On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [97]
The confusion that comes from a wandering POV is the reason behind the standard admonition to limit each scene to one viewpoint character. In order to change points of view, all you have to do is leave a blank line—a simple white space, or a few asterisks or crosshatches to make your intentions clear, as in the example on page 149 of third-person selective/multiple—and start a new scene. Then stick to the new POV character's thoughts and feelings for the duration of that scene.
By choosing one POV character at the beginning of each scene, you can reap the benefits of dual POV—access to all the actions, thoughts, and feelings of two characters—without confusing the readers or sacrificing the deep involvement with one character that keeps them reading.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT TENSE
While some literary fiction is written in the present tense ("She shouts at him"; "He drives the car off the bridge"), the majority of fiction is written in the past tense ("She shouted at him"; "He drove the car off the bridge"). Once you have selected present or past tense for the narrative, stick to it for the duration of the story; you don't want to switch back and forth.
Most romance novels are written in past tense and in third person, though present tense is occasionally used in first-person stories like chick-lit. Writing
stories in past tense has become the convention because it makes sense. By the time something can be reported on by a narrator, it has happened, and so it is in the past—even if only by moments.
But not every line of a story should be framed in past tense. The current story (the narrative or the action) should be written in past tense, but the dialogue—the exact words spoken by the characters—should be phrased just the way a character would speak it—in most cases, in present tense, unless the character is discussing past or future actions.
And if a character is reflecting on something that happened to her yesterday or last week—before the current story—those events should be referred to in past perfect tense. Past perfect tense is great for making the action clear while showing that it's not going on right now. The readers don't have to struggle to figure out what's happening now vs. what happened in the past. So if the heroine is washing dishes and thinking about an event she witnessed last week, the passage might go something like this:
Mechanically, she slid another plate into the soapy water, but she didn't really see it. She was watching the picture in her mind, of another body of water. She was sure her memory wasn't playing tricks on her. "I can still see it happening," she murmured. George had simply pointed the car at the railing of the bridge and driven off it.
The events going on right now—the dishwashing, the remembering—are in past tense. The memory she's picturing—the car going off the bridge as she watched—are in past perfect tense. The sentence she actually says is in present tense—the exact words, as she would speak them.
If you opt to use present tense for the main narrative of the story, then events occurring before the time of the current story should be related in past tense:
I slide another plate into the soapy water, but I'm not really looking at it. I'm watching the picture in my mind, of another body of water. I'm sure my memory isn't playing tricks on me. "I can still see it happening," I hear myself say. George simply pointed the car at the railing of the bridge and drove off it.
In this example from her single-title chick-lit novel The Nine Month Plan, Wendy Markham uses present tense for the main narrative, switching to past tense when talking about events that occurred earlier-.
Nina Chickalini is no stranger