Writing

TIME AND TIDE: “14 Canadian romance books to swoon over this Valentine’s Day”

TIME AND TIDE: “14 Canadian romance books to swoon over this Valentine’s Day”

Well now, if this isn’t just the sweetest Valentine to find in my mailbox this morning!

Even better, I’m on this list with my fabulous friend Rose Sutherland, and two authors I interviewed at the Toronto International Festival of Authors: Jackie Lau and Lily Chu.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone—from my heart to yours!

(And don’t forget, if you’re in the Toronto area and feel like braving the snowfall, I’ll be signing Time and Tide at Hopeless Romantic Books tomorrow, from 2pm onwards. I have red velvet cookies!)

 

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JM FreyTIME AND TIDE: “14 Canadian romance books to swoon over this Valentine’s Day”
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WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Vocabulary and Tone (Part Two)

WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Vocabulary and Tone (Part Two)

Originally Published on Storybilder August 24, 2021

This is the second part of our discussion on narrative vocabulary and tone. Part One focuses on vocabulary choice and ways to shed light on your characters’ inner thoughts and world view through the language they use.

What is “Tone”? 

Compared to vocabulary choice, tone is harder to pin down. It’s more or less the way that you, the writer, feel about the story you’re telling, and how, on the page, you convey that feeling to the reader. For example, Terry Pratchett feels irreverent and deeply hopeful in his novel Good Omens. If Jane Austen had written a similar story about an angel and a demon accidentally losing the antichrist on the eve of Armageddon, her tone would likely have been dry and witty. Ernest Hemingway’s version might have been angry and defeatist.

You can set the tone of a story by deciding what mood or flavor you’re looking convey. Is the book meant to be light and frivolous, like a delicious marshmallow? Is it meant to be smooth and dark, like rich hot chocolate? Is it supposed to be astringent and biting, like a tart lemon martini?

Once you’ve figured out the feeling and mood, try to reflect that in your pacing, sentence length, and yes, vocabulary choice. How long you linger on scenery or descriptions, how quickly you move from plot point to plot point, how much of the small domestic moments you share, how choppy your prose is, and which words you choose, all these elements come together to create the book’s tone. 

Alignment and Juxtaposition 

Depending on what sort of tone you’re looking to convey, you can have the character voice and narrative voice work in harmony to paint the picture for the reader, or you can provide deliberate juxtaposition, to make it clear that the narrator’s opinion on the action diverges from the protagonists’.

For example: 

Poetic tone: The heather waved grey and sweet in the florid gloaming. “Oh, my dearest heart, how I love you,” the poet sighed to me, their eyes on the beautiful landscape that marked our last day together. 

Cynical tone: A rock stuck into my thigh. “You know,” he sniffed, eyes glued to the sunrise so he didn’t have to look at me. “Seeing as, eh, you know, it being the last time I’m ever gonna see you, I think I, you know…L-word you.” 

What happens if we mix and match them?

Blended: The heather waved grey and sweet, while a rock stuck awkwardly into my thigh. “You know,” the poet sighed to me, their eyes on the beautiful sunrise that marked our last day together.  “Seeing as, eh, you know,, it being the last time I’m ever gonna see you, I think I, you know…L-word you.” 

Play around with voice, tone, and vocabulary choice, to find the narrative voice works best for your book.

Activity:

Pick a favorite children’s story such as The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella or any other folk tale you know well. How would you tell the story so it sounds sweet and light? Can you tell it again so it sounds terrifying? How do your language, your pacing, and your tone change? What happens if you tell the story as if it were the truth? What does changes if you try to tell the same story as if you thought it were funny or sad?

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JM FreyWORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Vocabulary and Tone (Part Two)
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WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Vocabulary and Tone (Part One)

WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Vocabulary and Tone (Part One)

Originally Posted on Storybilder August 10, 2021

If your characters are the lens through which the reader experiences your story, and you the writer are the glassmaker, then vocabulary makes up the grains of sand which create the glass.  Likewise, tone is the mold into which you pour your hot glass to set the lens.

Some grains will be hard, rough, imperfect; and, poured into a straight-edged mold, would make a wonderful lens for, say, a gritty detective story. Some will be dark, and smooth, and sharp, combined in a rough mold that produces a lens that is uneven and hard to see through, making it suitable for gothic romance. Some will be filled with glitter, poured into a star-shaped mold, ideal for magic and fantasy.

Your combination of Voice, Vocabulary and Tone create the Narrative Voice that is unique to your work and your book.

