I Am Not A Poet! But I’m Starting A New Poetry Series Anyways

Tags

I am not a poet, master class, pastoral poem, pastoral romance, poetry series, poetry types, writing challenge, writing expiriment

So, I rolled the prompt to write a poem for February. Since I’m not a poet, like at all, really, I thought it might be nice to experiment and learn about some new forms.

I referenced the Master Class blog for the fifteen forms.

Here’s me struggling through it:

Since I chose a Pastoral Romance poem, let me briefly explain. This is a poem without strict form rules (rhyme, meter, etc.), and it focuses on idyllic views of nature. Think: city life bad, country life good.

Without further ado, here’s my terrible attempt at the Pastoral Romance.

Evergreens shroud the horizon

Putting miles between them

And industry’s dirt and smog.

Sweet morning dew swathes

Her bare ankles and long, sneaky

Vegetation slips up her skirts.

Bushes full of berries, plump and ripe

Leak juices along her fingers

As she loads her basket.

Tart and refreshing for him working

Sweat plastered cloth to his back

And chest as he licks his fingers clean.

Cutting trees and carving wood

Has his blood humming as red

Stained her mouth and tongue.

She gathered up her voluminous skirts

And tempted him with her pink skin,

Ripe and ready to be devoured.

Wind rustled the tall grass and

Sheep bleated as he thrusted a moan 

From low in her belly.

The sun dried her tears and

Between her thighs before

They rose back to their duties.

Herding sheep, picking fruits and nuts,

And sowing wild oats for the land

To bloom and fruit for the Fall.

Yup. That wasn’t great, but it was fun to try! If you want to join me on this poetry series, learn about poetry forms and types, and write some poems with me, please share them with me! I’d love to see what you write.

Camp NaNoWriMo Week Four Update

Tags

#authortube, bad interview, Camp Nanowrimo, Wooing the Alpha, word count, writing goals, writing update, writing vlog

After the twelve-day headache, the pain finally broke, but not before a terrible, group interview. Ever go in and have an expert try to tell you about some marketing trick they don’t do for the wrong reasons? Everyone looks at you like an idiot, even though you know the guy is full of it. Yeah, that’s how my week went.

It showed in my word count and minutes tabulated. Thankfully, I had all of those minutes racked up from the last three weeks.

Anyways, let’s look at the numbers!

Week One | July 19-25

Minutes Completed: 691/840

Minutes Behind: 14

Words Written: 6,455

That brings me to 31,022/20,150

Regardless of the weaker week, I’m still almost done with cycle six, Midnight, and onto Marsh. Man, this is going so quickly! I love it.

Want to watch me do all the things, like making chocolate cake, re-reading a project, stretching, and wrangling cats? Check out my camp writing vlog:

How has your July been? Let me know in the comments below!

Did You Know…About the Primordial Gods?

Tags

Abrahamic creation story, did you know, greek mythology, Hindu trinity, Mecca creator god, Ometecuhtli, pantheon, Primordial God, the Ogdoad, Ymir

Most of us lean toward Greek’s collective of Chaos, Eros, Darkness, and Nyx, etc., which represent the most basic components of the universe that materialized at creation. These are the gods that represent bigger concepts—the beginning of time and the foundations laid for the other gods. They are further separated from the other collections of gods and further more from humans.

Some of my favorites are Chaos, Chronos, and Gaia, probably because they play a vital role in the creation of my first vampire, Phea. Time and Earth are the most present in my everyday life, so that might also be why I favor them so greatly.

There are many more than I initially realized. Here’s a link to the complete list.

But thinking about pantheons—and creating new ones for an upcoming series—got me thinking about other culture’s primordial gods.

One of the more interesting was the connection between the massively-referenced Greek versions and the Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) creation story. The birth from darkness, the formation of the earth, and the full-formation of life all reference back to the primordial gods.

In fact, the concept of darkness seems to connect with every version of these founding creatures. Ancient Origins has an excellent post about the links.

