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

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Exactly, yes.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

for something long, like a bigbang, I think the shift is possible, but has to be done consistently and for a reason- otherwise I just think it's muddled

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Yeah. In really short stories, shifting povs just confuse, I guess?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I've seen it done well, when it's done for a reason... but too often it's a result of lazy writing or things just slipping through. It's a lot easier to switch the POV than figure out how to reword things. mad_jaks noticed a few pov shifts in my recent ncis/jack story. The difference between

“Was, Ducky?” Tony asked, having picked up an Ducky's slight sigh. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up painful memories.”

and

“Was, Ducky?” Tony asked, responding to Ducky's slight sigh. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up painful memories.”

is one is Tony's POV the other is someone else's, in this case, Ducky's. She noticed the first so I changed it to the second

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I've done the same thing, and noticed it in other writers, too. You're right, it's often easier... But I guess good writing =/= lazy writing.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

The occassional slip I rarely notice, but when suddenly a whole section is from one POV and then the next from the other? Drives me batty

There's a NCIS fic I like, not typical subject for me, but it's got angsty and hurt Tony so I read it. But the POV shifts. A lot. And randomly. So the scene starts from McGee's pov and is referring to Tony as the older man and then Gibbs comes in and it's Tony's POV and Gibbs is the older man and then Gibbs leaves and is talking to Ducky where Ducky is the older man.

I also hate descriptive terms like that being used in place of names, but the POV makes it that much more difficult to follow

[chatona.livejournal.com]

That sounds pretty annoying, yeah. I'm not a big fan of descriptive terms, anyhow. Those people have names. Why not use the names?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I try to avoid them completely. We know Tony's Italian, why refer to him as "the Italian"? Yes, a scene between 2 guys can get annoying because you're constantly referring to their name or using "he/him" but that's okay!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Same here, I'd rather avoid them then use stuff like "the Italian", "the NCIS agent", "the brown haired man", "the blue eyed man" ...

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

especially when people get all flowery about it.

"His icy blue eyes thawed under the dark green gaze"

blergh

[chatona.livejournal.com]

... Ew.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

my thoughts exactly. I hate that and I've seen it (or something similar) for Gibbs/Tony, House/Wilson, Dean/Sam and others

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Descriptive terms should only be used when they're directly relevant to the moment. Tony thinking of Gibbs as "the older man" could make perfect sense if he was thinking about Gibbs' bad knee and how Gibbs was getting older and so on.

It's a very easy trap to fall into, though, especially in slash where pronoun confusion reigns supreme. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

oh, in a situation like that it would make a lot of sense. Too often it's just unnecessary though.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Agreed. fandom_grammar had a great post on this. (And I hope I got the comm name right. I'm feeling too lazy to look it up, but it's in my profile.)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've seen that comm! A few of the posts are a little to specific for me, but others have been fascinating.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

They've done a few on broader, more advanced topics that are terrific. It's useful to browse through the archive and see what's there. Sometimes you stumble on stuff you've forgotten you have trouble with until you actually see it. :-)

[chatona.livejournal.com]

In those cases, I would probably find it easier to accept the descriptive term, but honestly? I still wouldn't like it. It's probably a personal preference?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I think it can be used- Tony jokingly saying 'out of breath, old man?" or something like that.

Overall though, best avoided, especially when not in dialogue

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I have nothing at all against using it in ic-dialogue. I have a problem with seeing it used in the actual descriptive 3rd person text, I guess ^^;

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I understand completely. It's hard to do *right*

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Yep. Used sparingly for specific, pertinent emphasis works fine.

That generally comes down to about once every 20k words. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

as often as that? :)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Emphasizing a particular trait when that trait is the point of the passage works.

But that's the only time.

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I read the article you linked to. I guess that summarises it all pretty well :D