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

[adela-nightmoon.livejournal.com]

Personally, switching between characters drives me up the wall. I don't mind it so much when the POV steps back and can sorta see both people, but actual phsyical switching where it sits there and changes back and forth, and everytime you have to sit there and figure out where the point of view is now, is really frustrating to read.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

More often than not, that's my opinion as well, but I'm seeing it everywhere in fanfic these days. I understand that it's easier to write in a lot of ways, but I still find it annoying and/or frustrating so I was wondering what, overall, people thought.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I absolutely notice it, which I think is mostly due to the way I read/write. I'm a visual person, and if the POV changes, I find it disorienting, because I'm literally looking at the scene differently. While I don't mind switching between scenes, within them, I find it immensely distracting. (Important note - that doesn't make it wrong, just not my taste ;))

Personally, I also like tight POVs because they can force the author to really *think* about what's important to the story, what do people need to know? So in yours, I don't think it matters how Jack got the Pashahads, and I like imagining how. It becomes part of Jack's mystery, part of how Sheppard sees him. There's a big thing in the second A-Team episode (stick with me here ;)) where they mention how Chase got a cadillac for a scam in the middle of the Vietman jungle. We never find out how, and I've never read a satisfactory fanfic explanation. We just know that Face is the kind of person who can get a Cadillac in the middle of the Vietnam jungle. *that's* the important bit.

Speculation and observation can be rich tools, and ways of telling us about the narrator as well as what he's watching. You can throw stuff in that the narrator misses but the reader notices, and the narrator's reaction is often just as important as the actual action.

I've read seriously good writing that alternates, and I've done fic where I've played with POV (my best Housefic IMHO is one where I tell the same story from 3 different points of view) but it's been because I want to say something about the characters, not to give the reader more information, if that makes sense. If you're adding to my knowledge of the characters, then I don't mind the alternation, but it can be just as interesting to be limited in what the narrator knows.

Um. As you can probably tell, this is something I'm pretty interested in - I wrote a whole meta on POV here (http://community.livejournal.com/housefic_pens/25690.html) quite a while ago, although I still find it fascinating to talk around.

[becky-h.livejournal.com]

Switching back and forth makes me insane. I dont' mind if it changes from chapter to chapter but rapid changes annoys me. It also makes me think that it's too much exposition and just role-play posted as a story.

Says me, who wrote that one story with POV shifts all over (http://becky-writing.livejournal.com/55436.html#cutid1).

[adela-nightmoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did notice that, it is appearing more and more. I find it a useless style though, as it tends to leave you confused.

Hopefully the trend changes?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

in limited cases, it works and provides the necessary choppy feel. Absolutely.

If done in chapters (1k or more before a shift) what do you think? Or would you rather it remain the tight single POV?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I shall have to read that! I knew you guys had to have some interesting opinions on this.

ahh, the speculation of what the other characters are doing/did, that's a good point. The wandering POV really detracts from that and, in a way, can wind up explaining too much and then there is no mystery.

[becky-h.livejournal.com]

I really don't care as long as it doesn't shift indiscriminately.

[stackcats.livejournal.com]

Whatever the story calls for, to be honest. If it's fanfic, one perspective is best, or it can get confusing, but I fail at writing anything longer, or any original stuff from only one point of view.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

*nods* that's the problem with the fic I'm seeing these days, there just doesn't seem to be any point to the shift other than making it easier for the writer.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Like any style it can be used well, and has (like the story becky linked to below) but too often it's unnecessary and annoying.

Maybe the trend will change. That would be nice.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

*nods* I tend to think that it's one of those things where although it's easy to say it's wrong, in the hands of a good writer, it can be awesome (as with so many other writing 'rules'). But you've got to be able to do single POV really well to pull it off properly, and the switching POV needs to push the story on, rather than simply retelling what just happened. Otherwise, it's just taking twice as long to tell the story!

I should probably update that meta *makes note* I probably have more to say now. I usually do ;)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I think you hit the nail on the head- Whatever the story calls for- if the story needs to be told that way, then by all means do so, but too often it just doesn't (in my opinion anyway)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

The retelling of the same scene is something I'm seeing with annoying frequency these days and it rarely adds anything to the overall story.

