a girl, and they both find her attractive.

Crisis: their jealousy leads to heated exchanges and eventually escalates into a fist fight.

Resolution: the girl makes her choice, and the losing brother accepts the reality. 

One way you can handle subplots is by weaving them together as you would a braid.  Ansen Dibell describes it this way in her book Plot:

In long fiction, plots don’t merely alternate with subplots: they’re often woven together in something very like a braid.  One strand loops around to the outside, out of sight, then warps in or under to briefly become the central point before warping off for another turn.

Once you have the initial situation running, with the major characters established and facing some crucial problem the reader can tell isn’t going to go away, a braided plot won’t just continue on. You’ll bring in a new subject, one that has some new plot thread which you make clear but leave unresolved so that the reader can see that there are more developments to come.

She also writes that subplots work best for stories with plots that are direct (A and B meet, A and B lose each other, A and B find each other again) because it can give them an added dimension and make the stories less predictable. Conversely, subplots may be a problem in stories with central plots that are slow to unfold and are less direct.

The thing to remember is that subplots should only be used as long as the main plot is strong enough to handle the diversions.