Author: | Nola | Published: | over 6 years ago |
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Tags: | POV, point of view, author intrusions, head hopping, information dumps, language | Category: | Writing tips |
Bestselling author Bonny Bee (not her real name) wrote a series of books I love. In one of her recent novels, however, her protagonist was an author who’d written those same books. The first time it popped up, I thought it was cute. By the third or fourth time a character mentioned how great those books were, I was annoyed. I’m sorry, Bonnie Bee, but that’s just shameless self-promotion that took me right out of your story. It was author intrusion at its worst.
Author intrusions occur when writers put something of themselves in their fiction that disrupts the reading experience. Whether these are blatant, like the example above, or more subtle slips, they have the power to jar the reader and disrupt the flow of the story. Jodie Renner describes it as ‘butting in’ (see her book Captivate your Readers). Remember the annoying partygoer who keeps interrupting you with their own comments when you’re trying to tell a story? You don’t want to be that person in your novel.
Does that mean authors can never put themselves into their fiction? No, but it depends how you do it. If you’re writing in omniscient point of view, you can know things the characters don’t know and you can even commentate or offer funny asides. (See my earlier post on omniscient POV.) You can also inject characters with some of your own habits and ideas, as long as those qualities fit with their motivations and the plot. However, this needs to be seamless. If it’s not, you may have a problem with one or more of the following author intrusions.
Addressing the reader directly – Just because Jane Eyre said, ‘Reader, I married him,’ it doesn’t mean you should. Those types of expressions have long been out of fashion.
Putting a character on your soapbox – You might be passionate about environmental issues, but if your hero starts spouting forth about global warming, it had better be because it’s essential to the plot (e.g. he’s a lawyer about to bring down a multinational corporation for environmental abuses).
Giving information the POV character can’t know – This overlaps with some of the head-hopping examples I gave in last week’s post. You might know that the yacht in the harbour is 23.68 metres in length and has a fuel capacity of 9000 litres, but unless your heroine is the owner, shipbuilder, or an Olympic yachting champion, she won’t know that. Also watch for subtle forays into the author’s world. You might know that Murray will live to regret his decision to dump Veronica, but he’s not aware of that yet. If you need to get across information the character doesn’t know, use other methods such as dialogue or documents.
Overloading the research – Beth Hill and Jodie Renner both warn against adding interesting titbits of information that don’t fit with the character or story. Just because you’ve read fifty books on the music industry for your novel about an aging rocker, it doesn’t mean you have to mention how the BBC banned the Beatles’ song I Am the Walrus for including the word ‘knickers’. Check your novel for flowery descriptions or information dumps, and prune anything unnecessary for the story, no matter how fascinating you think it is.
Overlooking language anomalies – This includes terms or expressions that don’t fit the time, location or traits of your characters. For example, having your 1850s hero tell a woman her dress is ‘fully sick’ or having your American character open the boot of the car rather than the trunk. Find an expert who knows the era or location. Check letters, diaries, court reports and other documents of the time. You can also find out about the origins of certain phrases by combining them with ‘origins’ or ‘etymology’ in an internet search.
As Beth Hill notes, ‘your personality, your skills—your heart and hands and mind—will be all over your writing projects. Just don’t let the reader see evidence of your touch’.
What’s the worst author intrusion you’ve seen in a novel? I’d love to hear your examples.
Comments read 4 comments
Loved this post. I think I know which novel you mean -
and agree - it was cute, until the the third or fourth mention of the greatness of the author.
To some extent, author intrusion is impossible to avoid (we all put ourselves in our writing) but the examples you have given can quickly jar us out the story.
Excessive author intrusion was one thing that put me off some of the 18th century authors - eg Vanity Fair had whole chapters of diatribe or philosophical mutterings by the author.
Enjoying your posts :)
Thanks Jenny. Yes, I'm sure you know which author I'm talking about, but I didn't want to 'name and shame' as I do like her earlier books. When you mentioned 'diatribes and philosophical mutterings', it reminded me of the 20 or so pages in 1984 where Winston reads from a political book. I wonder how much of that was George Orwell putting his own political ideas across? It's easy to fall prey to the more subtle kinds of author intrusions. Will have to keep a check on them in my own writing. Thanks for commenting :)
This is something I have to watch, given the fact my books are in the 90s AD. I even have to watch the word origin. Been criticized in a review - but honestly, a modern word in the voice of a 1st century Christian.
The only place where my characters even refer to the author is in the backstories which will be for readers on my VIP Readers list.
Something else to guard about. Hey, btw... I never thought of promoting my books that way. LOL
Thank you for the post, very interesting and a great reminder as I plod through the fifth book in the series, checking.
Thanks for that Susan. Wow, that must be tricky sometimes trying to work out what would have been done and said in the first century. My current work is set in the 1880s and that's hard enough sometimes. I have lots of notes in the margins with things like, 'Did they say that then'?
Re the book promotion, maybe one of your first-century Christians could be reading a scroll that contains the first book? Though perhaps not the best strategy. LOL I've read another book where the author had one of the characters reading a novel that was written by a close friend of the author. The characters stopped and started chatting about how great the book was, and it didn't relate to the story at all. Again just promotion. Oh well, I guess they have product placement in movies :) Thanks for commenting.
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