Tag: writing

Lost in the world of novel writing

I realised that it’s been a while since I posted on my personal blog. Things have been relatively quiet here. I haven’t entered many contests and there’s not been any new publications to update about. However, I did get the good news last week that I had received an honourable mention in the L Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest for the second quarter of 2024. This is a well-known international contest, so being recognised for my work is a big confidence boost!

Otherwise, I have mostly been working away at completing my novel.

Tentatively titled “Battle Scars”, it’s the story of a woman named Rebecca Mason. She nearly died five years ago when a man named Rafe McKendrick brutally attacked her. His twin brother, Erik, saved her by turning her into a werewolf and Rafe was exiled from his pack. Rebecca struggles every day to reconcile her human life with the supernatural world. And then one day, Rafe comes back, and he’s threatening not just her but her new found pack and all of werewolf society. Does she have the strength to stand against the man who nearly killed her?

The novel is now written and one of my lovely fellow writers is reading it to give me feedback. There’s bound to still be plenty of editing to do but having a finished novel feels almost within reach!

On top of that, I’m also working on the sequel, which has a different point of view character. A gamble maybe, because I know people like having a single protagonist to follow, but it feels the right thing for the series I want to tell, so hopefully it works once it’s written! My aim for this book in terms of writing skills is to improve my efficiency, getting it written within a faster timescale by doing more planning at the beginning instead of just pantsing my way through it 🙈 If I can write faster, I’ll be able to get more books written in the long run so it’s definitely worth making myself more organised!

Look out for another Storytelling blog post, which I will try to get completed this week if I can pull my focus away from the novel writing 😊

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Let Me Tell You My Story: The First Person Narrative

For the last few posts I’ve been discussing the importance of the point of view that a story uses and how narrarive perspectives can impact the story. We’re now onto the last perspective that can be used in story telling, which is first person.

What is a First Person Narrative?

First person perspective is when the story is written with the narrator as the protagonist who has experienced or is experiencing the events of the narrative. It is an intimate perspective, designed to elicit the experience of the reader being told a first person account of a story, with access to the narrator’s thoughts and feelings throughout.

One mistake at the end of my life couldn’t erase all the times I had stood unmoved at the edge of the abyss and made snide remarks at its expense. They could kill me, but they couldn’t have me. I was my own.

Ghost Story – Jim Butcher

To imagine a book as a real life scenario, in first person narratives you are sitting down next to another person and that person is sharing a piece of their life story, including both the events and their own thoughts and feelings at the time.

Why use a first person perspective

The intimacy of connection

The most obvious advantage of this perspective over others is how closely connected you are with the narrator. This is a far more intimate perspective than even third person limited (which I discuss here) because the narrator has invited you in, they’re actively telling you their story and sharing their experiences. As a reader, you’re not just observing what happens: you’re being asked to share in it.

From a psychological perspective, humans are profoundly social species. Our brains are wired to  connect to others and experiencing that connection has been shown to activate brain areas associated with physical safety and warmth.

A first person narrative is an extreme in human connection. A person who is willing to share every little detail of their experience with you, right down to their personal thoughts and feelings. As a social animal, we’re likely to find this highly rewarding – provided we see something in the story that we’re interested in connecting with.

Detailed Character Development

First person narratives allow for a detailed exploration of the narrator’s character, in a way that no other perspective does.

There are several examples where the first person perspective exposes us to detailed elements of the narrator’s thinking style and personality that we wouldn’t really have access to otherwise.

One would be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is narrated by an autistic teenager and gives unique insights into his perspective of the world around him.

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

The premise of the book stems in part from his own unique viewpoint – when he finds a dead dog, he sees it as a murder and sets out to investigate and find the killer.  Even the way in which the narrative is presented offers insight into the character that the reader might not otherwise have access to – such as the way that he describes his thoughts and experiences using diagrams.

Of course, the flip side of such a personal account is that it’s inherently biased and potentially unreliable. As far as our social brains are concerned, that’s part of the fun. We love puzzles and gain satisfaction from solving them. Solving social puzzles has the additional benefit of adding to our understanding of other people – so if we distrust an unreliable narrator, we feel rewarded to be proven right; or if they catch us out, we get the buzz from the shock of the surprise.

One well-known example of an unreliable narrator is Pi Patel from The Life of Pi, who recounts his fantastical story of surviving stranded at sea with a tiger named Richard Parker and then presents an alternative, more realistic but also more brutal, version of events and we as readers need to decide which we would prefer to be true.

I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine.

The Life of Pi – Yann Martel

Only in a first person narrative could a story be called into question to such a degree. Most other perspectives lead to an assumption that the story is being observed in some way by the reader, albeit with a potentially biased filter imposed by the narrator. Whereas in first person, we’re living in someone’s mind – and we all know how inaccurate our own perceptions can sometimes be!

Societal Issues at an Individual Level

Another powerful use of a first person narrative is to use the individual narrator as a  way to speak to a wider societal issue, either as a form of analysis or critique.

A wonderful example of this is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This book explores the lives of Kathy and her friends, who are clones created to be organ donors. In her world, they are seen as less than human. Kathy’s role is to care for and reduce the ‘agitation’ of fellow donors. She is never in a position where she can fight against her place in society but her own first person narrative does that for her – it humanises her and her friends, connecting the reader with them in a way that those in her world refuse to.