What is “Voice”? 

Character Voice – the words, idioms, metaphors, and sentence structures that the characters choose to think and speak. These structures are rooted in your characters’ dialogue and reflect their background, education, and culture.

Narrative Voice – the words, idioms, metaphors, and sentence structures that the narrator chooses. If the narration is relayed in second or third person, the narrative voice might not match the main character’s dialogue and thought patterns because the narrator’s voice comes from a different person or entity.

What is “Vocabulary Choice”? 

The words you select to describe things are often freighted with associations and meanings that can elicit emotions and understanding. Vocabulary also influences tone (which we’ll talk about in the next post) and can be crafted to suit the age range and the genre-savviness of your intended readership.

For example: think about the word “hot”. This is a general catch-all word that even young readers understand. Depending on your audience’s age range and your chosen genre, you might describe a landscape as “hot, and parched, and cracked, like the palms of the old men who shielded their eyes from the unforgiving sunlight.” Or you might say it was “hot and lush as a greenhouse.”

In the first case, the word “hot” describes something that is hot and dry and worn out. In the second, it refers to a type of hot that helps things to grow. How the word is interpreted depends on context and the other words that surround it.

If I say the weather was arid, I’m saying it was hot, but also dry and parched, which is pretty specific. If I say it’s humid, then the air is damp and heavy. Deciding to use “hot”, “hot and humid”, or “humid” are all choices you make as a writer; and, depending on how they’re used, your choice tells the reader something about your narrator’s perspective.

Word choice affects more than just the picture you want to paint for the reader; it also tells them what kind of world they’re in, and whether the narrator is the kind of person who would prefer to use “hot” when “sweltering”, “fevered”, or “blazing” may invoke not only a specific meaning, but also a specific feeling.  “Hot” is warm, but “sizzling” sounds dangerous.

Activity

Think about the last story you read. What sort of words do the characters use? What do those words tell you about their social status, their feelings? Now, think about the narrator. Is one of the characters telling the story? If so, what do their word choices tell you about their perspective? Does their language suggest they enjoy telling the story? Are they sad or afraid? Are they reliable? If the story is told in third person, how does language help you to imagine the landscape, the way the characters feel, or the mood?

Tune in next time for the second part of this topic, where we discuss Tone.

JM FreyWORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Vocabulary and Tone (Part One)
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WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Point of View and Tenses

WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Point of View and Tenses

Originally Published on Storybilder July 28, 2021

Now that you’ve decided who is going to be telling your reader your story, let’s take a closer look at the technical aspects of how that story is going to be conveyed, and what the impacts of these technical choices may be on a reader’s experience.

Point of View (who is telling your story) 

Point of View (POV) is the perspective lens through which your reader witnesses and experiences the tale. But the way that lens is constructed is important, too, and worth some conscious and deliberate decision-making. Each POV has different strengths, so consider them carefully.

  • First Person
    • “I”.
    • The story is told from the position of a character (single or multiple) as it happens.
    • Most commonly used in fiction, most notably in YA.
    • Has the advantage of being immediate and giving the reader access to the character’s deepest emotions.
    • “I reached for the salt.”
  • Second Person
    • “You”.
    • The story is told from the position of an external narrator, who is describing the actions of a character to the reader as if the reader themselves are the character.
    • Most commonly used in blog posts, non-fiction, Choose Your Own Adventure, and self-help books. Can function in fiction, but very hard to pull off.
    • Has the advantage of enticing the reader into experiencing the emotions brought out by the plot in themselves instead of experiencing it through a proxy.
    • “You reached for the salt.”
  • Third Person
    • “He/She/They”.
    • The story is told from the position of an external narrator, who is describing the actions of the character to the reader as they happen.
    • Has the advantage of a little removal, so readers can process the characters actions on both a logical and emotional level at the same time.
    • “She reached for the salt.”

Scope of View (how much do they know) 

  • Limited
    • The narrator/character only relays what they can reasonably know.
    • Characters can guess at or infer other character’s thoughts, motivations, and truths, but can’t be sure of them.
    • “I love you,” I lied. I could tell by the look on the Duke’s face that he believed I was telling the truth.
  • Omniscient
    • The narrator/character relays information that reveals that they are aware of other character’s thoughts, motivations, and truths.
    • “I love you,” she lied. The Duke was happy to hear her say the words, but he knew it wasn’t true. 