For the Aztecs, Ometecuhtli was self-birthed in their creation story and is the primordial being of fertility. It’s a dual, androgynous being that acted as mother and father to the other major Aztec gods, Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Xipe Totec, who represent the four cardinal directions. Ometecuhtli championed opposing natures: light and dark, chaos and order, and sometimes, good and evil. Living in the thirteenth heaven, or the highest plane, this deity is disconnected from human affairs and those of the other gods.

Photo (c) Chrisgiz12

Hinduism has a trinity of important, top-tier gods: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer. Vishnu and Shiva are worshipped widely, having many followers and temples, but Braham does not garner the same attention. This is because he is the personification of brahman, an indefinable and unknowable divine principle.

Photo (c) Andrea Saavedra

Egyptian mythology worships eight primordial gods, or the Ogdoad (“the Eightfold”), that predate the common gods, like Osiris and Anubis. These deities were made of four male-female pairs that have similar symbols as the Greeks, and paired with the primary elements of the universe: water, air, light, and time. The couples were meant to create balance in the universe, but at least three different creation stories are attributed to this set of gods. Learn more about it here.

In Pre-Islamic Arabic mythologies, a slew of pantheons was common amongst tribes. Allāh, the Meccan creator god and supreme deity prayed to primarily in times of despair because he intervened in extreme crises; he is the father of the gods, angels, and jinn. Awal, the sea god, worshiped by Taghlib, Iyad, and Banu Bakr bin Wa’il tribes. He is the primordial guardian of the Gulf waters. Tihāmat is the divinity of chaos and the abyss, the eternal that existed before Allāh. Falak, a dragon or giant lizard that resides in the Realm of Fire, is the primordial spirit that rules over volcanoes, lava, and magma, and is only kept deep beneath the earth because he fears Allāh.

 

Finally, Norse mythology has Ymir, or screamer in old Norse, who was born when the melted ice of the World of Mist met the hot air from the Realm of Fire. The frost giants sprang from his legs and armpits. As the ice melted, the drops created the divine cow, Audumla, whose udders sustained Ymir. Three sons—Odin, Vili, and Ve—of the primordial giants killed Ymir, drowning all but two of his children in the sea of his blood, and his body was used to create heaven and earth, his blood to make the oceans and lakes, his bones to fashion mountains, his hair for trees, and his brains for clouds. Ymir’s eyebrow formed the Realm of Men, and dwarves were shaped from the maggots infested in Ymir’s flesh.

Photo (c) Kekai Kotaki

Well, a lot of the primordial gods are connected in similar ways, but it’s interesting to see the variance and differences amongst them.

 

Which is your favorite? Tell me about them in the comments below.

 

 

Sources:

https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/gods/primordial/

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/ancient-gods-when-darkness-ruled-world-006067

https://www.realmofhistory.com/2018/08/01/12-major-aztec-gods-goddesses-facts/

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/south-asia/hindu-art/a/three-hindu-gods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad_(Egyptian)

https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-religions/infinite-ogdoad-creation-pantheon-ancient-egypt-and-predecessor-gods-old-020447

http://wathanism.blogspot.com/2011/11/deities-beings-and-figures-in-arabian.html

https://blog.vkngjewelry.com/norse-gods/

My Summer Wrap Up & Memory Keeping

Tags

Camp Nanowrimo, college professor, family time, making new goals, meeting goals, memory keeping, preparing for fall semester, summer wrap up, writing habit, yearly word count tracking

Want to watch me prep for my Fall Semester and check out my new classroom? Check out my new Day in the Life vlog.

 

Y’all, I have never had a summer fly by as fast as this one did. Man!

The good news is, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my family back in New York, I published a novella, finished the first draft of a novel—completing Camp NaNoWriMo, started vlogging about writing and editing on YouTube, finished my first round of edits on an old novel, and put together a cookbook for a client. Wow, when I put it all down on paper, that sounds like way too much. Still, it was a lot of fun!

I’ve got plenty of new goals for the rest of the year, but I surpassed a major milestone in these last few months and that’s my word count goal for the year. FOR THE YEAR. By August. Um…what?

My original goal was 106,000 words, I’m just shy of 116,000 words.

