5 Tricks to Writing Deep POV

When we want to escape from our troubles for a few hours and forget the world around us, there's nothing like diving into a book. A book that pulls you into its world so you feel like you're the character having the adventures, heart-in-your-throat danger, or other experience.

Certainly character or world immersion is what we all hope for in our fiction, although I've read nonfiction authors able to do the same thing. They draw you in as the reader until you don't want to put the book down. As writers we all long to see reviews of our books that include things like "I couldn't put this book down!" So, what are some ways to help us get there?

Eliminate Filter Words

There are tons of blog posts written by line editors just on this topic, and essentially their advice comes down to: cut out the words that put distance between your reader and your character. There are always plenty of suggestions for what those words should be: 'said', 'thought', 'felt', 'heard'. My suggestion for you is that when you're in your editing phase, pay attention to where you create disance between your readers and characters and ask yourself: do I want that distance? Depending on the story, maybe you want a little space. Or maybe you want the reader right in the middle of things.

If you're writting a psychological thriller or a horror novel and want to drop your reader right in it, then you don't want distance. You don't want filler words. You want to go from something like "I walked down the hall. I could hear boards creak beneath my feet." to "As I walked down the hall, the boards creaked beneath my feet." It's understood you're the one hearing it, so why say it?

Internalizing Emotions

Readers love to experience character's emotions. They know that what a person says isn't always what they mean—and they want to know what was going on inside the character's head! It's one of the reasons dual POV romances are so popular. But, building on the filter words idea, don't say what the characters are feeling—let your reader experience it. Let them get in your character's heads and hearts, feel the physical reactions to internal conflicts. Don't create distance between your reader and your character.

Use Your Senses

What brings us closer to the experiences of others than using our senses? By describing tastes, smells, textures, you are creating four-dimensional experiences for your readers to immerse themselves in. They can walk down a crowded marketplace with your characters and know just what that environment is like depending on how you phrase things. The only thing to watch out for here is to make sure not to over describe everything. Remember that every single scene doesn't need a checklist of all five senses!

Character Voices

The more you know your characters, the more you know what they sound like. Remember that this goes beyond the spoken dialogue to their internal thoughts. People don't usually think and speak in radically different ways unless there's a very good reason—like a formal work setting when they are normally casual people. As much as you're paying attention to keeping their spoken dialogue unique, make sure their internal dialogue matches your character as well.

Avoid Head-Hopping

The deeper your reader is in your character's mind, the more even a little head-hopping will bother them. What is head-hopping? It's when you switch character perspectives without signaling the reader a change is coming. Changing character POV in different chapters, or after a scene break, is fine. Those kinds of breaks let the reader pause, catch their breath, and are automatic signals to them that a scene may shift, time may change, or the new scene may come from a new character point of view. But if you change from one paragraph to another, there's no signal to the reader. That's head-hopping. Since the point of all of these exercises is to deepen the character point of view that you're sharing with your reader, going from one mind to another without signaling is the opposite of the immersive experience you're trying to share with your readers. Read everything out loud, or have the computer read it out loud, to catch these jumps.

The Take-Aways

As a writer you want your readers to be as emotionally invested, as immersed as possible in your characters and your world. The more visceral and compelling, the less space between the reader and the character, the better.

It takes practice but it also takes trust. Not just you trusting yourself, but you also have to trust your reader. Trust them to follow along with you and put some pieces together. Trust that they'll remember what you told them two pages ago. I'm reading a book right now where the author doesn't seem to be able to do that and every time a name comes up, she feels the need to remind the reader who that person is. A few times is ok —there are a lot of characters in this book—but after awhile I find myself going, "yes, you told me that on the last page." Knowing the author doesn't think I'm smart enough to keep basic things like some characters straight has me pulling back from the book instead of trying to get closer to what's happening.

Don't put unintentional space between your reader and your story. It blocks beautiful relationships from forming. Trust yourself—and them–and let the magic happen.

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