how deep into a characters head do you get?

I think it's a good way to help characterize her. I know, when I'm reading a story with multiple POVs, I always appreciate it when the author does little things to keep the mental voices of the characters distinct (without resorting to things like heavy dialect, etc. -- that would be going overboard, IMO).

-- Marcy

I think that when you are narrating a certain person, it just makes it better to put some of their personality into every paragraph or sentence. It just makes the character's voice more distinct.

This character runs the risk of sounding stilted. And of reminding some of us of a certain Soong android.

I'm interested. Are there people who raise their children never to use contractions? I never heard of that one.

I don't understand what is meant by contraction here - the only definitions I know are to do with metal getting smaller in the cold, and childbirth. Please excuse my ignorance, but what is meant in this context please? There's so much I need to learn on this site!

Contractions: can't, won't, don't, doesn't, wouldn't, etc.

Basically, where part of the word is replaced with the '. Will not becoming won't, should not becoming shouldn't. It's more like how people actually speak, where keeping the separate full words will shound more formal.



If that's the way the character speaks, then try it out and see if it sounds okay. The narration sounding like your character will give the reader more connection to the character, and keep it in an interesting voice (provided of course your character is interesting!). It's more definitive than simply writing the way you would, or it at least separates that character's story from another's.

If it turns out the characters voice would be exceedingly annoying to read in, as it might be, then it might be better not to use it. It depends on the effect you want to go for and really how it sounds. It's more subjective a thing to decide than something you need one rule on.

Assuming a Third person limited POV - For dialogue, my characters have their own definitive styles, but in the narrative it's me -the author - narrating, while trying to stay as unobtrusive as I can.

If in any given chapter my chosen POV character were totally uneducated, I'm not going to write the narrative as if it were actually written by someone who knew no grammar or punctuation.

I'm not sure I would notice the omission of contractions in narrative anyway.

It helps me to know their motivations. Often I'll have a mental template to begin, where it helps to picture a character I already know in this world- real or fiction.

Each character is a composite, not based on one person or fictional character's personality. But I leave room for them to both grow or decompensate.

As the book moves along, each character developes their own unique personality, so the initial image gets shattered and replaced.

I know the charaters I like quite well. I don't really try to understand the evil characters, because it's like real life, I can't get inside the head of someone that can pee on a toilet seat and not clean it, or who steals someone's lunch.

But I do differentiate between evil characters, callous indifference (The Sith Lord) vs, fearful control (Darth Vadar) And sometimes there's no figuring out why someone is a tyrant, which is again like real life.

Well, if that point of the narration is in a very close third-person POV (from her perspective), I guess there's an argument for doing what you're doing. I notice that, often, when I'm writing very closely from one character's perspective, the "uninvolved narrator" will make comments that basically agree with whatever the character believes or thinks or feels (using phrases such as "of course," things like that)--even though the narrator is uninvolved.

I don't tend to alter the narration to suit the character's speaking style, since I treat dialogue and narration as two strictly different things, but again, it's your call, and even though I wouldn't do it myself I see your point in doing it. (At least, I understand why.)

I get very, very closely into my characters' heads. I "become" them when writing their POV. But I always have to keep the narrator (unless it's first person) uninvolved enough to tell the story properly.

Going overboard? Not at all. You can go a lot further than that. One of my characters is a young boy with an artistic talent (please note that it is never mentioned in the story. But he has it.) and he is constantly noting the colours and lines of things. Passages written in his point of view also have shorter words and sentences.

Another character is a strategic thinker and when it's in his POV, there are lots of little asides where he evaluates people and situations and decides how seriously to take them.

The manipulative sociopath has got a constant interior monologue going, sizing people up and how he could use them for his own ends.

The narrative when it's someone more educated uses bigger words, and more complex sentences and concepts.

The herbalist notices plants and odours a lot.

I'm not talking so much about when we are explicitly hearing their thoughts word for word, but in the narrative in third person. I think seeing with the POV character's eyes, and speaking with his or her voice is an important part of characterization.

I mean, a musician and a mechanic are not going to hear the same thing when they listen to a defective engine. Nor when they listen to a piece of music.

I just wanted to say that I wrote my last book without any contractions in the dialogue and now regret it. As one poster said, it sounds rather stilted when read out loud. The setting is Victorian England and the two main protagonists are a well to do man and woman who are up to no good. My refusal to use contractions did not help to make them believable characters, because very few people speak without using contractions.

Contractions: can't, won't, don't, doesn't, wouldn't, etc.

Basically, where part of the word is replaced with the '. Will not becoming won't, should not becoming shouldn't. It's more like how people actually speak, where keeping the separate full words will shound more formal.

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Thanks, appreciated! (Rep point on the way)

You're welcome. Happy to help when I can.

Judg said:

Going overboard? Not at all. You can go a lot further than that. One of my characters is a young boy with an artistic talent (please note that it is never mentioned in the story. But he has it.) and he is constantly noting the colours and lines of things. Passages written in his point of view also have shorter words and sentences.

Another character is a strategic thinker and when it's in his POV, there are lots of little asides where he evaluates people and situations and decides how seriously to take them.