I didn’t think I’d get past 100,000 since I’d been struggling these last few years to get words to paper. I will admit that since the start of August, my word count has dropped significantly, but I’m trying to not completely lose the habit amongst the chaos of the Fall Semester, teaching four classes, editing an anthology and two books, and publishing another.

I wonder, however, if my yearly habit should be front heavy. Writing packed into the slow times of the year, and focusing on editing and marketing for the last quarter. Ooo, y’all, I have so many new ideas to get ahead.

Honestly, I’ve been leaning more and more that way the last couple of years, but I feel like my yearly planning system is about to change. Here’s hoping I can keep more realistic goals, so that I can keep meeting them.

Okay, sorry for that tangent, but when ideas strike, sometimes, you just have to go for the ride.

To end, I want to highlight some of my favorite memories from the summer:

~My plane landing early and ruining the surprise my mom planned with the kids holding signs with my name on it. They were still really cute, and I loved it.

~Strawberry picking with the family.

~Having a no-looking drawing contest with my niece in the back seat of my mom’s car.

~Chatting with my brother about Arizona

~Watching Bosch, Absentia, and Timeless with my dad; A Discovery of Witches with my mom; Letterkenny with my friend/sister, Donna; Entourage with my Uncle John.

~Going to the craft show with my mom and forgetting to pay the library ladies for the coffee and donuts before remembering and literally running back to pay them.

~The cookout with my Aunt Mikki and cousins Joel and Cameron, and making that’s-what-she-said jokes to him and his girlfriend much to their shock.

~Visiting my grandma in the hospital and having her mistake me for one of the nurses, but the moment she knew I was there, she boasted about me to the actual nurses.

~Having dinner and drinks and talk around the bonfire with my Aunt Karin and cousins Rachel and Naomi. We toasted each other all night.

~Going to the gym with my step-dad, Dan, and teasing my mom whenever we went somewhere together by singing, “waiting on the woman,” to her as we waited for her to pull the car out of the garage.

~Going to Strong with my mom and step-dad, and the nurse asking him to flip over his hand, so he gives her his other one, and all of us giggling together.

~So many trips to the ice cream stand and lots and lots of food!

It was a good time, y’all.

How did your summer go? Tell me in the comments below!

How to Conduct a Character Interview, Part One: The Questions

Tags

book marketing, character building, character development, character interview, character sketch, fantasy interviews, How to conduct a character interview, interviewing fictional characters, questions to ask characters

I love interviewing my characters, especially to give those who don’t get an internal voice the chance to express themselves and provide the reader with more insight.

Coming up with a new list of questions with each new book, story, or character either becomes repetitive or draining. This often leads to endless searches on the internet.

So, instead of repeating this process each and every time I want to write a character interview, I decided to compile a list of my favorite questions from the lists I often visit.

This is going to be long, y’all.

 

I took a good chunk of questions from The Writing Kylie below, but she has SO many more for us get to know our characters, but I tried to pinpoint the ones I thought would work best for interview purposes instead of development. There’s even some for villains in the mix:

Do you have a motto? If so, what is it?

Do you have any annoying habits, quirks, strange mannerisms, or other defining characteristics?

How would you describe your childhood?

would you describe your childhood?

How much schooling have you had?

Did you enjoy school? If not, why did you struggle?

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities?

Did you have any role models? If so, describe them and why they were your role models.

How did you get along with the other members of your family?

What did you want to be when you grew up?

When and where were you the happiest?

When did you have your first kiss, and who with?

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far, why?

What is the most evil thin you have ever done so far?

Do you have a criminal record?

What is your greatest regret?

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be and why?

Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

What is your greatest extravagance?

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?

What is the most evil thing a human being could do?

Under what circumstances do you find killing acceptable or unacceptable?

How do you measure success?

Have you ever been in love?

What is your most treasured possession?

Do you like to read? If so, what?

How do you spend a typical Saturday night?

What makes you life?

How do you define happiness?

How do you deal with stress?

What are your pet peeves?

Which talent would you most like to have and why?

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

What three words best describe your personality?

