On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [91]
The cardinal tipped his head back and drew breath to sing, but just as the first note passed his beak he heard the crack of a dead branch far below his perch high in the maple tree. Startled, he looked down, cocking his head to one side and watching with great interest while the man rattled the blades of grass as he tried to hide himself behind the tree.
As the man saw her start up the hill, he moved quickly into the shelter of the huge old maple tree. If she saw him now, everything would be ruined.
She thought she saw a shadow move high up on the slope, but when she looked again it was gone.
The man thought if he could stay hidden until she came within range, she'd have to talk to him. Wouldn't she?
The girl shuddered as she felt a silent threat pass over her. It felt like a cloud creeping over the sun.
• Third-person detached includes only actions, with no thoughts. It's used in screenplays (the viewer cannot eavesdrop on the characters' thoughts), but it's seldom used effectively in romance. Inexperienced romance authors often start out using a very detached POV; telling about events but not sharing the characters' reactions or thoughts—which keeps the readers at a distance from the story and characters.
The girl walked up the quiet hillside.
In the top of the maple tree, the cardinal tipped his head back and drew breath to sing. A dead branch cracked on the ground below the bird's perch.
The man stepped on the branch and rattled the blades of grass as he moved behind the tree. He watched the girl come up the hillside toward him.
Her gaze shifted quickly and warily from one shadowy area high on the slope to another, and she shuddered.
• Author POV relays the author's insider information about the story and characters. This POV creeps into many different types of books, and it's a far less effective way of telling a story than sticking to the character's thoughts and observations.
As Jill walked up the hillside, everything was quiet. She didn't see the bird in the top of the maple tree, and even when he started to sing, she couldn't identify the species. She'd never been as interested in birds as Jack was. He knew the song of a cardinal
when he heard it, though he really wasn't listening because he was watching Jill come
up the slope toward him instead.
If Jill had known he was waiting for her, she would never have come outside. She was afraid of running into him. But she didn't realize that her fear really came from when she was little and she'd been lost on a picnic one day. Even though she didn't remember, the experience still affected her. And since Jack didn't know about the incident, he didn't have any idea how much it was going to freak her out to find him there.
POINT OF VIEW AND ROMANCE
Now that you have a clear handle on all the different POV options available to you, take a closer look at those most common to the romance genre and its various categories.
Though chick-lit is often written in first person from the heroine's POV, the majority of romance novels use third person, and most modern romance novels convey the thoughts of both hero and heroine. Some authors use third-person selective/multiple, sharing the thoughts of just one character at a time and switching POV characters only when a new scene starts—which is the preferred approach in general fiction as well. Other authors use third-person dual, switching back and forth between the thoughts of hero and heroine within a scene.
The choice of exactly which POV structure to use depends not on the category but on your preference and the best way to tell the story.
First Person
The first-person narrator tells the readers what she sees, hears, thinks, feels, believes, assumes, and deduces. She doesn't share every single thought that crosses her mind—that would be more characteristic of stream-of-consciousness literary fiction, and it risks turning an interesting story into a self-absorbed, drawn-out, and very boring one. In first-person fiction, everything the readers know is related to them by the narrator. What the character