Or another example would be Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. An unnamed narrator, who feels disenfranchised from society and its definitions of manhood, turns to Tyler Durden. Tyler Durden starts a fight club and then a cult-like organisation, which engages in increasingly dangerous anti-consumerist attacks. At first, the narrator seems to be just another follower of Durden, until it emerges that he has dissociative identity disorder and he and Durden are the same person.

The first person perspective gives the reader a unique insight into the mind of the narrator, seeing the world as he convinces himself it is, rather than how it really is. We follow along with him, watching Durden grow increasingly out of control. Even once the narrator knows the truth, events have already moved beyond him, leaving him just as helpless in the face of Durden’s actions as he was in the face of the society that he struggled to fit in to.

What first person perspectives can’t do

By definition, this perspective is the story of one person. Everything that the reader sees has to have been seen by them. While events could be shared with them by other characters, if a lot of action happens away from the narrator then this can leave the reader feeling disconnected from the story.

This means that the narrative in a first person story is often narrower in focus than other perspectives. In third person limited, the camera might pick up on details that the protagonist misses. In third person omniscient the narrator can see anything that they need to for the sake of the story. Even second person can take on a more omniscient form when required.

One solution to this is to include multiple first person perspectives, like in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which relies heavily on both narrators being unreliable and obscuring the reality of the story. This can work well as a way to tell an immersive story from multiple angles, building a wider picture than with a single point of view. However, there is a risk of confusion for the reader in terms of who is speaking and when, which means that in many cases third person is often easier – allowing the narrative to follow the protagonists closely without any confusion around which character is the current focus.

More generally, some people can find a first person perspective to be too immersive and can be put off by the story as a result. They may not connect with the narrator or they may feel frustrated that they aren’t seeing aspects of the other characters’ stories. Therefore it has to be clear why those other aspects are less important to the themes of the story than the mind of the narrator itself, or people may struggle to join the narrator on their journey.

 

 About The Author

Caroline Ashley storytelling blog author

 Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She enjoys all forms of fantasy and is fascinated with the ways in which the fantastical can speak to our everyday lives. If Caroline had any spare time around work, writing and raising her two young children, she would spend it playing board games.

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The Rise and Fall of the Omniscient Narrator

Third person point of view (POV) is the most commonly used in fiction, so we should all be familiar with what it looks like. But if you aren’t a writer, you may not realise that there are two different types of third person narrative:

Third Person Limited:

Third person limited follows a single person, with the narrator functioning like a camera that can see everything around them, often including their thoughts.

The lapping of water in his ears. That was the first thing. The lapping of water, the rustling of trees, the odd click and twitter of a bird.

Logen opened his eyes a crack. Light, blurry bright through leaves. This was death? Then why did it hurt so much?

The Blade Itself – Joe Abercrombie

Third Person Omniscient:

Third Person omniscient is a more complex viewpoint. In this POV, the narrator is a character in their own right, an all-seeing being who can follow the story down whatever path it takes.

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.

And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it.

Stardust – Neil Gaiman

Third person omniscient used to be a far more popular POV than it has been in recent years. Many well-known books have had omniscient narrators, such as Little Women by Louisa May Alcott or Lord of the Flies by William Golding or Dune by Frank Herbert. But increasingly, modern books tend to prefer third person limited, or even first person, over third person omniscient.

This varies somewhat depending on the genre of course. Sprawling epic fantasy and sci-fi novels tend to benefit from an omniscient narrator, who can draw the reader’s attention across the country or across space to different events that are relevant to the story. However, more contemporary fiction often tends toward the intimacy of third person limited, where you see the story unfold through one character’s perspective.

What is the impact of third person omniscient?

The authoritative voice of the narrator

A good omniscient story has a strong narrative voice. It essentially reads like someone is telling you as a reader a story, where they know the events and the outcome already. The elements that are in the story have all been curated, pulled together by the narrator to communicate their chosen narrative.

Older authors such as Jane Austen used this voice to bring a level of intimacy between the author and the reader, as if the author herself is telling the reader the story. Others use the narrator as an additional character with their own agenda, such as in Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief, where the narrator is Death himself observing and commenting on humanity.

Done well, this form of narration harks back to the days of oral storytelling. Sitting by the fire with the storyteller sharing a fable with their audience – they have a purpose in telling the story and their opinion about the narration is as integral as the story itself.

Exploring a wider context

An omniscient narrator can introduce information about the wider philosophical, historical or social context to a story without needing to rely on the characters being aware of this context. This allows for a more detailed analysis of world in which the story exists.

The twin city of proud Ankh and pestilent Morpork, of which all the other cities of time and space are, as it were, mere reflections, has stood many assaults in its long and crowded history and has always risen to flourish again. So the fire and its subsequent flood, which destroyed everything left that was not flammable and added a particularly noisome flux to the survivors’ problems, did not mark its end.

The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett

Stories where the setting is as important to the themes as the characters themselves often benefit from the freedom to explore beyond a character’s limited perspective. Authors such as George R.R. Martin get round this by having multiple limited POVs but even that approach still relies on characters being aware of or exposed to the aspects of the setting or history that are important for the story as a whole.