If you have 24 hours to live, what three things would you do in the time you had left?

If you were to die and come back as a person, animal, or thing, what do you think it would be, and why?

What do you have in your pockets or purse?

What is on your nightstand?

What’s in your fridge?

 

These next three are from “37 Questions to Ask Your Character”:

What is your earliest memory?

On Monday morning, are you excited to go to work, or are you sad?

If you could go back in time for one day, where would you go?

 

The next set are from Helping Writers Become Authors. They have a nice infograph and a character interview sheet that you can print to develop your characters as well. But these are the ones I like best:

What do you like best about the main (other main) character(s)?

What do you like lease about the main (other main) character(s)?

If you could do one thing and succeed at it, what would it be?

What kind of person are you?

Who do you sympathize best with?

 

Here’s another chunk from Gotham Writers. They gave another few I hadn’t seen in the others:

What was your favorite journey?

What is your most marked characteristic?

Who is your favorite fictional hero?

On what occasions is it okay to lie?

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Which words and phrases do you overuse?

 

And another snippet from Writers Write. They, have a great, long term process for understanding your characters:

What was it like being raised about your parents?

What traditions are important to your life?

Which teacher or authority figure had the most impact on your life?

What’s your favorite quote?

 

Here’s Writers Write again, with another list that has a lot of personal prompts for creative nonfiction writing that inspired me:

What’s your best physical feature? Why do you like it?

Which part of school did you enjoy the most?

Would you wish upon a falling star?

What superstitions do you believe in or follow?

What was your favorite toy as a child?

What’s your favorite season?

Do you connect with your zodiac sign?

What would you tell your younger self if you could?

What would a wanted ad for your ideal roommate read like?

Can you describe your personal style?

Do you believe in fate?

What would you like to teach the world if you had a platform?

If you had to wear a sign around your neck explaining something about yourself before somebody spoke to you, what would it say?

 

AutoCrit offers “Four Methods For Interviewing Characters,” which has an interesting example of a free-form interview for development that also showcases the way character answer questions that may pry into topics they may not answer in an expected way:

If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?

What impression do you make on people when they first meet you? How about after they’ve known you for a while?

What’s your idea of a good marriage? Do you think it’ll happen for you?

Do you think you turned out the way your parents expected?

What would you like your tombstone to say?

 

I relish an opportunity for new and non-traditional questions, and WayUp gave us a few traditional job interview questions and what their answers might be:

Batman vs Spiderman: Who Would Win?

In what ways are you lucky?

If you were a cartoon character, which one would you be and why?

If you were a crayon (or paint swatch) color, which would you be and why?

 

Novel Factory gives us a couple new questions amongst their Ultimate Character Questionnaire:

What would you ask a fortune teller?

If they could have a superpower, what would it be and why?

What is your favorite fairy tale?

Do you believe in redemption?

What is your favorite proverb?

What or who would you dress up as for Halloween?

 

Labotomy of a Writer provides a LONG list of questions with a whopping 253 questions. Here are a few I really liked from it:

Are you spontaneous or do you always need to have a plan?

What do you do when you’re bored?

What time of day or night is your favorite?

What do you think about being supernatural? Is it cool or have you been screwed?

Do you have a mentor? Describe them.

What is something you had to learn during your training that you hated?

How would you convince the opposing side to join your team if you could?

What would you wish for if you found a genie?

What time period would you live in if you could?

 

These come from Roleplaying Tips’ Mother of all Character Questionnaires. This has a lot more fantasy-based world and character building questions as well:

Do you have a notorious or celebrated ancestor?

Do you have a parton Deity?

Do you enjoy “roughing it,” or are you a creature of comfort?

How do you feel about the government (rulers) in general? Why?

If your features were destroyed beyond recognition, is there any other way of identifying your body?

 

Would you rather questions also make for interesting answers from questions, but it’s best to sprinkle these amongst others rather than having a 20-question volley with your character.

 

And finally, since we’re on the topic, here’s one last great resource of questions for fantasy world building from Patricia C. Wrede that is just massive, and I couldn’t do it better justice if I tried.

