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olmueMy oldest son (8) loves to read, and I mean some pretty hefty books at a pretty hefty page-per-day rate. Moving to a country where he doesn’t speak the language is definitely a trial for him. I took him to the local bookstore (three lovely floors full of people, no matter what the weather or time of day, with strollers, umbrellas, even dogs, and the smell of BOOKS from floor to ceiling—yum!) and we bought the longest children’s book in English we could find. Septimus Heap: Magyk, by Angie Sage. The chapter illustrations were lovely, and my son read the book at least four times in a row, and enjoyed it, minus a few caveats (“Mom, there are too many capital letters in this book.”) Then I read it. I smiled at the humor and it was okay, but it really showed me why a limited point of view is a good thing.
1) It gives the reader a clear idea of who to cheer for. The series is called Septimus Heap, but the main character for most of the story (I think, anyway) was a 12-year-old girl. Septimus is wandering in the story, too, but I didn’t get the feeling he was the main character by any means. Which means I felt the title promised me something the book didn’t deliver.
2) It makes it easier to keep track of all of the characters. Harry Potter has a zillion characters, but nobody seems to have trouble keeping track of them. We keep them straight because we know what their relation is to Harry, the focal character. Notice that with very few exceptions (the opening chapter to a couple of books), the reader only sees what Harry does.
3) It provides a filter for the actions of the story. Again, I’ve been focusing on fixing problems with my own book, most notably, helping the reader form an earlier, stronger emotional attachment to my main character. Agent Rachel Vater has commented on this topic on her blog, too. She wants to know what’s at stake right up front. Sometimes books take a movie camera approach, which works great in a movie that includes scary music and interesting camera angles, but not so great in a book. I need to know, not only the facts, but why they matter.
4) It ups the tension. Tension comes from incompleteness. Characters want what they don’t have. Characters almost make it, but fail. Characters need information they don’t have. When the reader doesn’t have all the information, s/he will read on to find out that information. Simple.
Sure, omnicient viewpoint books are all over the place. Some of them get big money. I’ve noticed a trend lately for bigshot adult writers to try their hand at writing children’s books. The prose is usually good, and so is the plotting, but more often than not, they feel soulless to me, precisely because they spend far too much time in too many people’s heads, especially the heads of adult characters. Kids have a lot less power than adults. In a book, this means the kid characters have an inherent incompleteness, an inherent tension. An adult character can just go fix a problem; a kid may not be able to do that so easily. I’m not saying adult characters don’t have problems and tensions, too. I am saying that too much focus on adult characters with power saps the tension of the story.
So limit your characters. Go ahead. Do it. Even if you limit your story to two focal characters, it will make a stronger book.
1) It gives the reader a clear idea of who to cheer for. The series is called Septimus Heap, but the main character for most of the story (I think, anyway) was a 12-year-old girl. Septimus is wandering in the story, too, but I didn’t get the feeling he was the main character by any means. Which means I felt the title promised me something the book didn’t deliver.
2) It makes it easier to keep track of all of the characters. Harry Potter has a zillion characters, but nobody seems to have trouble keeping track of them. We keep them straight because we know what their relation is to Harry, the focal character. Notice that with very few exceptions (the opening chapter to a couple of books), the reader only sees what Harry does.
3) It provides a filter for the actions of the story. Again, I’ve been focusing on fixing problems with my own book, most notably, helping the reader form an earlier, stronger emotional attachment to my main character. Agent Rachel Vater has commented on this topic on her blog, too. She wants to know what’s at stake right up front. Sometimes books take a movie camera approach, which works great in a movie that includes scary music and interesting camera angles, but not so great in a book. I need to know, not only the facts, but why they matter.
4) It ups the tension. Tension comes from incompleteness. Characters want what they don’t have. Characters almost make it, but fail. Characters need information they don’t have. When the reader doesn’t have all the information, s/he will read on to find out that information. Simple.
Sure, omnicient viewpoint books are all over the place. Some of them get big money. I’ve noticed a trend lately for bigshot adult writers to try their hand at writing children’s books. The prose is usually good, and so is the plotting, but more often than not, they feel soulless to me, precisely because they spend far too much time in too many people’s heads, especially the heads of adult characters. Kids have a lot less power than adults. In a book, this means the kid characters have an inherent incompleteness, an inherent tension. An adult character can just go fix a problem; a kid may not be able to do that so easily. I’m not saying adult characters don’t have problems and tensions, too. I am saying that too much focus on adult characters with power saps the tension of the story.
So limit your characters. Go ahead. Do it. Even if you limit your story to two focal characters, it will make a stronger book.
