A Wider View

Ever since we moved into this new house, I’ve been on a little bit of a decorating kick. Part of it might be a driving need to make this place feel like home, even though we are far away from everything we know and everyone we love. But I think another part is very much a cycle of style.

I feel myself (and my family) moving away from colors that are easy and “trendy” and moving into ones that are bright and bold. Maybe it’s because we just did a brave, bold thing, and it’s a bit of a hangover from living this new life. I’m not sure. But I find myself gravitating toward color and patterns and other new ideas that I might not have ever considered in the house where everything was normal and comfortable and…the same as it had been since we built that home.

Then the other day, my kids and I cleaned out the garage and finished unpacking a number of our remaining boxes (the ones not in storage) and as we did we found bits and pieces of our past. Things we’ve collected on vacations or that we’ve just simply loved. And we got them out because in our life of uncertainty, we have a strong need to have little reminders of the familiar and the happy things from before.

And in doing so, I realized something. Yes, we’re thinking bold and bright, changing up colors and ideas, but as I lined the tops of our kitchen cabinets with bottles of sand and sea shells we have collected from all over the world, I realized that color aside, the core of our style, the core of our family, is very much the same.

Turns out, my fairy collection goes well with our new beach-esque color scheme, and our art pieces still move us to smiles. So while our style has evolved and cycled in a big way, we are still who we were before. Just maybe more open, more conscious, and with a bigger, wider view of things.

And I think maybe that is exactly the point.

But, um, I’m still looking for a desk for my office, so if you have a great tip on where I should look, I’d love to know.

Omniscient or head-hopping? What’s the difference?

The other day, after seeing a number of publishers calling for short romance stories, I decided to dig out some of my old favorites for some style refreshing. (Or brain stimulating. You know how it is.) As I read a few of the short, sweet stories, I found myself coming to a conclusion I didn’t know I needed to reach.

There was a time when I couldn’t read these stories, or books by certain authors, because of my own mounting frustration with changes in point of view. But now, I read these books again, with a more experienced, more objective eye. And I realized that what I believed was head-hopping (in this case) was actually an omniscient point of view, and it was done well.

But, you ask, what’s the difference?

My definition:

An omniscient point of view is one that appears to the reader as an entire picture. It gives readers the power to see through the eyes of a number of different characters, all during the same scene. Like watching a show on TV. But because we are not strictly in the head of one character, each of these characters is able to keep secrets from the audience, where in a tighter, closer point of view, that would be much more difficult.

Head hopping is taking that tighter, closer point of view (be it close-third or first) and giving voice to more than one character in a single scene. This tends to be disorienting, because it’s like looking at the same scene from several different angles, all at once.

It’s a very technical, hard to understand concept, and an extremely difficult skill for most writers to master. Personally, I prefer to avoid writing in omniscient simply because it is SO HARD to get right. (And also, that’s not how I write.)

So in going back and rereading these books that have been slowly gathering dust, I remembered that there really is a place for omniscient, and that I really enjoy reading it when it’s done well.

What about you? What recent reading discoveries have you made?