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It’s a basic question: what is point of view and when do you use which point of view (or POV) in a novel?

Point of view refers to the basic outlook of your story, who narrates it.

First-person POV is firmly in a character’s head and told as if the character was narrating the action. It uses “I, me, my, myself” to indicate the narrator. Another description is to consider the placement of the story’s camera. Here, the camera sits firmly behind the character’s eyes. What the narrator thinks, the reader knows.

I am scared to try back handsprings at the football game tonight because I haven’t practiced enough.

Second-person POV uses “you” as it talks directly to the reader. It’s considered an awkward POV for most fiction, although there are, of course, exceptions. Camera placement here would be above the narrator’s head, pointed at the reader.

You will notice that the cheers will come out with a series of aerials, including back handsprings.

Third-person POV uses “he, she, it, they” pronouns as it refers to people and events. For this POV, we often speak of how “close” it is to the narrator. Close 3rd person POV puts the camera directly above the main character’s head and the camera placement tells the reader about what the character is paying attention to, what s/he is thinking. It is different from the 1st person POV, in that, we don’t know the narrator’s thoughts directly, but only indirectly. Sometimes, the Close 3rd gives information and the reader assumes the character thought that, said that or did that.

She hesitated, then with a burst of energy, she sprinted then threw herself forward into a back handspring.

The 3rd person POV can also draw back and be more detached, a recitation of a narrative from a more objective POV. The nicest thing is that this POV can change focal length at will, drawing back to describe a football field, then zooming in to the cheerleader as she does a back handspring and feels a muscle tear.

Her hands pushed off the grass and she catapulted over, a perfect back handspring, until—oh, no! Just as she landed, her ankle, it gave way. Pain shot through her foot and she collapsed.

Omniscient POV puts the camera on the ceiling looking down at everyone. It dips in and out of character’s thoughts and gives a comprehensive look at anything and everything the author wants. It’s difficult to pull off, too, because the reader is uncertain where to focus. If done badly, the reader may try to identify with too many characters and fail to really care about any of them.

Bored, her Mom glanced up from her text message in time to see Betty sprint for the handspring. Would this game never end?
Oh, no! Pain shot through Betty’s foot. Mom, she thought, Mom. Where are you?

Notice that this is a discussion of point of view, not verb tense. You can write in 1st person, present tense or 1st person, past tense:

1st person, present tense: I walk across the football field.
1st person, past tense: I walked across the football field.

The difference in verb tense definitely affects the overall tone and voice of your novel, so you should consider it, too, when you write.

Use this photo and try writing from the POV of the climber, from each of the observers, and from an omniscient POV. Each POV will include and

YA for Dummies and Prairie Storms

What sounds does a ground hog make? An earless lizard? A burrowing owl? Six months ago, I had no idea!

August, 2011 Release

Written by Deborah Halverson, founder of the writer’s advice website DearEditor.com, it has great advice on writing and publishing a teen novel. Deborah edited young adult and children’s fiction with Harcourt Children’s Books before picking up a pen to write the award-winning teen novels Honk If You Hate Me and Big Mouth.

The book is filled with great features, including:

• tips for targeting an audience, finding an angle that’ll make the story stand out, and writing a killer hook
• an extensive chapter on self-marketing to help writers move boldly into the realm of self-promotion–including book trailers
• techniques and exercises to shape plot, create teen-friendly characters, develop a convincingly youthful voice, write natural dialogue, and use setting to illuminate characters and plot
• 13 National Book Award winners and finalists, Newbery medalists and honorees, and other award-winning luminaries sharing their insights
• self-editing tools to transform a first draft into a strong submission-ready final draft
• insider tips for finding the right agent and/or editor and preparing a stand-out submission package
• answers to common book contract questions
• advice on self-publishing for YA writers

Read more at DearEditor.com

Finding Audio for a Book Trailer

To anticipate the release of Prairie Storms and celebrate the release of Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies, I’m debuting the Prairie Storms book trailer here today.

As the author of The Book Trailer Manual, I had some simple ideas on where to find public domain sounds and inexpensive audio tracks.

Sound Track. First, I knew that I wanted a sound track to back up the

The Forts series has found a new home!

More than likely you’re silently saying to yourself, “Oh that’s too bad. It must not have sold well. That poor, poor man.”