Tense (how immediate is the experience) 

  • Present
    • The action is happening in real time.
    • Can make the action and emotions more urgent and immediate for the reader
    • I pass the Duke the salt.” 
  • Past
    • The action is slightly removed, and the narrator is reporting it.
    • Can provide a sense of distance and a more ‘literary’ tone.
    • I passed the Duke the salt.” 

Mix in a shaker 

You can mix and match POV, tense and scope, and I recommend you play around with different combinations until you find something that clicks, and feels right for your character and story.

Direct the reader’s experience

As much as I’ve been saying that the narrator is the lens through which the reader views a story in this series, don’t forget that you, the author, are the glassmaker. The deliberate choices you make in terms of tense and POV will influence the reader’s understanding of your narrative, your characters, and your world.

For example: in my novel The Untold Tale, the narrator character Forsyth is a fictional creation who only later learns that he is not real. I made a deliberate choice to have him narrate the tale in First Person Present Tense Limited. Why? Because I wanted to convey a sense of immediacy to the reader. This narrator is a construct that only exists in the moment on the page, and this choice of “I” and “now” helps to solidify that.

Whether they’re conscious of it or not, making concerted and deliberate choices about tense and POV will influence your reader’s experience of your tale.

Activity:

Think about the latest book you read or the one you’re reading now. Who is the narrator? Is the story told through a character’s voice or through an omniscient one? Is the story written in present tense or past tense? Does the narrator know what the other characters are thinking, or is it a mystery to them? Now, why do you think the author chose to write the book this way? What would change in the story if any one of these details were different?

JM FreyWORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Point of View and Tenses
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WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Unreliable Narrators

WORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Unreliable Narrators

First published on Storybildr January 22, 2021

Now that we’ve established what a point-of-view (POV) and a Narrative Voice are, let’s talk about Unreliable Narrators. These are narrators who, either because of the way they interpret the world, omissions in their story, or outright falsehoods and manipulation, lie to the reader.

In the first part of this series, I talked about the narrator as the driver of a story, the perspective through which each moment and emotion is filtered and distilled. It is from this cup of filtered experience that the reader drinks in your story. Most of the time, the experience that the reader consumes can be assumed to be a genuine and honest reporting of what happened, and how the narrator actually feels, thinks, or behaves.

However, there can be value in choosing a character who either does not, or cannot, filter those experiences accurately to present your story. In this case, the reader cannot trust the narrator to be reliable.

To explain what I mean, I want to talk about my favourite Unreliable Narrator of all time: Anne Shirley from L.M. Montgomery’s classic Anne of Green Gables.

“What?” I can hear you shouting. “The precocious, imaginative, sunny-eyed, spunky Canadian Orphan of our childhoods? No!”

Yes.

See, here’s the thing that a lot of people miss when they’re reading the books: Anne is deeply, deeply effed up when she arrives at Green Gables. Everything she reports—and we as readers, swallow whole-heartedly—as charming quirks of her own personality, are actually indicators of d coping mechanisms as a result of childhood trauma. For example:

  • She spends hours imagining her life a Princess Cordelia? Disassociation.
  • She reads everything she can get her hands on? Could be indicative of OCD or depression, or a desperate desire to escape reality and a defence against a harmful living situation.
  • Her best friend is the personified version of her own reflection? Lack of socialization.
  • Her temper? Lashing out and anger management/emotional regulation issues.
  • The way she clings to Diana right away? Attachment issues.

But since Anne is the narrator of her own tales, obviously she doesn’t want to dwell on the dark parts of why she does what she does. So she doesn’t talk about those things. As readers, if we accept what she’s telling us at the surface and don’t read critically, we see her only as a sunny, quirky, big-hearted kid and do her the disservice of missing the incredible character arc of Anne overcoming the traumas of her life before Green Gables. Like with Cinderella, it is hard to have a hard life and still grow up loving and kind. So reading Anne as an Unreliable Narrator makes her so much more powerful, and makes ending so much more satisfying.

Take into account that author Montgomery was a mental health advocate and died by suicide when her own mental health issues became too unbearable, and we can guess that while Anne was always meant to be embraced as the kind and loving character she is (for the moral of all of the Anne books are that everyone deserves love and respect, no matter their background), it is also becomes a powerful story about what state-sponsored abuse can do to children, whether Montgomery intended it or not.

When you consider Anne unreliable, the book is, in my opinion, better.

So now that you have handle on how powerful using an Unreliable Narrator can be, let’s move onto making one of your own

 

JM FreyWORDS FOR WRITERS: Narrative Voice – Unreliable Narrators
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