Multiple character perspectives

Omniscient narratives allow for a detailed view of multiple characters. If the story is about their relationships or their responses to an event, then this POV allows the writer to equally focus on each perspective, rather than needing to prioritise one over the other.

Jessica stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a small curtsy, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her skirt. Paul gave the short bow his dancing master had taught—the one used “when in doubt of another’s station.”
The nuances of Paul’s greeting were not lost on the Reverend Mother. She said: “He’s a cautious one, Jessica.”
Jessica’s hand went to Paul’s shoulder, tightened there. For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she had herself under control. “Thus he has been taught, Your Reverence.”
What does she fear? Paul wondered.

Dune – Frank Herbert

In the above quote, the narrator gives glimpses into the perspectives of all three characters, and reveals information about the dynamics between Jessica and the Reverend Mother in particular.

Dramatic irony

Because the narrator is outside of the action in third person omniscient, they can make the reader privy to information that the characters aren’t. This allows the narrator to build suspense by leaving the reader to anticipate a later revelation or consequence.

She was the book thief without the words.
Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain.

The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak

This concept lends itself well to the kind of story where the reader already has an idea of how the story might end where the narrative is more about the journey that gets them there.

So why do writers use omniscient narratives less now?

Within writing circles, the most common view is that omniscient POV is less popular now because it’s so much more difficult to get right. People talk about how too much perspective shifting leads to readers feeling like they’re head hopping and losing sight of which character they should be following. Or they talk about how it leads to the reader feeling distant and disconnected from the narrative. But writing omniscient narratives is no more difficult than it was before, so what’s changed?

In my opinion, the change in popularity represents a shift in reader expectations. Omniscient narratives are often more about society and culture than they are about the characters within them, which is partly why they work so well with epic fantasy, where the reader is immersed in a brand new world with its own society to discover.

Or, if the characters are the true subject of an omniscient narrative, the story is told in a way that keeps a level of distance – as if the author is a friend telling you a story about someone they know. You might learn personal details about the characters, but it’s all told though the filter of the narrator.

These days, we often don’t want that distance. With the rise in the Internet and social media, we’re used to feeling connected to the people around us, to having glimpses into the personal lives of people that we don’t even really know. And so when we read a story, we look to feel that same connection with the characters we read about, which third person limited (and first person) allows us to do.

Omniscient narratives can also give an air of the narrator being an authority within the story, someone teaching the reader something they wouldn’t otherwise know. As our society has shifted, with less emphasis on social hierarchy, I think readers are more inclined to want to feel like an equal within the narrative, someone who is discovering it for the first time with the characters, rather than being taught it later by the narrator. We want to feel the thrill of the vicarious experience without the filter of knowing that the story has already happened.

Does that mean omniscient narratives are dying out?

Even if society had changed and what most readers want is different now than in the past, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for the omniscient POV. Plenty of authors still use it to powerful effect and are successful in building an audience to read their work. These days though the reason for its use needs to be carefully considered – a choice by the writer to achieve a particular narrative effect that fits their story.

About the Author:

Caroline Ashley fantasy writer

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She enjoys all forms of fantasy and is fascinated with the ways in which the fantastical can speak to our everyday lives. If Caroline had any spare time around work, writing and raising her two young children, she would spend it playing board games.

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‘They Do Not Know The Earth’ and other things

If you follow me on social media, you’ll have already seen that the Hooghly Review have published one of my stories in their 3rd issue, which was released today. ‘They Do Not Know The Earth‘ is a flash fiction piece about a witch grieving for her lost family and trying to use magic to fill the hole they’ve left.

I’m aware I’ve been pretty quiet of late and I’m planning to attempt to get back on track this month. My writing has still been a priority but I was taking part in a free five day challenge with Writer’s Ink, as well as attending workshops organised as part of ProWritingAid’s Fantasy  Writers Week. Both have provided some useful insights into writing longer fiction as well as the publishing and marketing side of the journey, which I’ll hopefully be able to use to my advantage with time!

It can be a bit overwhelming how many things are out there to help you with your writing – writing groups that you can subscribe to; apps for editing; apps for world-building; apps for structuring and planning. Not to mention the people you can pay for various kinds of editing and support in getting your book ready to go to agents. At the moment, I’ve resolved to try and do as much as I can without all that, just plugging away at my writing and editing, while attempting to get better at the whole social media thing and build some followers. Let’s see how it goes!

The next post after this will be for my Storytelling blog, on the topic of Third Person Omniscient Point of View, which I’m hoping to get out to you in the next couple of weeks. After that, we should be back on the usual monthly schedule. Any suggestions for topics to cover in Storytelling are more than welcome, so leave me a message with what you’d like to hear about.

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The Use of Second Person Point of View in Fiction

After introducing the psychology behind perspective taking and literary points of view in How theory of mind leads to effective storytelling, I wanted to go into more detail about the impact of different points of view on our experience of a story.

I’m going to start with the point of view that’s used the least often – the second person.

What is Second Person Point of View

In this point of view, the narrator turns the reader into the protagonist, speaking as if the reader themselves were the one who experienced the narrative.

This point of view is rarely experienced in day to day life. When people tell us stories, they’re usually describing their own experiences, so will use the first person, or they’re recounting something that happened to someone else, and would use the third person.

