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

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

As others have said, I'd go with whatever the story calls for and not switching indiscriminately. I've been reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere lately, and I don't think the story would work at all if the POV didn't switch occasionally. Though, I swear I caught an indiscriminate flick between POVs in one paragraph. Even the pros miss the occasional "oops". (And he's so good that's not going to ruin a story for you.)

Another case where it works, for me at least, is when you're writing a fic that's patterned like a TV episode. It's normal to follow first one set of people and then the next on a TV show. And if someone points out, like someone did, that a TV camera can't get into a person's thoughts, well, Yes, it can. It's a visual/audio medium and that gives far greater clues to what someone's thinking.

I might be biased since I wrote my zombie fic that way. Come to the dark side of the donut shop!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

*uses appropriate icon*

*nods* So, the consensus seems to be that, like any style, it can work, if done well, but works best if there is a reason for the switches. Makes sense to me!

[tejas.livejournal.com]

The road to fail is paved with ignorance. :-)