Let me assure you, that’s not the case – far from it in fact. The choice to continue the series with someone else was actually mine and mine alone. I never signed a contract for the series as a whole and after my experience with the first book there was no way that was going to happen. It wouldn’t have been the right choice.

I don’t see any reason to go into the details of the “breakup” (for now), but I will say that Forts is moving to greener, less frustrating, and far more professional pastures.

So what does this all mean to you?

Well, it means that the copy of “Fathers and Sons” you no doubt have sitting in a place of prominence on your bookshelf – or next to the crapper, either way. That copy of Forts will very soon be an out of print collectors edition!

That’s right, I said collectors edition and I meant it!

Will you be able to sell it on ebay to pay the rent? Eh, I wouldn’t count on that.

Will you be able to trade it for a pack of gum and maybe a Butterfinger bar? Yep, I think you might be able to pull that off.

Still, your copy is special now. It’s unique. If you sent it to me to get autographed it’s even more unique. You own it, some other people own it, but no one else is ever going to own it – ever. That’s pretty cool, no?

For those of you that haven’t got your hands on a copy yet, a second edition print version of the book will be arriving with a brand new cover before you know it. (Probably within the next few months in fact.) Along with the print version, the book will FINALLY make its way to e-readers everywhere! (This is long overdue.)

Oh, all those editing flubs the original publisher left in – you know, the ones that caused the sentence “This could have been a fantastic book if it had a good editor” to appear in nearly every review. Thankfully those are going to be fixed up for the second edition.

For those of you waiting patiently for “Liars and Thieves,” right around the time the second edition arrives book two is going to hit the shelves! It’s a heck of a lot later than was originally planned, but I’m hoping it’ll be worth the wait.

The nonsense of the past is in the past and hopefully that’s where it’s going to stay. Writing has officially picked up again on the final book in the series and I’m probably only 40,000 words or so from finishing it up.

Forts has a new home, and this is a good thing.

Scratch that and revise: Forts has a new home, and it’s a giggity-great thing.

It’s better than a steaming hot pizza and a tub of ice cream served to you by Rosario Dawson in a French maid’s outfit.

Okay, maybe it’s not that good…

It’s still pretty fantastic though.

Steven

Lauren Appelwick, Publicity

Robert M. Geraci is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College. In his new book Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, he examines the “cyber-theology” which suggests we might one day upload our minds into robots or cyberspace and live forever. Drawing on interviews with roboticists, AI researchers, Second Life devotees, and others, Geraci reveals that the idea of Apocalyptic AI is strikingly similar to Judeo-Christian apocalyptic traditions. Here, he shares 10 ways World of Warcraft, one virtual reality game, could help us survive the end of the world as we know it.

1. The dangers will be minimal…level 80 priests can provide universal health care.
President Obama plans to insure 32 million more Americans than are currently protected; but the area of effect healing spells of priests can jump from one person to another, healing them as they become sick and injured without need for hospital visits, insurance payments, etc. This approach to medical treatment has obvious benefits over the constant paperwork that federally mandated insurance will require.

2. When aliens come to take over the planet, they’ll get addicted to WoW and forget what they were doing.
Instead of world domination, aliens will hope to complete all four daily cooking quests for The Rokk. After they’ve already eaten Emeril, they’ll spice up their life with Super Hot Stew and realize that people don’t taste all that good after all.

3. Who needs indoor plumbing? You’re already used to peeing into bottles.
Your guild’s “friendly” three day race to level 80 has given you all the continence you need…and the willingness to do what you must when the time comes.

4. After countless hours of farming for minerals, herbs and animal hides, you’re well prepared for life after subprime mortgages collapse the economy.
Let’s face it, the economy is in shambles and no one knows when it will recover. On the other hand, while toxic mortgage securities provide neither housing nor security, a proper skinner can ensure that all the local children stay warm through the winter.

5. Gnomish engineers will program the robots to like you (though they can’t guarantee proper functioning).
It’s not the Gnomes’ fault that Skynet became self-aware…they didn’t think it would defend that off switch so vociferously! And to compensate, they’ll happily upload your mind into one of their inventions so that you can join the robots in their post-apocalyptic future.

6. As the value of the dollar declines, gold and mithril will remain safe investments.
Gold will shine through the darkest of times and foreign governments will always be content to buy it from you at the auction house.

7. Your family pet can take aggro for you while you lay a fire trap to destroy a zombie mob.
A lifetime of treats and petting repaid in one priceless moment.

8. Your potions of underwater breathing will let you grab the a