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]

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. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

it taught me the difference between awhile and a while.

I just reread the epithet one. I wish more people took it to heart.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

It's one of the reasons I spread the word, far and wide. :-) It's a good comm to watch. They also take suggestions if there's something you're curious about or, in the case of 90% of my suggestions, stuff I'm sick to death of seeing in fic. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

It's weird- I never learned grammar or punctuation rules in school. Seriously, read Shakespeare? Sure! Learn to diagram a sentence? Nope. Between comms like that one and very patient betas I've learned so much! But, I guess I want to improve and I sometimes wonder if a lot of writers out there just don't.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I'm an instinctive grammarian, too. Learned it from reading and from the fact that my mother would correct us if we didn't speak properly. I've learned far more about the nuts and bolts of grammar since I started writing and paying attention to crit than I ever did in school.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I wish I had more of a background with it. I've taken some books out of the library- "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" and similar ones.

I do wonder if basic stuff like this is getting shoved aside at school, that they aren't bothering to teach it as much as they should

[tejas.livejournal.com]

My kid gave me that one for my birthday. Great fun and a terrific read and I think I just seriously outed myself as a geek. :-)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot...

My kid is getting a far better grammar education than I ever did. She's a freshman in high school and I've learned stuff from her that I was never taught in school.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I think it's great you got the book as a present. And really great kids are learning all those grammar rules today!

[tejas.livejournal.com]

My kid knows I'm a geek.

(Is this where I rat her out because she's stealing Mom's DVDs and is, at this moment, wallowing in the goodness that is NCIS S1? :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

(yay for her! S1 is a lot of fun!)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

She's been watching with me, on and off and finally I told her (after the umpteenth question about when the Meat Puzzle arc started), "You really should just watch the DVDs".

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

figuring out canon can be confusing when just catching an episode here and there

[tejas.livejournal.com]

At least I've gotten her to see the wonder that is Tony instead of just latching onto the surface of the character.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

very important distinction!

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I wish the writers would keep it in mind. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

*sighs at tptb* they seem to forget more often than they remember

[tejas.livejournal.com]

There are only millions of people around the world who could remind them.

*sigh*