From a Certain Point of View

You're not alone, diane. I don't get it either. I understand tenses, but not the POV shifting. I don't notice it while reading or writing. What you don't know can't hurt you, right?

This has been a very interesting thread.

 

hmmm, yes. POV. Many beginning writers use first person POV--in fact, it's the norm for most people to use it to start with. Or, at least, that's what my professors told me. The problem is, that while it *looks* easy to use, it's also the easiest to screw up. Some writers prefer it because it enables them to have a very close perspective and direct access to the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Probably the least used is second person. Well, unless you're reading a Choose your own Adventure story! (Hm, interesting concept. A Star Wars CYOA)

Third person has its own perils, head-hopping being the most common. Most novels are written in third person limited POV; the use of third person omnicient went out with the Victorians. However, the omnicient POV can be very effective, when used correctly. And when using it, it's best to stick with two or three POVs. Leave the minor characters out of it. By sticking using just the main characters, a writer can manage to keep the focus on the important stuff in a story. If one uses a minor character frequently, the focus shifts to said character. I would say that writers should be cautious in the use of omnicience, because it can confuse the reader. Our aim as writers should be not only to tell stories, but to tell them in a clear, concise, and unobtrusive manner, so that the *story* rather than the writing shines through.

BrightFeather (who's got a BA in English Creative Writing Fiction)

 

Aww, Diane! You're not color-blind! And the rest us definitely don't have perfect vision. (I, for one, have contacts.) Don't feel bad! We all see things in different ways.

Even though you said not to, I'll try to take a swing at explaining the differences among the three examples for you. Hopefully things will clear up a little bit.

Third Person Limited (Single POV)

Anakin listened to her plan for the baby?s room on Naboo. The sound of her voice took his breath away. How much he had missed her! But none of that mattered now. He was home, she was here, and they were happy.

This paragraph shows that Anakin is the narrator of the passage. We, the readers, are inside of his head, and we learn what he's thinking. We learn how Padme's voice affects him and how much he missed her while he was away. The exclamation point makes the sentence more personal, more like a thought that's not consciously thought. (If that makes any sense.)

?You are so beautiful,? he said.

Padmé turned to face him. She stopped brushing her hair. Then she smiled, a mischievous little grin. ?It?s only because I?m so in love.?

We are still experiencing the scene from Anakin's perspective only. Padme's thoughts are not mentioned. The narrative goes only as far as Anakin can actually see - her mischievous smile.

?No,? he insisted. ?It?s because I?m so in love with you.?

Her mouth dropped open, and her brow furrowed. Playfully, she feigned indignation. ?So love has blinded you??

Again, we aren't given any more information than what Anakin sees. We don't get any of Padme's thoughts, just her outward reactions.

Anakin chuckled, and flushed. He should have known better than to play words games with her. She was a politician, after all. ?Well,? he admitted with a chagrined frown, ?that?s not exactly what I meant.?

Now we get back inside Anakin's mind and learn what his inward thoughts and reactions are to Padme's spoken question.

She laughed lightly. ?But it?s probably true.?

Third Person Limited (Shifting POV)

Anakin listened to her plan for the baby?s room on Naboo. The sound of her voice took his breath away. How much he had missed her! But none of that mattered now. He was home, she was here, and they were happy.

?You are so beautiful,? he said.

Padmé turned to face him. She stopped brushing her hair. Then she smiled, a mischievous little grin. ?It?s only because I?m so in love.?

?No,? he insisted. ?It?s because I?m so in love with you.?

This much is exactly the same as above, from Anakin's perspective. You may be thinking, 'So what's the difference?' Well, from here on the telling of the scene changes a little.

She still couldn?t believe he was really home. It had been so long! And it was like nothing had changed. His presence was still? infectious. Just being around him made her heart race and her hands tremble. She prayed this feeling would never end. Playfully, she feigned indignation. ?So love has blinded you??

Now the perspective has switched. We are now in Padme's mind. Anakin, though a Jedi, would not know all of her thoughts, so we are seeing something that Anakin cannnot, something that only Padme can. Therefore the telling of the scene has switched to Padme's perspective. We now get her thoughts and reactions to Anakin's presence.

Anakin chuckled, and flushed. He should have known better than to play words games with her. She was a politician, after all. ?Well,? he admitted with a chagrined frown, ?that?s not exactly what I meant.?

She laughed lightly. ?But it?s probably true.?

Now the scene has switched back to Anakin's perspective. We're in his mind now, experiencing his thoughts and reactions to Padme.

