Babble on POVs

[donutsweeper]

Just a question, and I'm not sure of the correct terminology here, but when reading (or writing), do you prefer a tight 3rd person POV  (where all events are seen and interpreted through one character's eyes) or switching between people's 3rd person POV with obvious page breaks or markers to show the new POV?

For example- my entire Charming the Pants off the Pashahads SGA/Jack crossover is told from Sheppard's POV, there is no scene where we see what Jack thinks about falling into the Pegasus Galaxy.  At points there are Sheppard's interpretation of Jack's actions (he notices a hedged answer, an avoided question, but doesn't know why Jack  answered that way).  If it had been written with switching POV's there could be the scene from Shep's perspective, noticing what he notices and wondering about it, followed by the same scene retold from Jack's, where he explained the reasons for saying what he did.  There also could have been scenes left out from the story the way I told it- I never did explain how Jack managed to get his hands on the Pashahads (because Sheppard wasn't there and wouldn't know).

I've been noticing more and more of the latter showing up in stories lately.  Presuming this babble actually makes sense to anyone, do you notice the difference between those types of POV styles and do you like one more than the other?

Comments

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Limited 3rd, definitely. I find it a far more enjoyable reading experience. That said, in novel length works, I *expect* changes in who the POV character is on a chapter by chapter basis (new POV, new chapter, don't rehash events the reader's already read), but not in shorter works as a rule.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

novel length can shift pov easier than the average length fanfic, certainly.

Unless the author's going for a specific style, the rehashing of events is just annoying

[tejas.livejournal.com]

What it tells me is that the author isn't taking the extra step required to work at their craft. It's not even all that big a step. Filtering a non-POV character's reactions through the POV character tells the reader boatloads of stuff about their relationship (romantic or platonic or adversarial - the type doesn't matter) as well as about the POV character. If it's done well enough, we, the readers, can also learn about the non-POV character. This is especially true in fic where we all KNOW the characters already... sometimes better than the POV character does.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

that's a good point. For Fanfic, we know the characters. If there's an OC or minor character or crossover the fanfic POV might not, but that can make their confusion/concern/assumptions more interesting

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Yep! Far more interesting.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

which would be lost or muddled if the story relied on POV shift to tell the tale

[tejas.livejournal.com]

*Exactly*.