Throughout the last few years, I kept hearing the about Deep Point of View, otherwise called Immersive POV. This has nothing to do with first, second, or third person pronouns in your narration. It’s the idea that you write so readers feel like they experience the world as if the POV character. It’s a style of writing that makes the narrator invisible. I’ve been on a journey of learning this skillset, and it took me 2 years to fully understand how to write Deep POV. Today, I want to impart what I’ve learned in hopes that you may grasp the concept more quickly than I did.
What Is Deep POV
Everyone agrees that Deep POV is about immersing the readers in the POV character’s world. Yet every person I talked to or book I read seemed to have a different way of describing how to do it. One said it’s about describing the world in a way only the character would see. Another said it was all about making sure the character’s thoughts and evaluations were on the page. Still others taught it’s just showing emotions on the page. Some even said it was how you wrote your prose.
After years of research, I realized that Deep POV was all of these things, but no one seemed to understand that. Some writers do aspects of Deep POV naturally so when they tried to learn this skill, they simply focused on the parts they didn’t already do. So, when they went to impart their knowledge to others about how to write immersively, they only taught what they themselves didn’t originally get. But Deep POV is multi-faceted. So, I’m here to put it all together and tell you about the three sides of writing Deep POV: character voice, interiority, and prose.
Character Voice
The first and most basic part of Deep POV is developing your POV character’s voice. You must have a distinct voice and a unique character for readers to journey alongside throughout the story. I did a post on this a couple years ago when I was talking about the three types of voice in books (character, narrator, and writer voice). You can reference back to that character voice post for more information, but I wanted to mention here that character voice is the base of Deep POV. Without a good character voice, you won’t be able to write so readers experience the story through the character’s eyes.
Interiority
The next part of Deep POV is interiority, and this is the biggest aspect of writing an immersive story. Interiority is putting the POV character’s thoughts and feelings on the page. As Donald Maas says, “Readers don’t create—they react.” Readers compare themselves to characters, but there must be the character’s feelings and thoughts on the page or the readers won’t know the character well enough to relate to him or her. You can’t expect readers to know your characters as well as you. They need the character’s worldview, feelings, and thoughts on the page. I did a post a while back on interiority, and then several months later I expounded on it by going into subconscious interiority and conscious interiority. Read all three posts to more fully understand interiority because it’s the biggest aspect of Deep POV that most people fail to do in their stories.
Prose
The last part of Deep POV isn’t about what you write but how you write; it’s the prose. This is the part that I seemed to be missing in my writing until recently. Hence, today I want to lay out three ways to write your prose for Deep POV. These will help you make the narrator of the story invisible to the readers, and they will feel more like they are experiencing the story rather than reading it.
1. Don’t Tell
Everyone has heard the “Show, Don’t Tell” motto, and it’s also the rule for Deep POV. Very specifically, you need to leave out broadcasting words that cue a mental or sensory detail. Mental details are often telegraphed with words like thought, knew, realized, wished, etc. Sensory details are broadcasted with words like felt, heard, saw, smelled, etc. These are words to avoid in your narration, or you’ll be telling instead of showing. Here are some examples.
- Telling: She thought through possible solutions to fix the car.
- Deep POV: Maybe she could ask Martin if he had any used parts for sale. Or she could go to the scrap yard and search the trash piles. Anything would be better than asking Derek for help.
- Telling: He realized there was a cut on his arm.
- Deep POV: A throbbing pain erupted in his arm, and a red line arched across his bicep.
- Telling: She felt the rough wood beneath her fingers.
- Deep POV: She ran her hand down the wood, its rough grain catching on her fingertips.
- Telling: He heard the door slam shut.
- Deep POV: The door slammed shut.
These are just a few examples, but you get the idea. Anytime you find words that broadcast what’s happening instead of describing it, you can delete them and reword. The result will be more immersive language and keep the narrator hidden from the reader.
2. Avoid Emotion Words
Now, emotions in a story are good. You need to show how your character feels, but you shouldn’t name the emotion. Anytime you have to use an emotion word, you are telling the reader how to feel. Instead, show it and let the reader put the pieces together. Here are some examples.
- Telling: I was thankful he didn’t tell on me.
- Deep POV: Thankfully, he didn’t tell on me.
- Telling: She was happy to be home.
- Deep POV: She stepped inside her blue front door and sighed. She refused to leave any time soon.
One of the best shortcuts to finding lazy portrayals of emotion is by looking for prepositions. Often, a preposition paired with an emotion means there’s an unnecessary explanation. It’s the author telling the reader how to interpret things instead of trusting the reader to put it together himself. Let’s look at some examples.
- Telling: “The idiot didn’t even aim before he shot.” Paul clenched his fists in anger.
- Deep POV: “The idiot didn’t even aim before he shot.” Paul clenched his fists.
- Telling: A howling whistle echoed in the hallway, and a shiver of fear ran down her spine.
- Deep POV: A howling whistle echoed in the hallway, and a shiver ran down her spine.
- Telling: “It doesn’t matter how many times you threaten me, I’m not going.” She lifted her chin in defiance.
- Deep POV: “It doesn’t matter how many times you threaten me, I’m not going.” She lifted her chin.
As you can see, if you write the context well, you can just delete the prepositional clauses and move on. It’s less words, and you lose that annoying narrator voice.
3. Write Linear
The last tip for writing prose in Deep POV is to write linear. That means you write things chronologically. If we are in the POV character’s mind, then we will experience the world in the order it happens. The best way to make sure you write linear is to look for words that signal time or cause and effect. This includes words like after, before, when, made, caused, etc. Here are some examples.
- Telling: His glare made her step back.
- Deep POV: His eyes narrowed at her, and she stumbled back.
- Telling: Before cooking dinner, she changed out of her dirty clothes.
- Deep POV: She changed out of her dirty clothes and headed to the kitchen to make dinner.
- Telling: Her smile caused his heart to race.
- Deep POV: She smiled, and his heart raced.
It’s important to note that some of these time words can be used in writing without breaking chronological order. For instance, after can be used both correctly and incorrectly.
- Correctly: After finishing the dishes, she went to bed.
- Incorrectly: She went to bed after finishing the dishes.
The first example is linear. We finish the dishes and then go to bed. The second breaks chronological order. We don’t go to bed and then finish the dishes. By asking readers to rearrange the order of events in their heads, you are pulling them out of the story. Make sure you write linear to keep them experiencing the story as the character.
Final Thoughts
In a world where readers want intimacy and connection, Deep POV is a skillset many publishers look for in books. Through character voice, interiority, and prose, you can present your story in Deep POV and pull readers into your story. It may take you time and lots of practice, but, once you get it, you’ll be a better writer. Hopefully, I’ve fully and clearly explained Deep POV so your path of learning this skill is faster than mine. But if not, keep pursuing it. I had a long hike to understanding, but it was well worth the effort.
Thanks for reading!
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