Switch It Up and Flip It

Earlier this year I started the process of rewriting all of my old works, starting at the very beginning, with my first ever published book, Naughty List. It has been an eye-opening experience to reread and rewrite these books. Naughty List will be celebrating its sixteen birthday this year. It’s amazing to see how much I’ve changed, how much my writing has changed, how much the industry has changed, and how much even the world has changed in those sixteen years.

As part of this rewriting process, I am expanding and deepening the conflict in these stories. When I originally wrote these books, I often had word count limitations I had to remain within. Naughty List was written for a submission call that required all works to be fifteen thousand words or less. But now that I’m self-publishing these works, I have the freedom to decide how long they are, how deep and rich the world is, how much conflict I want to add. It’s all up to me.

And the new depth, and more words, has meant adding new scenes to these books. Which for books that were already written, has proven to be more difficult than I realized it would be. Unlike with my normal writing process, where the perimeters are wide and open, these scenes are a little like writing in a box. I don’t have the room to move around, to spread my elbows out or uncross my knees. I have to create something within the walls that have already been determined. And I’m not ashamed to admit that it has been difficult for me.

Last week I was struggling with just one of these scenes. I knew what needed to happen, I knew what my characters were feeling and what needed to be shown, but the scene just wouldn’t flow. I couldn’t feel it. The pain, the longing, the yearning. Then I remembered an old trick that some people use to get unstuck. I switched the point of view of the scene.

At first I wasn’t sure if I was just switching the POV to get a better idea of what wasn’t working in the scene or if I really thought the other character had a more valuable viewpoint. Writers are always told to write a scene from the point of view of the character that has the most emotional stake. But in love scenes, or a breakup scenes, in that dark black moment or the reunion, both characters (or more than two depending on the story) have the same stakes, and they both can provide excellent depth to what is going on.

But once I started writing from the opposite character’s POV it was clear this was the perspective the scene needed. Switching the character opened up the emotion and suddenly it all made sense. Everything started flowing, and felt more natural.

If you’re struggling with a scene, try flipping the point of view character. Change the perspective to the other main character, flip it to a secondary character, even someone who is hardly in the room. It might just be what you need to get unstuck from the problem you are having. You’ll probably even be amazed by what you discover, and the dimension and depth that the scene will receive by flipping whose head it’s viewed from. Even if this new scene doesn’t end up being what the story needs, it gives you a fun bonus snippet to give away to readers or a great story to tell at your next critique group. No writing is ever a loss, if it gets you closer to writing the book of your dreams.

Going forward, whenever I get stuck, I’ll be switching it up and flipping the character, until all of these books are rewritten and ready to reenter the world with all their brand new conflict and brand new words. I hope you’ll join me.