But when the shifting POV has character A doing their thing and character B doing their separate thing and eventually they combine it can work and work well.

YAY for more meta!

[stackcats.livejournal.com]

Even if the story calls for it, it's hard to pull it off well. I failed at it in my most recent fic. Still, sometimes one PoV is too limiting for the story that you're telling.

[unfeathered]

I don't mind POVs switching as long as it's not every other paragraph. And as has already been said, sometimes it's what the story needs.

Like my Angel/Jack fic - I got completely stuck on that because I was trying to tell it all from Angel's POV. Then I tried switching POV and it all fell into place. I think I did only switch back and forth about four times though, in a 4K+ story.

What's weird is that most of the stories I read when I was young were - um - I think the word is omni-POV? Where you tell the story from the POV of a *group* of people, occasionally dipping into someone's head and then popping out again. Now, because it seems to be more fashionable to use a strict one person POV, I find that sort of thing extremely distracting, and yet it's how I wrote all my early stories.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

muses are evil that way, sometimes they push for something that's just not really able to be written

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

oh yes, omniscient POV, I remember reading a lot of that, especially when younger. I'd probably find it distracting these days as well.

The Jack/angel fic worked, you got the flow between POV's right which is what's important.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Limited 3rd, definitely. I find it a far more enjoyable reading experience. That said, in novel length works, I *expect* changes in who the POV character is on a chapter by chapter basis (new POV, new chapter, don't rehash events the reader's already read), but not in shorter works as a rule.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

novel length can shift pov easier than the average length fanfic, certainly.

Unless the author's going for a specific style, the rehashing of events is just annoying

[tejas.livejournal.com]

This is the only time I've ever seen it used to good effect, though the House story mentioned above sounds fascinating, and I think I'll have to read it. The fact that it was done for the purpose of delving into the characters rather than just authorial laziness (which is what it generally looks like) makes it intriguing and probably puts what's normally a boondoggle to good use. :-)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

What it tells me is that the author isn't taking the extra step required to work at their craft. It's not even all that big a step. Filtering a non-POV character's reactions through the POV character tells the reader boatloads of stuff about their relationship (romantic or platonic or adversarial - the type doesn't matter) as well as about the POV character. If it's done well enough, we, the readers, can also learn about the non-POV character. This is especially true in fic where we all KNOW the characters already... sometimes better than the POV character does.

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

I actually don't mind POV shifts - I'm nosy, I like to know what everyone is thinking - but I do like there to be some delineation between pov shifts and I kind of prefer a broad omni to a tight pov that switches. If that makes sense.

I'm trying to keep my 3rd person pov much tighter now than I used to, the Mystery We Are, for example, was pretty much written as 3rd person omni/switching but I tried to make sure there were at least paragraph breaks between each shift and I rarely wrote the same scene from more than one pov at the same time, with one major exception that springs to mind, but it was smut so I'm not sure that's as important and it worked for that part of the fic anyway.

In comparison my current WIP Eight Hours is mostly from Jack's pov, though it actually starts out from Ianto's pov. Once you get two paragraphs into the second part it switches (with a nice properly marked delineation, natch) and then stays with Jack no matter what is going on for the rest of the fic (or it will do once it's finished).

To me it's actually a lot easier to write 1st person rather than a tight 3rd person pov, but I know a lot of people don't really like 1st person stuff. It depends on the fandom and the character as to whether 1st person works or not I think for instance that Dresden Files lends itself more to 1st person as that is how the books are written, but there's no way in hell I could write Jack or Methos from a 1st person pov. However I think they both work well as characters being seen from a 1st person pov though I suppose I would, having written them both that way.

And none of that is probably any help at all.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

that's a good point. For Fanfic, we know the characters. If there's an OC or minor character or crossover the fanfic POV might not, but that can make their confusion/concern/assumptions more interesting

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Dresden Files also has canon based 1st person, something I screwed up with my main foray into that fandom.