#WriteTip - @HoustonHavens Gives Tips on How To Master the Deep POV, along with an #erotic excerpt from her #SciFiRom #NewRelease
/It's been a while since Houston visited. She's quite tied up (pun-intended) with the promotion of her erotic romance new release, but she nonetheless spared the time to give me a writing tip. The fourth book in her Psychic Menage series just came out, and if you're a fan of naughty sexiness that crosses genre lines, scroll beyond her advice to read the smoking hot excerpt.
Mastering the Deep POV
by Houston Havens
One of the most important writing tips I can offer is to learn writing DEEP Point Of View with your two main character in any novel. To master that technique means you understand - Deep Point Of View is more than just writing a character's thoughts.
You'll know when you've accomplished mastering deep POV because you'll have awesome comments in your reviews about how the reader "felt" so "in-tuned" or "in love" or "I felt the character's pain as if it were my own" type remarks.
When you "get" the secrets on how to use DEEP POV through descriptions AND thoughts - you'll have hooked the readers' imagination and their hearts. They will not put your book down.
Deep POV used correctly makes the reader identify with the character even if she's never experienced in her life what is happening in the heroine's life.
Your well-crafted words of emotions and descriptions can draw them a vivid picture and drop them into the depth of the character 's emotions through thought and actions.
Deep POV isn't just typing down how the character is feeling about something. It's showing AND telling through description as well.
A good description deep in the emotions of your character will whisk your reader from her world into the character's, it will grab your reader's heart and her own emotions and not let go until the end of the novel. That's how deep you have to get. If your heroine is crying...the reader should be crying too.
The secret in reaching this depth is not easy...it will require you dig deep into your own emotions (something you might not want to do) to discover your heroine's pain. IF you do it right your readers will be thinking about those characters long after they finished the story and they'll be waiting at the edge of their seats for the next book.
Here is a sample from my book Sinful Surrender Book one of my Psychic Ménage Series
Twenty minutes later, they strolled back into camp. Fay's gaze found Mr. tall, dark, and handsome sitting on the ground near the fire with his back supported against a log, one leg stretched out in front of him. His other leg was crooked, foot flat on the ground, knee raised with his arm draped across it in a lazy hang. He looked comfortable and appeared to be enjoying a rich aromatic drink. He looked their way and held up his tin cup in greeting.
"Coffee!" Arlo strolled to a log near the fire and grabbed a cup. Squatting down, he tipped the cup against a taller can sitting in the embers of a smokeless flame. He poured a black liquid into the tin. "I hope you made enough for all of us."
Drakker squinted his steel-blue eyes. His right eyebrow arched, and his jaw clamped in a hard flex. The cool, calm exterior she had observed for most of the day looked ready to crumble. So, there is a sensitive side to this quiet man. How interesting.
Ok, so the italicized sentence is your standard descriptive POV. It's telling you what the heroine's feeling about what she saw. Its purpose is to let the readers know they're in a female's POV.
Now, the bold-italicized portion is the deep POV of the heroine's thoughts. The reader is hearing her thoughts (Standard deep POV)
But did you notice the first two (bolded) opening sentences of this paragraph? Since this chapter is clearly in the female's POV I couldn't head-hop into the hero's thoughts ... yet because I only have 100,000 words to a novel, every word I write must pull at my readers and reveal all my character. So, I had to find a way to draw the readers into her deep POV yet show how the male in this scene [in this cast - Drakker] was 'feeling' so the readers could begin to identify with him. I had to find a way to show his DEEP POV through description and dialogue rather than through thoughts as I used with the main POV character, and I had to do this without head hopping.
If you read the rest below you will see how I foreshadow Drakker's deep POV without over-shadowing the Main character's deep POV in this chapter.
In an accusatory tone, Drakker asked Arlo, "Why would you assume I wouldn't?" At Arlo's shrug, Drakker got up and tossed the last of his coffee out. He rinsed his cup in a large pot next to the fire and refilled it with the black liquid. Leaning over the fire, he handed the cup to her. "Have a seat and try some."
Seeing the exasperation in his eyes, she chose to obey and sat before taking a sip. Oh my God! She wanted to spit. It was bitter and foul tasting. She swallowed hard.
