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]

Sometimes I notice, sometimes I don't. I usually don't particularly care, I just figure that the author will use whatever term is the one used where they live, i.e. a British person would use lift, an American one elevator.
... But that,too, depends on the POV. In the first person, you'd have to use the term the character would use, else it gets ooc. In third person, though, I don't particularly care. Or notice.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

What if Gibbs demands Tony "get in the lift" and it's in dialogue that way?

[chatona.livejournal.com]

ooc, then.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I get that using terms that aren't yours is hard, but there are so many just basic ones that drive me batty when misused.

[chatona.livejournal.com]

That's why betas are so important, methinks!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh YES. Although, admittedly, I'm guilty of not necessarily using a britpicker for my TW stuff. But between _medley_ and myself we catch most things. And my flist will point out anything we missed

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I post a lot of unbeta'd stuff, so am probably very guilty of not making my fic as good as it could be sometimes, but... I warn when it's unbeta'd. Does that count for something? ;_;

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

as long as it's warned for I think it's fine. And short stuff (<500 words) doesn't even need that, I think.

You know though, anything NCIS you can always throw my way. You have my email and I'm online a LOT

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I know! And it's awesome to have such a standing offer! ♥

But, I guess for my shorter stuff (~1,000 words), I'm just too lazy. I don't like editing >>;

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

*sighs* I'm pretty much only writing shorter stuff these days

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much not writing at all these days ;___;

Anyhow. Going to curl up with a book now for a bit, I've spent too much time in front of the computer today.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

have fun!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I did! :D

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

what did you read?

[chatona.livejournal.com]

A girly romance novel. Perfect to relax my brain after forcing it to deal with Roman law all day long \o/

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I can see why you'd need a break after that!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Yus. But I did get about 60% of the paper done today, so I'm rather happy. Now I just need to do the remaining 40%, get started on the stuff for next week and work on the portfolio and I'll be just fine.

My brain kinda felt like going on strike for a while there.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Woot! Go you!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Yay! And now I have a choice between working on the portfolio, watching Leverage and going to bed. Though it's a bit too early for the last one...

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

This week's Leverage is pretty good... but far be it from me to encourage someone putting off their homework...

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, you watch Leverage? I have a lot of catching up to do, the last episode I watched was 02.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who thinks a class on Roman law would be very, very cool? :-)

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of history... There are some cool things about it, but mostly, it's just too big a course crammed into a too short period of time with too much stuff to do and... Well. The Romans are mad, they are :D

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Man, I *love* history. I looked into getting a Master's in historical legal systems. :-)

[chatona.livejournal.com]

...Historical legal systems?

I just started studying European Law. Guess it's kinda similar, 'cept that I'm not doing as much historical stuff. Only one month of it, atm. Which is not enough to work through >2000 years of history >>;