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

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Yes, and 1st person works well for Nero Wolfe, too, because Archie often gets sent on errands while Wolfe is coordinating the big reveal, too, so that Archie doesn't know whodunnit until we do, a lot of the time.

I don't think fanfic requires multiple POVS, unless you're writing something really epic. There's a series of SG-1 fics that I love on ff.net, which uses all manner of POVS, tenses, and characters, but it's more a series of oneshots that somewhat interconnect than an actual one-storyline fic. I think in fanfic people aren't often confident enough to keep it to one person's POV. There's risk in that of writing another character as 'bad' or 'mean' when you can't get into their head for their motivation. Storm Front from Murphy's POV, for example, would probably paint her in a different light than we see her from Harry's POV.

I'm nattering again. :p It's an interesting topic.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

You're not nattering at all! It's all very interesting.

Very good point about Storm front. It never really occurred to me how different someone in DF might seem if seen a different way. OMG- Morgan, if seen through an omniscient 3rd person POV or through Ramirez's POV? Totally different.

I think in fanfic people aren't often confident enough to keep it to one person's POV.

That's an excellent point as well. It' much harder to write with a limited POV and still make well rounded characters.