Turning back to Arlo, Drakker griped, "That's the one thing about you that irks me. Why do you always assume the worst of me? I could understand it if I were guilty of being incompetent or always forgetting something, but I'm not."
Arlo waved Drakker's temper down. "That's not what I meant. You know that."
"Yeah, well anyone listening doesn't know that." He jutted his hand out to indicate Fay was the anyone he was talking about. "It gives the wrong impression, and you're always saying shit like that. It irritates me."
Arlo gave Fay a devilish wink before looking back at Drakker. "You'll live."
"You might not." Drakker strode across camp and propped his foot on a stump...
I hope this sample showed you how to layer your characters POV's, and showed you how you as a writer can write a full story by showing deep pov's through thoughts of the main POV character yet reveal another character's POV, even deep POV, through description and dialogue.
Once you learn how to use POV's through thought, actions, dialogue, and description you'll create a story with such depth your readers will never forget the story or the "like real people" characters they fell in love with.
Good luck and happy writing!
Hugs,
Houston
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Intimate Betrayal
PSYCHIC MÉNAGE: BOOK 4
by Houston Havens
Kindise Wyatt escapes her Star Rider captor and returns to Earth. With the help of a sexy Old World Mole and his mysterious friend, she's determined to uncover the whereabouts of her lover. Instead, she finds nothing but betrayal and her captor in pursuit.
On the lam after betraying his evil ruler, ex-Dirt Dweller and drifter Jaden Valenti confirms his name is on a hit list. Finding what he believes will be safety amongst the Airbornes, he recreates himself and hides his past until trouble walks back into his life in the name of Kindise Wyatt, the woman he was ordered to assassinate and didn't
.Due to the obsessions of a Fae woman Sori gave up his hard-earned royal title and left his homeland of Elfame. Love is the furthest thing from his mind until he is sent in Jaden's place to pick-up some cargo...human cargo in the form Kindise Wyatt. He feels the Fae magnetism of his soulmate in her. Problem is; she's in love with someone else.
Will Jaden fulfill his orders to kill Kindise and get his name removed from the list, or will his secret be exposed and betray the friendship he has with Sori? Does Sori help Kindise find her lover, or will a love between them have a chance to flourish before a fatal attraction and a determined captor rip their love asunder? Will Kindise find true love or will betrayals at every turn crush the fight out of her? Can she find her inner strengths to keep fighting and lead The Freedom Fighters to defeat the Dirt Dweller elites, once and for all?
Excerpt (Mature Audiences Only)
"Oh God--"
"Mmm, so you like that." He set her butt back on the railing as he continued his steamy kisses while moving his hands in a seductive path up her back, enticing her to go with the desires heating up between them.
"Yes." She returned his kisses with the same hunger and devotion she felt in his. He groaned in obvious pleasure, deepening the passion in his touch. She moaned at the withdrawal of his mouth from hers.
He lovingly whispered against her lips. "One look and I wanted you." He glided his smooth hands up under the skirt of her dress, tracing a rakish path up the outside of her full but firm thighs until she released a wistful cry. His intoxicating scent teased and tempted as he leaned into her. "One look and I wanted to make you mine. Forever."
He found her mouth again, kissing her with a heat and yearning she never dreamed a man was capable of possessing let alone expressing. A kiss so gentle yet so intense her own buried needs sparked, bursting wide open, demanding to be met right now. It was a burning lust she didn't know lingered inside her. Once again, she entwined her arms behind his neck, pulling him closer, kissing him with her own sultry desires, before murmuring, "I want you too."
"How badly?" His hands gripped her rounded hips and pulled her crouch against his erection. She gasped. His eyes shined with the devil's light as he rubbed the inches of his cock against her. "Do you want me this much?"
"Yes." She breathed in heavy pants as she wrapped her legs higher around his back, encouraging him to thrust his cock against her pussy again.
About Houston Havens
Erotic romance author Houston Havens, a former successful model enjoying an adventurous jet-set lifestyle, intrigues her readers with a mix of the past, present, and future, and sexy blends of futuristic science fiction, paranormal fantasy, and western romance, always with love everlasting. A tenacious Irish lass filled with passion and mystery hopes her sultry stories will entertain and fascinate those who dare to take the journey. She’s also a social media junkie with an award winning blog. http://houstonhavens.com
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