So, there it is. My list of questions. Stay tuned for part two, where I elaborate on how I choose questions for characters, how I answer them, ways to create a scene or indicate movement during an interview.

 

Got a favorite question that I missed on my list? Leave it for us in the comments below.

Our TRANSCENDENT Authors: a Featured Interview with Alisha Costanzo

My interview for my new story “The Glittering Pearls” about young martyred sin-eaters in TRANSCENDENT. ❤

Transmundane Press

In our new author series, we’ll be offering a clairvoyant peek behind the veil of who and what makes up TRANSCENDENT. Here’s a glimpse at Alisha Costanzo and her story “The Glittering Pearls.”

ABOUT THE STORY

What inspired your story?

I live in a realm of conspiracy theories, so the world gleamed from the current political climates and my deep-seated beliefs that people with power often hurt others with it and act as though they’re above the rest of us.

Doubly inspired, since my husband is a conspiracy king, “The Glittering Pearls” is based loosely off of his time as a solider, volunteering for every mission he could so that others didn’t have to. This common sacrificial thread in many of his stories and his propensity to absorb the guilt built-in to life—especially for me—in order to save others from it manifested the opening scene of a young man weighed…

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Did You Know…About the God of Chaos

Tags

Acheron, Apep, Apollymi, god of chaos, Juracán, Leviathan, Meleia, Primordial God, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Zoroastrainism

In Greek mythology, Chaos was the first primordial god—according to Hesiod—who formed the initial void of the universe, or the gap between heaven and earth. In his version, Chaos was the first thing to exist, and from it came Gaia, Earth; Tartarus, the Nether Abyss; and Eros, Love. When personified, he fathered Erebus, Darkness; and Nyx, Night. Yet, this personification didn’t keep him from being known as a far away, underground, or gloomy place beyond Tartarus.

The Abrahamic belief systems reference Chaoskampf, or a cosmic battle between a sea monster that represents the forces of chaos and a creator god or a cultural hero that imposes order by force. Judaism refers to this chaotic creature as Leviathan (or more modernly as the “great whale.”) Christianity refers to Leviathan as the image of Satan, who threatens God’s creatures by trying to eat them and with the attempted upheaval in the waters of Chaos. This version demonizes him as envious and one of the seven Princes of Hell.

In Zoroastrianism, hymns presented the two sides of existence as the mainyu, or the mind, spirit and otherwise abstract energy, and the angra, or the destructive, chaotic, disorderly, inhibitive, and malign, etc. manifestations. It also refers to the angra mainyuas “absolute antithesis.” The mythological story portrays a back and forth between good and evil with the personified Angra Mainyu planning to dry up the earth, urging hero Zoroaster to turn away from the good religion for sovereignty of the world, and battling Spenta Mainyu for possession of khvaraenah, or divine glory and fortune. Utlimately, Angra Mainyu is assigned to the nether world, one of darkness, to reign over the daevas, demons or opponents.

Anient Egyptians embodied chaos as deity Apep or Apophis. As Ra was the solar deity, bringing of light, his greatest enemy was the “Lord of Chaos.” As the personification of all evil, Apep was seen as a giant snake or serpent that stretched sixteen yards in length and had a head made of flint. Although, he has been similarly depicted as a crocodile, like modern Judaism has shown the Leviathan. Myth has suggested, however, that Ra’s birth was a consequence of Apep’s primordial force, thus suggesting that evil is merely the consequence of an individual’s own struggles against non-existence.

In the native Caribbean cultures, the deity of chaos and disorder was believed to control the weather, particularly hurricanes, called Juracán. Taíno mythology, these storms were spawned and controlled by the goddess Guabancex, or “the one whose fury destroys everything,” as the Taínos were aware of the hurricane’s spiraling wind patterns, which they used when depicting the deity. When Guabancex’s volatile temper unleashed these hurricanes—or juracánes—she would interrupt the balance of rain and drought, rotating her arms in a spiral to pick up the ocean water and land and force it violently back over the Taíno settlements. She threatened the other deities to coerce them into joining the chaos.

