Recent content by Incanus

It's a great question to ask. I don't have a good answer. I've never written in this POV style because it seems to be the most difficult to pull off. Without the limitations of the other POVs, I don't know what to include/exclude in the narrative. Since 'head-hopping' does not technically...

In my view, there is no such thing as an 'in-between' POV--much in the same way that one cannot be wet and dry at the same time. If your novel or story cannot be described as a single POV trait, I would submit that there is a problem with it that needs to be fixed. That said, there are other...

Yes, this all makes sense. One reason I was a little unclear about this is that I've never written in omniscient POV, and I adhere to POV as strictly as I know how (something I recommend). To the best of my knowledge, I have never written any head-hopping, and no comments from any workshopping...

I'm not 100% clear on what 'head hopping' is, so if there is a clear definition provided at some point, that could be helpful. It makes me think of two things. 1 - a derogatory term for a story written in an omniscient POV. 2 - A term to describe when an established POV is violated and a new...

He has four story cycles that are usually considered his best stuff. They are: Zothique (the original 'dying earth' setting), Hyperboria (he uses his excellent humor in most of this series), Averoigne (a medieval France setting), and Poseidonis (an Atlantis setting). The quality of his work...

The Howard sample provided in the OP looks to me like a simple case of 'telling' vs. 'showing'. Telling is inherently faster-paced. He is using an omniscient POV and 'telling' here. That kind of writing was more common in the days of Weird Tales, or early fantasy and sci-fi. The technique...

As written, this looks like you typed a grammatically correct sentence into a word processor, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I don't really have 'gripes' with these tools, since they are not yet as sophisticated as they need to be. But one thing that comes up in MS Word a lot: It suggests...

I can't say about agents or publishers, but I know I would certainly be wondering what was going on. As described, it sounds like something that doesn't really work. I am fairly strict with how I use or interpret POV, and I strongly recommend doing a deep dive into it. It is trickier than it...

I partially agree. I would say that big planning scenes are never ONLY about the plan. Which is part of a larger piece of generally good advice for fiction: scenes should be doing more than one job at once. In the case of Council of Elrond, the plan is the point of the chapter and the most...

In the Osten Ard books by Tad Williams, the immortal Sithi (who are basically elves) are quite obviously derived from Japanese culture. I can only guess at the motives, but I suspect it is a way to make them 'exotic' from the viewpoint of western cultures. I rather like it, and it seems to...

Unless 'plan' is here defined differently than I would image, aren't fantasy stories involving a quest essentially using 'plans'? The Hobbit--the opening chapter shows fifteen characters discussing a plan (to recapture the mountain stronghold from the dragon who had taken it over)...

For me, learning and applying structure helped quite a lot. I don’t think I could have completed my rough draft (what I call a ‘half-draft’) without it. You will likely have to experiment a little to figure out what method(s) work for you. Any suggestion that you must rigidly or slavishly...

For human and humanoid characters, this makes sense more often than not. But for a three-million old malignant entity from Andromeda, a name like 'Bob' or 'Sue' will come off as comedy or farce.

I think you are the only one who can answer this question. I can safely say that I am one-hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction. I would never finish anything if I worked on four projects at once. Also, I don't get distracted by new ideas for stories because they are exceedingly...

I suppose I would use a limited-third POV, and do every chapter (or scene) from one of the three POVs, trying to make sure they are relatively balanced (in terms of word count) between them. But this also means tackling three fully developed character arcs. I'm doing something a little similar...