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Head Over to Whickber Street for GO Content

Scribblers of Soho is currently closed in order to refocus on fiction and prose of all kinds, however, your favorite new and old Good Omens content is available with the Whickber Street Writers Association. The new group is focused on supporting fellow writers with the creation of Good Omens Content (with the potential for expanding into the further reaches of fiction). Head over to their blog @whickberstreetwriters. Make sure you like and follow for all your favorite Good Omens content!

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A Deeper Dive into First Person POV

by @adeptdragonfruit54

What is First person POV more specifically?

First-person perspective is a storytelling technique that narrates the story from the POV of a single character, usually the protagonist but sometimes it can be a side character linked to the protagonist. If it’s the protagonist telling the story, you’ll see the pronoun “I.”  In this form of storytelling, the story unfolds through the eyes, internal thoughts, and emotions of the “I” narrator. It’s a very intimate form of storytelling that lets the character speak directly to the reader or even lets the reader feel that they are the narrator. In the “I” form of storytelling, the reader is looking through the eyes of the protagonist directly and experiencing everything without the filter of the author as narrator.

For example:

Consider the last scene in Season 2 of Good Omens on Amazon Prime when Aziraphale turns his head away from Crowley to hide his emotions/tears. Let’s write that in first person and then third person.

First person POV Aziraphale:  “You idiot, we could have been us,” Crowley said to me. Words jammed in my throat and creased my brow as I looked my companion of many long years. A half motion toward him and a half motion away repeated several times indecisively made my body rock back and forth. Hot tears welled in my eyes. Finally, the waves of emotion became too unbearable. I turned my face away quickly to stifle the cry of pain that threaten to break from my throat as a single tear rolled from the corner of my eye. But as quickly as the tear could slip from my eye, I heard Crowley’s light footsteps cross the space between us and felt him grab the lapels of my jacket.  And then his mouth was on mine, hot and demanding an answer; demanding that I understand what he was trying to say.

Third Person POV:  “You idiot, we could have been us,” said Crowley. He paused a moment, hoping for some affirmative response, or any response from the angel.  Aziraphale looked at him with a creased brow, his shoulders rocking first toward the demon and then away as if undecided which way to move. Crowley watched this indecisive little movement, hoping against hope that his angel would decide to move to him in the end, but his hopes were dashed when Aziraphale simply turned his head away and refused to look at him further or to speak. Then, in one final, desperate act, Crowley closed the space between them.  He latched onto Aziraphale’s collar and kissed him, trying to communicate all his love and need and desperation into that one single human act. He demanded with his lips that Aziraphale understand everything that words had failed to convey. He hoped for a Vavoom.

Advantages of first person

The most obvious advantage of using first person POV is that it establishes an immediate rapport between the reader and the narrator and lets the reader form a deep connection with the character.  You can really explore a character’s growth and viewpoints throughout a story using this perspective.  Second, it can lend the story credibility which if you’re going for the angle of an unreliable narrator can be useful for misdirection. The trust between a first-person narrator and reader can be built by using a narrator who lies and then later broken when the truth is revealed.  Another big advantage of narrating in the first person is that you can express an opinion.  A great example of this is To Kill a Mockingbird.  The narrator is six-year-old Scout and the opinions being explored are bias and racial prejudice in the American south. Finally, as a writer, you can also use multiple first person POVs to express different character views and opinions and tell the story from many viewpoints. This can be an interesting tool for building intrigue in the story if each person telling it only knows part of the story at any given moment.

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Sharing an educational article written by one of our more experienced Scribblers for any new or hopeful writers out there. This is the first in a series on POV

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An Overview of Point of View in Writing

by @adeptdragonfruit54

What is point of view and why is it important?

Simply put, point of view is the lens through which you tell your story. It’s the voice of the story and your perspective character.  It’s important because the POV you tell the story from will impact the details available to your reader and the reliability of the narrator among other things. “No decision you make will impact the shape and texture of your story more than your choice of Point of View,” says editor Dave Lambert. Surprisingly, it can also be one of the trickier skills to master for a new or inexperienced writer. A common problem is an inconsistent POV. You don’t have to stick with a single POV throughout a story, but if you’re new to writing, sometimes it’s better to stick with one POV until you have a little more experience under your belt. Another problem I’ve seen is using an incorrect POV for the story being told.  I’ll give you an example of this once we dig into the different types of POV below. So, what are the different types of POV?

Primarily, there are three types of POV. We’ll start with a basic overview in this article and then go into each, in depth, in subsequent articles.

First Person POV:

First person POV uses personal pronouns like “I,” “me,” “we,” and “us.” Stories written in the first person are personal narratives where the protagonist is telling their story or a side character is telling the protagonist’s story. Ie. Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games is written in with first person from the POV of the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen.

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A little research for writers who want to be authentic in their Aziracrow smut

Haha, so I’ve been saying I’m going to write something like this forever, and then yesterday my housemate found that someone beat me to it.

Required reading, friends! So you don’t screw it up if you’re writing fanfic – and so you can suffer along with me if you’re reading it.

My contribution to the smut talk behind the cut. XD (And also one of my Craig-writing friend’s finest moments.) So strap in for –

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