As for my depiction of the Goddess of Chaos, Meleia—although she is much more the goddess of fate and destruction as well—I gleamed a bit of her position from reading Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series with Acheron, the harbinger of destruction, and his mother, Apollymi, the Goddess of Life, Death, and Wisdom and daughter of Chaos. I particularly liked how the duo were shown as the destroyers.

Meleia does not destroy all, as shown in her recent mini, she only has say over her own people. Well, sometimes good people must do bad things. It creates balance. This is reflected in Ria and her phoenix, making an amalgamation of power that will change the universe.

I like thinking of Meleia, and other creatures normally seen as evil, as individuals who do what they do out of necessity. This has a heck of a lot of cultural connections. Make the ones you will. All seen as purely evil have some sense of humanity to them. Some sense of mercy and good.

I know where Ria’s mercy lies. Meleia’s seem to reflect them. This makes me excited about learning about her, and getting to see pieces of her life as she becomes a more an integral part of Ria’s story.

Who knows, maybe after these next two books, she’ll have intrigued me to give her voice a story all its own.

Let’s see what happens.

Check out these related posts:

Gods of Chaos, a Meleia Mini

Did You Know…About the Hybrids & Chaos?

Did You Know…About the Phoenix?

TRANSCENDENT Cover Reveal

I’m a day late, y’all, but traveling will do that. This cover by Dean Samed is amazing, and I love working with him. He makes our big beasts look pretty darn beautiful. Can’t wait to show you all what we have in store for the pre-order limited edition hardback boxes!

Let me know what y’all think of this one.

Transmundane Press

There exists a realm beyond reality. A place where nothing is what it seems and anything is possible.

Each soul who travels to this mysterious world finds something different.

Some voyagers get lost in this land of DREAMS, forgetting their way back to the path, to home. Others experience intense VISIONS, glimmers of the past, present, and future, discovering sacred knowledge and infinite wisdom. NIGHTMARES also lurk in this land, twisted and horrible creatures wait in the darkest corners while HALLUCINATIONS reveal the unspoken truths of our hearts and souls.

Are you ready?

Step through the gate and leave everything you knew behind.

Step through the gate and become TRANSCENDENT.

Dean Samed always does a wonderful job!

The Official Blurb:

A parallel dimension exists below the surface of reality.

Its doors swing open every time we sleep, allowing us passage into the land of DREAMS, a plane rich with exotic…

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A Not-so-Nice Dose of Reality

Tags

anxiety and depression, consistency, control freak, lofty goals, self-care, The Writing Process, therapy session, writer's issues

Today, I had a Did You Know…post planned about a mythical way to become immortal.

Instead, this is going to be more personal.

A reality check.

I’m the kind of person who has lofty goals, constantly pushing myself to do more—if not obvious from my recent post about having a full plate. And I always overbook myself.

This year, however, I’ve been successful in keeping to many of my goals—a consistent four blog posts a month, a consistent word count for creative projects, a consistent editing schedule.

But working from mid-morning until eight or nine in the evening has its downsides. I grow exhausted after a few super-productive days and find that my focus becomes an elusive and slippery frienemy. Which means a lot of naps.

More than three a week lately, y’all.

And that scares me a little.

Progress means back tracking and side steps. I know this. But when this happens, I often feel discouraged. Why can’t I do more? I did all of the things yesterday, and today, I can’t.

I simply can’t.

And although I don’t often admit to it, anxiety consumes me. I don’t have the debilitating kind of anxiety or depression. I’m too much of a control freak.

So, I force myself to get out of bed. Pick away at some project. Because if I don’t, I will get depressed. My anxiety will win.

I choose to let it fuel me instead.

But I am reminded to give myself a break. Work on self-care.

And it’s hard.

Ain’t a lot of good that comes out of easy, so I guess I’m on the right track.

Well, thanks for sitting through my mini-therapy session. I hope y’all take care of yourselves.

 

Feel free to tell me how you manage stress and an overly-full plate.

