We’ve all heard–and used–the expressions: Down deep in your heart…, my gut feeling…, her secret desire…, his hidden thoughts…, and one of my favorites: If I was to be truly honest…
I’ve recently been working on some materials for a workshop I’ll be teaching on writing Deep POV, and the above expressions are precisely the considerations authors must address in order to show their characters’ deep points of view. Letting characters express themselves is like seasoning a pot of homemade soup–the result can be savory and the aroma can draw those around it. Omitting the seasoning leaves the soup flat and tasteless. If the characters in my stories don’t reveal their deepest feelings and reactions, my readers will quickly become bored with the story.
Our characters will sometimes attempt to hide their true feelings from the other characters in the story, but they can’t hide them from the reader. Often, one or two of the plot threads involve a main character concealing his past, or the heroine struggling with trust issues because of an earlier betrayal. Perhaps a character never felt that he measured up when compared with a sibling, or constantly failed at everything he ever tried to do. Maybe one of your characters has a checkered past and he is seeking a fresh start. Even if the other characters in the story aren’t aware of the hero/heroine’s struggles, the reader must be able to identify and commiserate with them. Otherwise, the reader has no reason to keep turning pages.
Whatever the reason for the conflict, and the emotions connected to it, our characters must reveal those emotions to the reader. This may involve your character having a bit of a split personality–the person he lets everyone see, and the person he is inside. Those internal feelings, no matter how hard your character tries to hide them, will determine how he reacts and responds to different situations. Everything that comprises his emotional make-up–greed, fear, ambition, distrust, grief–will affect the way he reacts, and every emotion has internal and external reactions.
Here is an example scenario:
Our hero was raised in a home with an abusive, alcoholic father who spent every nickel on drink. His mother worked two jobs, but often missed work because his father had beaten her in a drunken rage. Finally, his mother died of injuries sustained at the hands of her husband, and our hero, just fourteen years old, tried to raise his younger sister. [That is the hero’s back story.] In chapter one, the story opens with our hero and his sister now both in their twenties. Over the years, they’ve had a very close relationship, but lately she is drawing away from him. One day, he learns she’s been hiding the fact from him that she is dating a man who works as a bartender. What kind of emotions are going roil through him? How will he respond to his sister? What does he want to say to her boyfriend?
How does this character really feel? The reader wants to see his internal emotions, even if he is trying to hold himself together on the outside, and the other characters aren’t aware of the storm going on in his heart.
SHOW those deep internal emotions so the reader can get a clearer and more complete picture of who your characters are.