There are a few uses of the second person that you might be familiar with. When someone you know is asking for your opinion, they might ask you to put yourself in their shoes: “If you were happy with your job, but were offered one with better salary, would you take it?”. Or they might use the second person in subtle ways to involve the listener in an event that’s being recounted, for example: “The ball hit the net and you could hear the crowd go wild.”

In literature, the second person is more often used in non-fiction, where the author may be directing their readers to particular actions. It is much less common in fiction, though one example of it that most people will be aware of is with ‘choose your own adventure’ books. Those stories where you can pick what choice the character makes, thus creating your own narrative and deciding how the story ends.

How is second person used

There are three main ways in which a second person narrative can be used in a story:

The narrator is addressing the reader

This takes the form of the narrator talking to the reader about things that the reader has done. The narrator is omniscient and knows everything about the reader’s character, much as if the story was in the first person. Choose your own adventure books take on this form, where an unknown narrator is describing the reader’s story to them.

The narrator is addressing themselves

This approach might be used to show that the narrator is distancing themselves from something that has happened to them. They struggle to admit that they are narrating about themselves so address the reader instead or it may be that it’s written as if some subconscious part of their conscience is speaking for them.

An example of this form would be the short story How To Be An Other Woman by Lorrie Moore, where the narrator struggles to own her behaviour and so distances herself from it by writing in the second person.

Love drains you, takes with it much of your blood sugar and water weight. You are like a house slowly losing its electricity, the fans slowing, the lights dimming and flickering; the clocks stop and go and stop.

Lorrie Moore

The narrator is addressing another character

Technically this is a very intimate form of first person narrative. The narrator is talking about their experience but addressing their story specifically to the reader rather than to a general audience. An example of this would be You by Caroline Kepnes, where the narrator is describing his obsession for a woman:

You smile, embarrassed to be a nice girl, and your nails are bare and your V-neck sweater is beige and it’s impossible to know if you’re wearing a bra but I don’t think that you are.

Caroline Kepnes

What is the impact of second person point of view

It makes the reader feel responsible for the events of the story

Because this point of view brings the reader into the narrative, it can serve to make them feel complicit in the events that come to pass. It can feel like the narrator is telling us what we have done, reminding us of our actions. Take Iain Banks novel, Complicity, where scenes with a murderer are all written in the second person:

She was quivering with fear when you looked into her face. You knew you looked terrifying in the dark balaclava, but there was nothing you could do about that.

Iain Banks

In this novel, Banks’ words at times take on an accusing tone, as if the narrator is holding the reader to account for their murderous actions.

As social animals, we often have an emotional reaction to feeling accused, whether falsely or not. We may feel guilty, ashamed, or angry and rejected. In this novel, Banks attempts to take advantage of that response by having the narrator recount our misdeeds.

In many ways, Joe McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City works to elicit emotions in a similar way. Telling the story of a serial cheater, it’s as if his conscience is writing the story, bringing to light the mistakes that he has made, and judging his actions.

You have friends that actually care about you and speak the language of the inner self. You have avoided them of late. Your soul is as dishevelled as your apartment, and until you can clean it up a little you don’t want to invite anyone inside.

Joe McInerney

It forces the reader to inhabit an experience

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson explores a love story between two Black people in London, reflecting on the impact of racism and generational trauma on the protagonist. The use of the second person gives a sense of intimacy to the story. It asks the reader to live the protagonist’s life, to immerse themselves in the pain and loss, and to learn something about his unique experience.

Sometimes you forget that to be you is to be unseen and unheard, or it is to be seen and heard in ways you did not ask for.

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Alternatively, in You by Caroline Kepnes, the reader is made the object of someone’s obsession and asked to experience the impact of that obsession.

It speaks to the narrator’s pain

There is a contrast in the use of the second person for painful events – the author is on the one hand suggesting that the story is too painful for the narrator to embrace it as their own, but on the other hand inviting the reader to understand that pain.

N.K. Jemisin uses this to powerful effect in her Broken Earth series:

You are she. She is you. You are Essun. Remember? The woman whose son is dead.

N.K. Jemisin

The pitfalls of the second person point of view

There are good reasons why this isn’t a common narrative form. The times when it can be used to good effect are in some ways quite specific and if a reader doesn’t feel the use is justified they can struggle to embrace the writing style.

Second person narratives require a big suspension of disbelief, a willingness on the reader’s part to embrace the character they are being asked to inhabit. This becomes more difficult to do the longer the story goes, so often it’s most successfully used within a short story or as part of a longer piece. It is particularly difficult for a reader if the events of the story are traumatic or distressing. Our natural response to feeling threatened is often to protect ourselves from threat, which can mean that readers disengage from second person narratives when the story becomes too emotionally challenging – leading to them needing more distance from the story than they would have if they had been reading in first person.

In addition to this, some readers just aren’t able to connect with second person stories in the same way as first or third. It is too unfamiliar to them and it requires too much cognitive effort on their part to engage with the narrative. This means that for any story written in the second person, there is likely to be a group of readers who simply struggle to enjoy the narrative, no matter how well written.