POV: How to Fix Head Hopping

Tags

close third, editing advice, editing tips, head hopping, omniscient, POV shift, Sherrily Kenyon, writing advice, writing technique, writing tips

I had this post requested a while ago, and I couldn’t figure out how to put it into words at first. But as I’ve been writing lessons for a mentoring program I’m working on, I finally figured it out.

So here it goes.

First, head hopping is when we dip into more than one character’s POV in a single scene. This isn’t omniscient POV, but rather a switch between close-third perspectives.

Most editors advise against head-hopping because when we switch mid-scene, we’re not often warned that the change has occurred, and the reader is more likely to grow confused. My argument is that writers should do their best to structure of everything clearly so that the work happens in creating imagery out of language, and the reader can delve into the world instead of staying on the surface to decipher what’s happening and where.

Now, it’s been said that head hopping is more acceptable in romance and erotica because the relationship is more important than the characters individually. It helps increase tension to have access to both of their thoughts.

Do I write my romance/erotic fiction this way? No. I’m not convinced. I have seen romance writers do this successfully, like Sherrilyn Kenyon does in her Dark Hunter series, but overall, I’m not a fan of it. It confuses me too often, and I have a harder time connecting with a particular character.

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about how we identify head hopping.

The best way to identify is to categorize, or color code, a first draft. It’s easiest to do this to a first draft so that you don’t waste time making the parts you cut and have to redraft pretty.

You can color code on a printed copy or in your word processer. Simply section highlight the parts of the story that dip into a character’s POV. This will be their internal thoughts/dialogue, the analysis of the scene or characters, and their opinions of/reactions to what’s happening in the story.

Here’s an example:

Jennifer rushed into the room, adrenaline numbing her legs and burning her lungs. The giant’s destructive footsteps didn’t shake this far into the farmland, yet.

Her hair fell from her ponytail as she swung the door closed and grabbed for everything she thought might be valuable on the move.

Frank didn’t know yet, that a giant fell from a beanstalk that’d grown overnight on the other side of the city, so he shook his head and poured another cup of coffee. What is she looking for?

Note how we’ve gone from inside of Jennifer—as she’s the only one who knows about the giant—to inside of Frank, who doesn’t understand why she’s rummaging through their stuff. There are several places where small tweaks can keep this in Jennifer’s POV.

Jennifer rushed into the room, adrenaline numbing her legs and burning her lungs. The giant’s destructive footsteps didn’t shake this far into the farmland, yet.

Her hair fell from her ponytail, teasing the corners of her eyes, as she swung the door closed and grabbed for everything that might be valuable on the move.

A giant fell from a beanstalk that’d grown overnight on the other side of the city.

Frank, her husband, shook his head and poured a cup of coffee in the small, attached kitchen. “What are you looking for?”

In this version, no one needs to tell us that Frank doesn’t know about the giant, we can see that he doesn’t by his external reaction to her. The rest is a reflection of Jennifer’s reaction to her situation: she saw the giant; she’s freaked out; she’s searching; she places who Frank is for us; and she hears him ask the question.

This creates clarity for the reader to experience the situation rather than being told about it, another reason to stay in POV. Readers like to put the pieces together because they’re smart.

Another clue of a POV shift is description. If the character is describing themselves physically, we’ve shifted out of their POV. The camera-effect shifts us into the omniscient perspective. We can’t see ourselves, except in mirrors, and that’s often a cliché technique.

This may be a pesky task the first few times you try it, but seeing a draft in colors rather than chapters helps separate us from the story to see its parts.

Once you have the whole thing color-coded—or the parts you’ve identified as problematic—see what color is most present in the scene/chapter. That’s likely the POV character for that scene and the rest should shift to his or her perspective. Some of it may not make it. If it’s an important detail, find another way to include it—dialogue, a new scene in the other character’s POV, some prop that can provide the information needed.

Sometimes, all you need to do is split a scene in two and allow more than one character to describe what’s going on and fill in the gaps. I often like the tension that comes in a mid-scene cut to the other perspective. It’s a nice trick to use every now and again.

Well, there’s my opinion and advice.

How do you identify and/or fix head hopping? When do you feel like it works or doesn’t work? Got any questions? Let me know in the comments below.