Omniscient (Single POV)

Anakin listened to his wife?s plan for the baby?s room on Naboo. The sound of her voice took his breath away. He had missed her so much. But none of that mattered to him now. He was home, she was here, and th

 

roo:


Darth_Lex: Wonderful examples! I have a hard time with third person omniscient and it is, by far, my least favorite POV. Your explanation was very helpful.

 

Thanks!

Your explanation of the POV examples is dead on. That is exactly what I was hoping to convey in the differences between the versions.

And you're right, "distance" is a good word to use to described Omniscient narration. We may get to see and know everything, but we're not actually in the characters' heads. We're distant from them - which often feels like a loss compared to the intimacy that Limited POV can provide.

 

I sometimes think of the different POVs in camera angles. Someone earlier mentioned "over the shoulder," and I think that really helps.

First person: The narrator is a character holding the camera and documenting his own life. You see and hear the world through this person's camera lens and microphone.

Second person: The narrator is holding the camera and directing only one character. That's where the "You stop and smell the roses" type comments come in. The director is telling the character what he's thinking, feeling, how he's reacting.

Third person - Limited: The narrator is directly behind someone's shoulder at all times. You're seeing things from the character's POV, but having the cameraman be a separate person lets the camera swing over behind someone else's shoulder when necessary. There's more freedom of movement.

Third person - Omniscient: The narrator is not involved at all in the action. He's holding the camera just far enough away so that everyone can fit into the shot, but you can still see the important details of their faces, or the setting, etc. The camera never goes in close enough to be just over the shoulder.


For my part, I think it's important to understand the differences, because they can really have an effect on how you convey certain aspects of your story. Once you've got that down, I say it's a free-for-all. Maybe it works better to be consistent with a certain style of POV within each chapter. Or maybe you're going for the disjointed effect, so you skip around a lot within a chapter. Or maybe the entire book is the narrator directing the character (which I personally think would be very cool to read ).

 

Okay I spotted one thing that highlights my confusion and I put it in italics. In the Single limited POV, Padme says...

Her mouth dropped open, and her brow furrowed. Playfully, she feigned indignation. ?So love has blinded you??

Wouldn't feigned be a POV change? How could Anakin know that she was only feigning?

See, this is what I mean. I know it's a subtle thing but perhaps this is why it can be confusing to some. There seems to me to be a whole range of black through grey to white in terms of POVs. Some things are very obvious such as the paragraph of Padme's thoughts in the shifting POV example (even I got that one ) and others are not.

Where there are grey areas are probably the most confusing and contentious - one person sees a shifting POV whereas another might see a single POV.

 

Lex and Nienna, thanks for the great examples. Saved me some work

Diane, if I were writing Anakin and Padme, I would assume he could tell when his wife was "pretending." So no, in this instance it's not a POV shift. It can be obvious to a person when someone is feigning an emotion.

If I were writing two complete strangers in the same scene, I would probably not make that same assumption, so in that case it could be a POV shift - if in my mind I wanted the observer to be ignorant of the "pretending" yet I revealed it while in Limited 3rd person POV.

Make sense?

 

I think Anakin could tell her mindset quite easily, in the context of the scene from ROTS. As Padmé speaks those lines onscreen, everyone watching knows she?s just messing with him. It?s revealed in her facial expression and her tone of voice, most obviously. So Anakin would know she?s only teasing too.

The only question is how to portray that in prose from Anakin?s POV. I suppose it?s a matter of degree. But something like ?So love has blinded you?? she asked in a teasing tone of voice with a sly smile is just over the top. Something like ?So love has blinded you?? she teased is better, but this lacks any clues as to how Anakin feels about being teased. Words like ?playful? and ?feign? in the example, though, give us insight not only into how Anakin is perceiving Padmé, but into his reactions to her as well ? we know he?s enjoying her poking fun at him. That?s one of the wonderful tricks about characterization in internal monologue in Limited POV, and a very subtle form of ?show don?t tell? to reveal Anakin?s feelings for her.

 

Words like ?playful? and ?feign? in the example, though, give us insight not only into how Anakin is perceiving Padmé, but into his reactions to her as well ? we know he?s enjoying her poking fun at him. That?s one of the wonderful tricks about characterization in internal monologue in Limited POV, and a very subtle form of ?show don?t tell? to reveal Anakin?s feelings for her.

Very interesting. I was a little iffy on the 'feigning' thing like Diane, but now I understand. I never thought about that as a way to show and not tell. I like to think that I understand the basics of the 'show, don't tell' rule, but I don't feel like I have a complete handle on it, if you know what I mean. I think a lightbulb just went on.

 

Just wanted to pop in and say how much I'm enjoying this thread so far, even if I haven't anything helpful to say yet. Great idea, Kia. POV can definitely be a tricky issue, so I think a thread devoted to it will be very helpful. I love the examples and explanations that have been provided so far.