It is also difficult to get right. There’s a tricky balance between too little and too much information about the character in second person point of view: too little and they don’t feel like fully fleshed individuals, but too much and we struggle to relate to them, which is absolutely necessary for second person point if view to work. Less experienced writers also often don’t put as much thought into their narrator as they do into their characters, not truly considering why their story is being told and to whom, and, without this, second person narratives risk coming across as more of a gimmick than a considered plan around how best to tell the story.

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About the Author

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.

How theory of mind leads to effective storytelling

Storytelling is all about sharing a point of view. When we read or listen to a story, we’re learning something about the perspective of the storyteller or their characters. Stories can make us feel connected to the protagonist; they can build anticipation for the ending; they can make us question our views of the world. But what is it that that makes stories so effective in triggering these thoughts and feelings?

What is Theory of Mind?

Communicating a point of view in a story starts with theory of mind. Every human has the capacity to put themselves into the mind of another, to consider that someone else might have a different perspective to them. We develop this skill as children, with some of us being better at it than others for various social, environmental and cognitive reasons. The concept of theory of mind relates largely to cognitive perspective taking. This means it relates to interpreting the thoughts, desires and intentions of others, which we use to infer reasons for their behaviour or to predict their behaviour. Psychologists describe it as a theory because it’s impossible to ever truly prove our assumptions about another person’s mind – we’ll never see or experience it the way they do.

Another related concept is empathy, which researchers describe as emotional perspective taking. This is our ability to recognise and understand the emotions of others, basically to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and consider how a situation might make them feel.

Theory of Mind and the Role of Language

In my previous blog post Why Do We Tell Stories, I wrote about the power of language. We are the only animal that we’re aware of that’s capable of communicating complex symbolic meanings. We are capable of describing events that have never happened, or that we have never experienced, in order to express an underlying message to our audience.

In the same way, this linguistic ability gives us the framework for conceptualising the experience of another person. Other animals have been shown to have some theory of mind, for example, crows are able to infer that another crow may not have the same knowledge as them; chimpanzees and bonobos have shown some ability to infer the intentions and emotions of others. But researchers all agree that the theory of mind these animals evidence is far less than that of humans. We don’t really know for sure why that is, but there does seem to be a strong link between language fluency and the development of theory of mind and empathy.

As we’re teaching our children to speak, often we’re also teaching them something about theory of mind at the same time. For example, when my son starts crying and I ask “Are you sad?, I’m giving him the label that I use to describe that emotion in myself. If I’m combing his hair and pull too hard, I’ll say “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” and he’ll know that what happened wasn’t my intention. When I plan to have toast and realise there isn’t any bread, if I say “I didn’t know you and Daddy finished the bread”, I’m teaching him that my knowledge was different to his until I went into the kitchen. Language allows us to access the inner worlds of other people in a way that just wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

Theory of Mind and Storytelling

Another thing that researchers have found is that our brains are particularly interested in narratives. Partly, this is because they’re easier to remember: they have a structure that we can follow and a context that we can put them in. But it’s also because narratives have a social value. We tell stories to share information about ourselves or our experiences, and we find stories engaging because there’s an evolutionary advantage to being given the information that others want to share. In the past, that might have been information about food sources, or whether other people were trustworthy, or signs of a predator. Now, our stories might be more complicated but we still listen to them to build our social understanding.

Brain imaging studies have shown that when we listen to narratives rather than just unrelated verbal information, different areas of the brain are activated. This extends even to fictional stories. When we are told about the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of a character, our brains work to take their perspective in the same way we would with a real person. In this way, simple stories can be used to help children to practice theory of mind and develop their social and emotional understanding of others, while adults can emotionally connect with characters, allowing stories to take on more meaning and become more memorable.

Point of View

Within storytelling, there are three main points of view that a narrative can take:

First Person:

This is the point of view that you’re most likely to hear in stories told during your everyday life. It is a story where the narrator is also the protagonist and they are telling you about something that happened to them e.g.:

I did the only thing any reasonable wizard could have done. I turned around and ran like hell.

Jim Butcher

Second Person:

In this point of view, the narrator turns the reader into the protagonist, speaking as if the reader themselves were the one who experienced the narrative.

You’re still trying to decide who to be. The self you’ve been lately doesn’t make sense anymore; that woman died with Uche.

N.K. Jemisin

Third Person:

The most commonly used point of view in fiction, third person provides the reader with a camera through which they can see the action happening to the characters in the narrative. This perspective is similar to our usual life experiences: we watch others as they speak and act, separated from them unless they tell us their own first person account.

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return.

J.R.R. Tolkien

How do theory of mind and point of view interact with each other?

Each different type of point of view invites the reader to engage with a narrative in a particular way and each will require different aspects of theory of mind.

In first person POV, we’re being told someone’s story. They’re making a direct attempt to share something of themselves with us. This taps into our social desire to engage with, empathise and understand those around us, and to build human connections.

In second person POV, the narrator asks us to imagine that we are the protagonist, to put ourselves in the narrative. This is a tricky one to get right, if the actions of the character are too far removed from what we think our own might be, but it can have the powerful effect of leaving us feeling like we personally understand the experience of the story.

Third person POV draws on the skills we use every day in observing those around us but often with the added element of access to the internal experiences of the characters, which generally makes us feel more emotionally invested in them.

