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POV and Psychic Distance: connecting reader and character
Rating: 4.7 out of 5(17 ratings)
210 students

POV and Psychic Distance: connecting reader and character

POV, Psychic Distance, and 9 other storytelling techniques.
Created byHarry Dewulf
Last updated 7/2019
English

What you'll learn

  • Use all the literary techniques that bring readers and characters together, and choose when to use them, and when not to.
  • Write powerful POV (point-of-view), or write without using POV at all!

Course content

1 section • 11 lectures • 1h 3m total length

  • Introduction7:52

    In addition to an outline of the course, this introduction also deals with some general principles that you will need to know.

  • Lesson 1 Part 1: The Three Aims8:40

    There are three aims that you need to have in mind in order to connect your reader to your characters. This is them.

  • Lesson 1.1: Identification
  • Lesson 1 Part 2: The Six Techniques6:11

    In this lesson the six techniques you're going to learn are identified and described. In addition, there's important information about character thoughts, and how to express them.

  • Lesson 2: Narrator Grammar2:44

    The first technique - this is more about making conscious a choice that you already do unconsciously, or maybe you don't even realize it's a choice.

  • Lesson 2: Narrator Grammar - Assignment
  • Lesson 3: Narrator Identity4:38

    Unlike Narrator Grammar, you probably don't use this technique, but learning it, and applying it, can prove very valuable in helping your narrator find their voice.

  • Lesson 3: Narrator Identity - Assignments
  • Lesson 4: Framing3:41

    Framing is a powerful tool for affecting the reader's emotions and attitudes subtly. At times it resembles the way that advertizers write their copy; at times it's almost like poetry.

  • Lesson 4: Framing - Assignment
  • Lesson 5: Filtering7:44

    If you already do Filtering, you probably do it too much. Learn the "general rule" of filtering, and acquire the techniques of fixing and epithetting so that your readers never again lose track of who is who.

  • Lesson 5: Filtering - Assignment 1: Simple 3rd Person Filtering
  • Lesson 5: Filtering - Assignment 2: Epithetting
  • Lesson 6, Part One: Psychic Distance, definition2:50

    Part One of the lesson on Psychic Distance, introducing it, and then getting someone smarter than me to teach it to you. It's not because it's especially difficult; it's because Emma Darwin explains it especially well!

  • Lesson 6, Part Two: Psychic Distance, learning and application4:46

    How and why psychic distance is so powerful. An essential lead-up to yes, your eyes do not deceive you, FOUR assignments.

  • Lesson 6: Psychic Distance - Assignment #1: Appartments
  • Lesson 6: Psychic Distance - Assignment #2: Set Text #1
  • Lesson 6: Psychic Distance - Assignment #4: Set Text #3
  • Lesson 6: Psychic Distance - Assignment #3: Set Text #2
  • Lesson 7: Point-of-View8:50

    This lesson is especially for those authors who have either had a problem with POV in the past, or who have devoted a great deal of time and effort to getting it right. I hope it will bring you not only to a deeper understanding of it's purpose and how and when to use it, but also to understand that you don't have to use it at all.

    If you come back to this lesson, I suggest you skip to about 6.30, where I go into detail on what POV is really for, and how it works. I've added a caption at that point to make it easier to find.

  • Lesson 7: Point of View - Assignment
  • Conclusion and Bonus: 4000 years of woodworking5:39

    I already wore out the metaphor of learning to sail. Here's another one. It's all about human connections.

  • Bonus Assignment: Free Indirect Style

Requirements

  • You need to know the basic language of storytelling - what is meant by "character," "plot," "outline," etc.
  • It will help if you are already familiar other literary terminology such as POV (point-of-view), narrative voice, imagery, etc.

Description

"This is art, not engineering. Storytelling is social, not mechanical" 

The bottom line I teach to all my authors is that nothing will make your next book sell better than ensuring readers read your current book to the end.

The foundation of ensuring readers want to read to the end is that readers care about your characters. This course is about making sure readers care, by ensuring that you, the author, form a connection with the reader, and ensuring that your readers connect with your characters.

In this course you will learn how to choose, combine, and apply a suite of techniques that will define your approach to creative writing - your technique and your style. You will learn how to make these choices consciously and with care.

Most of all, you will learn alternatives to Point-of-View and "Show-don't-Tell" - including the most powerful narrative technique of all, Psychic Distance

In this course you will learn:

  • Narrator Grammar

  • Narrator Identity

  • Combining identification, empathy and sympathy

  • Framing

  • Filtering

  • Psychic Distance

  • Point of view

  • How to convey character thoughts through "Free Indirect Style"

  • The "Author's Core Competence"

  • + half a dozen additional concepts, tools and techniques for applying these principles

This course includes a lot of practice activities. You don't have to do all of them, but you will definitely learn a lot more if you do them. Some of the lessons depend on your completing at least one assignment at least in part, to be sure that you have learned the techniques and principles being taught.


(This course was previously called "How to use Great Narration to Connect with your Reader")

Who this course is for:

  • Anyone who wants to be an author of fiction
  • Writers who want to firm up their knowledge of technique
  • Writers who want to confirm what they have learned informally or self-taught
  • Writers who are confused by the endless and conclusionless discussions of POV (point-of-view)

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