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]

UGH! 2nd! :-) Hair pulling time. :-)

I switched, once, between 1st and 3rd (Battle Cry - SG1) and it was the only way to tell the story. There was also a time shift with the first person being in the 'present' (journal entries) and the 3rd being the actual story the journal entries were about. That's also the only story where I did both a gen version and a slash (no smut, sadly ;-) version. I can never really decide which version I like best. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I did 2nd because it was a scene between two people with the exact same name and the point was the reader wouldn't know which was the 'main' pov until the very end.

That actually sounds like a really good reason to switch POVs and tense, combining past/present events like that

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I can see why 2nd called to you on that oen.

It felt right at the time and it's still one of my favorite stories.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

It was a lot of fun. And I kept it short (I to tend to lead to ficlets more than anything else) But it's not a technique that should be done too often

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time with ficlets. Drabbles work for me because I have a conscious limit - 100 words, no more, no less. I started writing an email equivalent of a comment fic last night and three pages in, I'm still not finished. *sigh* Hey, at least it's NCIS porn (if I can get Gibbs to cooperate ;-).

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I love drabbles (and double and triple drabbles) for that boxed limit.

But I'm a sucker for ficlets too, just enough room to have a sceme play out

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Never works for me. I get them almost naked and Tony starts stressing over his commitment issues and Gibbs starts stressing (internally, at least) over his inability to maintain a relationship and it goes from porn to angst in .6 seconds. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

my inability to write slash or smut prevents me from having that kind of problem

[tejas.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!! I don't write it much, but it's very fun when I do. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

and one of the whole points is to have fun

[tejas.livejournal.com]

You said it. ;-):-):-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

both writing AND reading, right?

[tejas.livejournal.com]

But of course, mon cher. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

there is nothing worse than reading something the author obviously didn't care about writing

[tejas.livejournal.com]

*shudder*