 

I think what someone said earlier about 3rd Person Limited being the 'natural' POV for fanfic is pretty much right - with the possible exception of OCs.

With a canon character, the big problem with writing first-person narrative is that if you don't hit their character spot-on people will complain. We know how our canon characters should act, and it's easy to spot something jarring even in 3rd person. In 1st, it takes a lot of hard work, IMHO, to carry off a canon character successfully.

With OCs, for me at any rate, it's much easier to think yourself into their head - because you made them up. As a bonus, nobody can claim you got the characterisation 'wrong'. Some of the best fics I've read have been first-person OC.

My two credits. I'll definitely be following this.

 

Yes, I have to agree with JediNemesis about first person, even though I'm currently writing a fic from Obi-Wan's first person POV! The main challenge I've noticed is that every word on the page has to sound like Obi-Wan, not just the dialogue, because the reader is actually in his head. It makes the fic just a little more challenging--and interesting to write. However, sometimes it can be daunting. Really, though, I'm enjoying the effect. It makes the story more immediate and personal because of the closeness to Obi-Wan, the viewpoint character.

But it's certainly not easy.

 

I have a question for this thread. What about switching POVs in the middle of a fic? I mean, for this, third person limited to third person omniscient and then back. There are some scenes where there's a lot of action and I don't want to focus on just one character, but the majority of the story is best told from a single (rotating) POV. To do a series of 3rd-limited in the action parts would require several rapid shifts.

Is that a no-no, or does it depend on the story/writer/plot?

 

I tend to not put much thought into POV, beyond 1st or 3rd. However, one of the most intense fics I've ever read was in 2nd person.

I tend to have trouble with having the main character in a 1st person fic becomes a Mary Sue - because when you're writing in that person, you tend to insert yourself. Any tips?

 

Mary-Sue and self insertion are different things. If all that's happening is that the shared traits of the writer and the character are coming out (particularly if it's a canon character) then I don't see that as a problem at all. The fact is that every writer brings something of herself or himself to any work that s/he writes, so one person's version of the character will differ slightly from another's.

I would think just staying as true as possible to the character's canon behaviors and thought patterns, wherever appropriate, would keep the problem away. A canon character can't be a Sue unless s/he is so horribly out of character that s/he is just the author with a different name and costume (they can be badly written, but that's still not the same.) So focusing on the character's known patterns of behavior, speech, and thought would solve it.

For original characters, then it's a little trickier. What I try to do is come up with a detailed character profile, as detailed as could be found for some canon characters, make sure the profile isn't bad, and then stick to that, since there isn't any canon to go by apart from what is introduced by the author. Still, if the OC is, say, Jedi of the Old Order, then that's additional "canon behavior" to work with, altered for the character as needed. (Then again, I work with 3rd limited a lot.)

I wouldn't think that Sue dangers are much worse with 1st person than 3rd person limited, except that everything will be filtered through the character's thoughts and thus actions that the character believes in and would justify are narrated as positive and what s/he doesn't approve of is narrated as negative, more strongly than with 3rd.

Some degree of self-insertion is normal; as long as it's not annoying to readers or enough to make the character seem out of place (or OOC for canon characters) it's nothing to worry about, IMHO.

 

Ok, I'm a little slow here grasping the two differences, though the explanation itself is clear enough. Maybe I need some examples...?

So if in your story you write...

(person A talking)
"you only think you're a dummy," he said kindly.

"hey, hey, you didn't say what exactly I am, if not a dummy," Person B scratched his head in confusion. It was so like A to say such open-ended things, maybe A was being kind and really thought that, but phrased it that way to avoid hurting B.

Person A saw the confusion in Person B's eyes and thought, oh oh, I hurt her feelings. Now she thinks I believe she is stupid, when I only meant that she was the only one who seemed to think so. I don't think she's stupid, only confused.

Now, is that 3rd Limited or Omniscent?

You may call me a dummy.

 

First of all, this is quite an excellent thread! POV is sometimes a really hard thing to master. What I do is mostly third person limited, but then I switch off viewpoints between several characters. I put a break like this:

-------

in when I switch POV. Of course, sometimes I start writing omniscient (sp?) and then a beta has to catch it for me.

I tend to not put much thought into POV, beyond 1st or 3rd. However, one of the most intense fics I've ever read was in 2nd person.

I tend to have trouble with having the main character in a 1st person fic becomes a Mary Sue - because when you're writing in that person, you tend to insert yourself. Any tips?