The manipulative sociopath has got a constant interior monologue going, sizing people up and how he could use them for his own ends.

The narrative when it's someone more educated uses bigger words, and more complex sentences and concepts.

The herbalist notices plants and odours a lot.

I'm not talking so much about when we are explicitly hearing their thoughts word for word, but in the narrative in third person. I think seeing with the POV character's eyes, and speaking with his or her voice is an important part of characterization.

I mean, a musician and a mechanic are not going to hear the same thing when they listen to a defective engine. Nor when they listen to a piece of music.

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And the writer notices everything!

Go as far as you need to. It's possible to effectively include first-person thoughts in a third-person narrative (without even setting them off by italics or any such thing), which requires getting very deep into the character's head.

On a good day, I am that person. Completely, utterly them. Which probably isn't good for my hubby when I'm being a bloke. Anyway --Those are the WOW scenes as my kid's teacher would say.

On a bad day I pretend. Those are the : so two days later... bits.

I write in a very deep third limited, almost like first person. I do have one character who doesn't use contractions, since she's usually speaking in French, and thinks in French, and the translation works best without contractions, I think. It differentiates her sections from those of the English speaking cast, and I think it's pretty effective. I can hear the accent as I write. Since it's such a deep pov, I use the same style for the narration as well.

If you don't use such a deep pov, then I don't think it sounds right to not use the contractions except in the character's dialogue, or actual internal thought.

I get a little too far into my character's head, that's for sure. Especially since my character is rather snarky and sharp. If I'm not careful, I'll start saying the things that would otherwise go into the text... like at school, to my students or boss. 0.0

Since my story is written in first person, I'm really close to the character during writing. And there are a lot of my character's thoughts. She keeps most of ther snarkiest lines as thoughts-- I have to remember to do the same. (Good thing is that Hubby finds my snark funny, so it's okay with him.)

The question of "how deep into your character's heads do you go":

That all depends. The POV, how many MC's there are, what the scene needs, etc. For instance, a scene where two main characters are fighting a villain wouldn't leave me a lot of room to just wander through one of the MC's heads in detail (unless 1st person), because it would drag away from the villain's actions and motivations, and would detract from the other character. On the other hand, if and when the character's personality affects the scene (in this case, a fight) in a unique way, I think it's important to dwell on that if not momentarily.

In the less intrusive head-digging you're referring to (sculpting the narrator to the character's preferences), I think you can do it if that's what you want. I don't see why not, after all, the narrator connected enough with the character to want to tell his/her story in the first place. Maybe they're a little alike. On the other hand, I would opt to write in my own voice and let the character be the character, thus accenting his/her unique way of speaking and personality more clearly.

Just a thought, though I wouldn't call your idea "overboard." Besides, if you're still on the boat you can't write about choppy waves and circling sharks. Take a dive and drown with the rest of us

ravenlea said:

I have a character who never uses contractions. It was how she was brought up. I find when writing in her POV that I don't use contractions at all in the narrative. I'm wondering if that is going overboard or if I should just leave it.

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I did this throughout my novel, with a character who does not use contractions, and it seems to work well. If it doesn't impede the flow of the story, go with it.

In my novel, I have a few different dialects, and one of them never uses contractions. (Among other things.) It definitely stands out if you do it consistently, and it is contrasted with other more naturalistic dialogue.

I was very proud when I was able to go to Gender Genie and have it predict that the gender of the author was female for the chapters written with a woman as the POV character, and male for the chapters with a man as the POV character, but I think that that is about as close as I get to changing my writing style for the POV character.

Late to the party, but I did want to share my thoughts because I had exactly the same decision to make recently. In my novel the MCs are angels who don't use contractions. When I started to write the book I also had trouble deciding how the narrative would read, as I go quite deep into the POV. When I finished the book and read through it again, it sounded awful when the narrative also avoided contractions and I had to redo it. My subconscious must have realized this before I did, because in later chapters I dropped the habit and it sounded fine.

It seems to me that even when your POV is tight, you can still be the narrator, telling an intimate tale without always "being" the character. Hope this helps!

As far in as they let me. Hah. The contractions thing sounds like an interesting challenge - to keep the prose from becoming stagnant or flat while not violating the rule. I'd say go for it - if you hate it, it wouldn't be hard to fix.

Judg said:

One of my characters is a young boy with an artistic talent (please note that it is never mentioned in the story. But he has it.) and he is constantly noting the colours and lines of things. Passages written in his point of view also have shorter words and sentences..

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You're doing the right thing. This, and all the rest of the surrounding POV language, in internal monologue and out, can take on the 'voice' of the character.

It's a good technique. I know I try to do this.

Now ... as to the contractions.

One of my characters did not use contractions. Like Shadow, above, I'm representing the voice of a French speaker who is not fluent in English. This usage sounded awkward and unnatural. In my case, it was meant to sound awkward and unnatural.

Contemporary humans whose native language is English use contractions and think in contractions. Avoiding them will build a pedantic or prissy or awkward personality.
That's excellent if that's what you want to do.

My fiction WIP contains multiple lead characters. Therefor, I try not to delve TOO deeply as it could be distracting to the reader. I still am a firm believer in the "tell only what needs to be known" rule.