The point of view that is most effective for the narrative being told is dependent on the aims of the storyteller, but all of them take advantage of our ability to take the perspectives of the protagonists and empathise with their experiences.

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About the Author

Caroline Ashley Author storytelling blog

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.

Spillwords interview

Spillwords have published an interview with me that you are welcome to read on their website. They also published a shorter interview that I had completed before becoming author of the month, but which actually came out a week or so afterwards. I’m not really one for chatting much about myself, but I guess if I want to eventually sell my writing, part of that will involve sharing some of myself with my audience. Thank you to Spillwords for pushing me out of my comfort zone! 🙈

Globe Soup also announced the winners and finalists for their 2023 open contest at the beginning of the month. My story made it into a finalist place, which was amazing and another huge boost to my confidence as a writer, but also makes me feel a bit of a bridesmaid – when do I get to be the one who takes home the prize? 🤣 That said, the winners were very well written and their prizes well-deserved, so if you’re looking for something short to read, you can’t go wrong with checking them out 😊

In terms of my plan for the next few weeks, I should be posting my next Storytelling blog post within the week. Wish me luck!

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Using simile and metaphor to write effective stories

We humans are masters at storytelling. We search for patterns, meaning and similarities in everything around us. We structure our experiences in ways that help us to make sense of our world and how it works. And then we tell our ‘stories’ to our family and friends, or our online followers, in an attempt to share a little of what we’ve learned from life.

Telling memorable stories

There are certain rhetorical devices that writers can use, techniques that help them to keep a reader or listener’s attention and build their investment in the story.

One example of this is the use of personification and anthropomorphism, which I talk about further in The Use of Anthropomorphism in Fiction. In these cases, the writer imbues human characteristics either literally or figuratively in animals or inanimate objects in order to emphasise their themes or say something about their characters. When we think of something as being like a human, we inevitably feel more connected with it, because we can use our own experiences to empathise and make sense of their behaviour.

Another way that writers can achieve a similar goal is through the use of simile and metaphor, which can be used to strengthen descriptive images.

What are simile and metaphor?

Simile and metaphor both involve using figurative language to compare one thing to another, but function in slightly different ways.

When a writer uses simile, they describe an object by comparing it to something else using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Some examples would be:

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose.

Robert Burns

His smile was as stiff as a frozen fish.

Raymond Chandler

When a writer uses a metaphor, they describe something as if it were something else. For example:

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

William Shakespeare

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

John Green

Metaphors can also be extended to compare two things on more than one level. An example for this would be ‘Hope is a Thing with Feathers’ by Emily Dickinson, where the whole poem is an extended metaphor describing hope with bird-like features.

Metaphors are generally considered to be more impactful than similes, because they assert that the objects in question are essentially the same as each other. Similes on the other hand function more as a suggestion to us, they plant an idea in our heads but leave us to imagine the details. Take for example “My anger is a raging fire” versus “My anger is like a raging fire”. In the first, we picture a literal fire and connect it with the character’s anger, whereas in the second, we picture the features of a fire – hot, hard to control, destructive – and consider what parts link with the character’s emotion.

Both devices have their place in a story. If a writer were to spend the entire narrative just using metaphors, we’re likely to disengage, feeling that we’re being told what to think. But equally, if they only use simile, the writer risks losing their voice, relying on the reader to infer the majority of the description. Good fiction uses the right one at the right time in order to strengthen the narrative and immerse the reader in each moment.

What makes a bad metaphor or simile

Similes and metaphors don’t always work well when they are used. We might read one and just feel that it doesn’t work, doesn’t help us to better picture the image, or just that it takes us out of the story for some reason – here are a few reasons why that might happen:

It’s a cliché

We all know some clichéd similes and metaphors: dead as a doornail; fine kettle of fish; wipe the slate clean. And there are two reasons why we find them jarring in fiction. Firstly, because we know them so well, and have heard them in other contexts, we no longer imagine them figuratively, which means that they lose their impact. Secondly, often these clichéd comparisons have lost some of their meaning over time because our way of life has changed – doornails were hammered so deeply you couldn’t easily remove them; fish kettles were long saucepans that used to be common kitchen utensils; and a clean slate comes from wiping a writing slate clean in classrooms.

The objects being compared are too alike

When this happens, the comparison becomes redundant and just doesn’t add to the story. An example might be saying that bubblegum popped like a balloon – both pop in fairly similar ways, so what does the comparison add to the image?

It doesn’t fit with the tone/atmosphere

Figurative language can throw us out of a story if it evokes an image that doesn’t fit well with the scene that we’re reading. An example of this is in City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, when the main characters are in a nightclub and one is being watched by a vampire:

Around her neck was a thick silver chain, on which hung a dark red pendant the size of a baby’s fist

While the comparison might be accurate for what Clare is describing, how does the image of a baby add to the dark tone that she’s already established?

Another way that a simile or metaphor might break the atmosphere is to refer to something that wouldn’t exist in the time of the narrative. For example, referring to the speed of a bullet or the ticking of a clock in a story where those haven’t been invented yet. While mentioning them in the narrative might not technically be anachronistic, depending on the narrator, they serve to make us think about the modern world when the writer wants us immersed in the past.

What makes an effective simile or metaphor?