Well, first of all, I'm not sure my advice will be of any help to you, but I'm going to try. I try to figure out the character's motivations and wants- why they are there, what they are feeling, how this fits into their plots, etc. Then the logical progression is next, of course, thoughts. It's all about trying to *think* like the character. And a certain degree of self-insertion is natural, I think. You have to have empathy with the characters, and in order to do that, you have to insert yourself in their shoes.

 

Valairy_Scot: Not a dummy! Not at all. It sounds like 3d Limited, and that you switched POVs.

maybe A was being kind and really thought that, but phrased it that way to avoid hurting B

To me, that sounds like 3d Limited - it's what Person B (we'll call her Banana) is thinking. But if the narrator knew that Person A (for Apple) was just being kind, then had I written it, I would've shown that. Maybe something like:

It was so like Apple to say such open-ended things, and so Banana thought maybe Apple was only being kind.

She was right. Apple thought Banana was missing her peel, but she didn't want to hurt Banana's feelings.

Hopefully this helps the camera analogy: Say you've got Apple and Banana. If you have an over-the-shoulder shot for Apple, it's much easier to hear her thoughts - more importantly, you hear in her own words and tone of voice how much of a dummy Banana is.

If you pull back with the camera, and you have both Apple and Banana in the shot, the microphone is further away as well. Even if it's a strong one, it's not going to pick up all the little mumblings that Apple's making under her breath. So while the director knows exactly what Apple's thinking, his narration is still going to be outside her head. Editing, camera angles, lighting - he uses all of these techniques to get across what she's thinking, because she herself can express her thoughts only through spoken dialogue.

AlisonC:

I think if you can pull it off, go for it. I wonder if a lot of authors do that. It makes perfect sense to switch between limited POVs from chapter to chapter. But then you look at the ROTS novel - it jumps all over the place, from 3d Limited to 3d Omniscient to 2d, and the effect is incredible.

I actually thought about this thread yesterday when I was writing, because I switched from one character's limited POV to another's right in the middle of a post. But to smooth things over by "fixing" it didn't give me the tone I wanted. So the switching didn't bother me much.

Then again, what others will think of it is something to consider as well.

 

Since I also have POV problems as a writer, I can't really give you advice. As a reader, however, as long as your POV switches are smooth, it should be okay. Also I know a lot of people who change the POVs when they switch scenes. Telling a whole long story from one POV would probably be very hard to do...

I've been trying to be more aware of POV switches but when you've got a complicated story and your main characters aren't in some of the scenes, there is nothing to do but have POV switches.

 

Okay, I feel better. I don't think I have much choice but to do 3rd omniscient for half of the next chapter, because I have several protagonists in the same spot doing slightly different things - at the same time, all quickly. 3rd limited worked best when they were mostly split up, or all in tandem as far as goals went, but now that there's about to be a nasty battle with multiple small goals it won't work as well.

 

Alison: I agree with Diane. As long as your transitions are smooth you can switch, just be sure to have someone check it for you. Transitions that feel "write" to you may seem awkward to a reader who has no knowledge of the characters' upcoming actions/interactions.


To All: I will be back with the first workshop early next week.

 

wow, just the reason i came here and joined, what a great community.

I want to shift but am having difficulty shifting between 3rd ltd and ist

Im looking for any advice at all, and any critques, cheers guys,

My example is below

http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=22648882&brd=10477

 

Welcome, bobdonny

There are no hard and fast rules on what you can or can't do on POV. The biggest rule is don't blow your readers' minds Stover switched between second and third person quite effectively in ROTS. It gave the reader the feeling of being immersed in the characters. So I don't see why you can't do it with first/third.

Since we try to refain in Resource from advertising our fics but more or less stick to dicussing the writing craft perhaps you have specific questions or concerns, rather than posting a link.

 

not really any specific questions, just trying to learn a bit more. Lot of good people put up many good references to where it is used effectively, im just wondering where the line can be drawn...is there a line.

FI, do we have a rule of thumb, or is it just read as much stories written as such, and draw your own conclusions.

What might help is discussing where changing POV didnt work...but then i guess that wouldnt be published, tis just hard when all the published POV, that we use by sheer default work out well.

Yin and yan and all that, to see where my story sits i need to see an excellent example of POV shift and a really bad example of POV shift. It would help me try to "know what not to do", sometimes that is easier guidlines than "what to do"

Im slightly leaning towards taking out the 1st in my example so the reader finds it easier to read, i think i would loose impact but the idea is to get it read, i think


BTW, i did spend ages reading all the rules, and i was reluctant to post my story in its unfinished state but i reckoned rather than explaining id show,
I didnt intend to go against your rules for pimping my work, sorry if it came accross like that.