Being true to the narrative voice

The strongest similes and metaphors will fit well with the voice of the narrator. This would include consideration of the story’s setting, its tone, its themes and things that the narrator is likely to know. Take for example this quote by Terry Pratchett in Mort:

Ankh- Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound

All of the comparisons made are of things that might be found in a pre-industrial revolution city like Ankh-Morpork, so they fit with the narrator’s level of knowledge. They also fit with the humourous tone of the book by using examples that speak to the unrefined, crime ridden nature of the people within the city.

Another example comes from Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass:

Because Lyra now realized, if she hadn’t done so before, that all the fear in her nature was drawn to Mrs. Coulter as a compass needle drawn to the Pole

Since this book focuses on Lyra’s use of a device called an alethiometer that looks like a compass and responds to human intent, this simile fits well with Lyra’s viewpoint, using a comparison that is related to her recent experiences.

Any good metaphor or simile considers what their narrator or viewpoint character might think of when making a comparison. A good story remembers that the story is not just written for the reader but written by a narrator and if that narrator is from a certain time period or country or world then the figurative language they use should also exist within that context.

The importance of specificity

A lot of the most cliché similes and metaphors are quite general, for example, “quiet as a mouse”, “life is a journey”, “cold as ice”. While these comparisons do give some extra information, they don’t evoke a strong image or clear idea of what the writer is trying to convey. If they weren’t already well-known, they would be unlikely to stick in our minds after being read.

Effective similes and metaphors add a level of specificity. If the comparison evokes an image of a certain moment or emotion, then it’s easier for the reader to picture. Compare “quiet as a mouse in a house full of cats” or “cold as the ice on Triton” to the more well-known examples.

But we can also look to literature for examples of specificity adding more than just additional imagery:

Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.

Margaret Atwood, A Handmaid’s Tale

He looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it no longer alive and don’t yet know that it is dead.

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

Both of these examples describe an actual moment that the reader can imagine, thus strengthening the image that they are trying to evoke. They also weave in additional elements that speak to the emotions that the writer is trying to convey – the detail of being left by a “careless” child speaks to an idea that there may have been a way to be more careful, to defend against the waves of time. And with Faulkner, the example is of an animal caught off guard, still processing the impact of a sudden, negative change.

Remembering not to overdo it

A good writer thinks about what parts of their story are most important and would benefit from the emphasis of figurative language. Every piece of figurative language involves needing to access information about the object being compared and what we know about it, in order to understand the meaning beneath the comparison. If there are too many in a short space of time, we essentially become fatigued and lose interest. Or, if figurative language emphasises a part of the story that isn’t that important, we can also be left feeling unclear about what point the writer was trying to get across.

Deciding what works for the story

Any ‘rule’ of writing is made to be broken. However, there is a difference between just not knowing the rules and making a conscious decision not to follow them. In the same way that a skilled chef might deviate from a recipe because their taste buds suggest something different, a skilled writer can learn to subvert reader expectations and break the rules in ways that strengthen rather than weaken their story.

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Caroline Ashley

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.

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Defender of the forest

Just a short post to say that Roi Fainéant Press have published a flash fiction story that I wrote called Defender of the Forest. It’s a story about growing up and moving on from the games of our childhood but still holding on to the stories that we told.

I originally wrote ‘Defender of the Forest’ for a submission call by Space Cat Press on the theme of ‘Into the Forest’. It wasn’t accepted but I edited it afterwards and tried elsewhere. Many thanks to Roi Fainéant Press for publishing the new improved version 😊

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The feral child archetype: stories and themes in real life and fiction

What is an archetype?

In a previous post, ‘What is a story?’, I talked about Christopher Booker’s seven proposed story archetypes. These archetypes describe the narrative structures that are most commonly seen in the stories that we tell. Brooker’s ideas were informed by the psychiatrist Carl Jung, who introduced the concept of a collective unconscious, an ancestral memory of different concepts that influence our behaviour and which echo across the world in our stories. Jung’s focus was on the development of the human psyche and, as a result, his proposed archetypes tended to focus more on characters rather than narratives. While some of his work might seem outdated now, these characters still persist within our stories.

The wild child through history

Most people will be familiar with the concept of the feral child. A child who has lived from a young age without human contact, usually raised by animals to connect with the wisdom of the wild. This concept can be found in literary fiction and in mythology across the world.

Enkidu, a character from the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, is the oldest known example of a wild man. He was created by the goddess of creation and roamed free with the herds. When he copulates with a prostitute, the animals smell the human scent on him and reject him, forcing him to learn the ways of humankind. Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome, are well-known by their story of having been suckled by a wolf before being adopted by a shepherd and his wife. The Iranian šāhnāmeh (‘Book of Kings’) has Zaal, a mythical king who was rejected by his father and raised by a simurgh until his father realised the error of his ways.

A more modern example is Mowgli from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’, although many will also be familiar with him from the Disney adaptation. The book’s story is one of a boy who is abandoned and finds himself part of both human and animal worlds. His last story, before he departs from the jungle to live with Man as an adult, talks about Mowgli’s sadness and tears, something that separates him from his animal companions. While he accepts that he belongs in the world of Man, this acceptance can be seen as a loss, much like children have to give up aspects of freedom and play to grow into adults.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, on the other hand, is a tale of escapism from the perspective of a masculine White man who is stronger, faster and smarter than the humans and animals around him. His survival skills and connection with the jungle rise him up above his enemies but he retains enough of a connection with his Western upper class heritage to live as he pleases in the human world.

‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendack is a children’s book about a ‘wild child’. The concepts are more allegorical but still similar – Max journeys in his dreams to become King of the Wild Things, then returns home, having gained a level of mastery over himself, and become stronger because of it.

The real feral children

The reality of children living with animals is far less entertaining. The human brain has critical periods of development which, if missed, can lead to long term disability.

The real life inspiration for Mowgli, Dina Sanichar, was found living with wolves as a six year old. Hunters killed the mother wolf and took him to an orphanage. He learned to walk upright, put on clothes and use a plate but he never learned a language or how to fit in with human society.

Oxana Malaya is assumed to have lived with dogs from the age of three to eight after her alcoholic parents abandoned her. Discovered in 1994, she was able to learn to talk and walk upright but still lives in an adult care facility now. The similar story of Ivan Mishukov has a happier ending. He lived with dogs in the city for two years from around four and was later taken in by a loving foster family and able to reintegrate into society.

Another man, Marcus Pantoja, lived with wolves for twelve years in isolation after being sold by his abusive stepmother to a man who subsequently died. He recalls living among the animals and being able to communicate with them. In reality, he probably projected social intention on their actions in order to feel less alone – they would come when he had food, and he would see it as friendship. Marcus was seven when he ended up alone in the mountains, so had learned enough language to be able to rebuild his skills when he returned to society, but he has always struggled to adapt to the human world. As recently as 2018, aged 72, he voiced that he still wished he could return to the mountains.

What do stories about feral children try to tell us?

These real life stories and examples from history suggest various themes that might arise in a narrative about a feral child.

Survival:

Both the real and fictional characters  raise the question of how to survive when society has rejected you or left you behind. We are social creatures and for most of us the thought of complete isolation is a scary prospect. Fictional narratives tell us that we can survive rejection and find a place to belong, though the reality often tells us the opposite.

Found families:

In many cases of feral children in fiction, the animals that raise them become their families. Often they have human traits, are able to speak and behave like the people whose role they’ve fulfilled for the child in the story. As such, these narratives tell us that even when our biological family cannot look after us, others will take their place and we won’t be alone. The simurgh who takes in Zaal, for example, comes at his call to offer help even after he returns to his father.

The differences between humans and animals:

In a story that begins with a child being abandoned, it’s animals who ensure that he or she is cared for. They don’t judge or threaten – they offer food, companionship and protection when no human offers it. In real life, the best example of this is probably with animals that are used to living with humans to begin with. For example, the dogs that Ivan Mishukov lived with tried to defend him from the police and were killed when they kept trying to reach him in the orphanage he was taken to. The implied message underneath this animal behaviour in stories is that humans aren’t always capable of the same unjudging acceptance – humans develop prejudices and flaws and mental health difficulties that prevent them from offering the human connection that their loved ones might need. In the midst of that, many would say that the uncomplicated love of an animal is a welcome comfort.

Our ties to human society:

Even stories like Tarzan that include a return to the jungles, make it clear that living forever with the animals isn’t feasible. Mankind have separated ourselves from animalkind and no matter how long we live in the wilds, we must eventually accept that we are in some way different from our animal companions. Most stories featuring a feral child involve that child returning to human society, sometimes with difficulty, though often as a stronger, more empowered individual for having reconnected with their wild roots.

The beauty and simplicity of nature: This concept is usually in contrast to the complexity and potential cruelty of human society. Living in the wilderness is presented as a more simplistic way of living. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s safer, and often there are a lot of survival related dangers in the wilderness, but they may be presented as being easier to navigate, the enemies forthright and open about their intentions. In Mowgli’s story, he is cast out for witchcraft when he first tries to reintegrate with humankind and his adoptive parents are tarred with the same brush, prompting him to send animals to help them. Marcus Pentoja has consistently said that he struggles with human society and found life among the animals far easier to navigate.

Power in difference:  

Surviving in the wilds often leads to the main character being stronger and more able than many of the humans they encounter. Tarzan for example, frequently bested humans who tried to threaten him or his family. Zaal gained wisdom from being raised by the ancient simurgh. As the narrative goes, survival in the wilderness empowers the main character, to be stronger than the humans who rejected them, through connecting with their animal nature. But it may also show that being different than those around you can be to your advantage – the outcasts, the rejects, they can overcome their bullies because they have their own unique skills.

The strength of the archetype

Archetypes play a role in setting reader expectations and they are a shorthand tool that a writer can employ in order to communicate the themes of their story. They have been used within stories likely since stories began to be told. Used well, they can strengthen a narrative by speaking to the themes that the writer is trying to convey. However, used poorly, they risk coming across as clichéd and plagiaristic.

The most important factor in using them to their full potential is being clear about the themes that they evoke when they’re introduced into a narrative. Those themes need to tie well with the story being told so that it’s clear why the character is there, or else the reader may find the story unfocused, or assume that the writer is being lazy by relying on the archetype to define their character for them.

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 About the Author

 

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves of fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.