# Need to fix POV problems in my novel



## Jared77 (Dec 18, 2014)

Ah...POV.....

*sigh*

Anyway, a good friend of mine was awesome enough to read the entire first draft of my novel, and he pointed out to me massive POV issues.  I know where the issues are coming from: I used to write screenplays and I'm still holding on to those conventions.

Scene 1: Bob flies a spaceship.

Scene 2: Mary, down on the ground, reacts to Bob flying a spaceship.

Scene 3: The bad guy gets in his spaceship on a different planet.

Scene 4: Bob's mom is sad about Bob being on a spaceship so far way.

--- This is okay for a script, but not so much for a novel.  Unless you guys know a good way to handle this that I'm not aware of .  I have many different scenes with several different POV characters.  And I also have the POV switching within the scene, even if it's just a little thought of a character.

I'm trying to read some established authors to see if they do this as well. 

Any suggestions on how to do surgery to my book?  I can post real samples if that will help.


----------



## InnerFlame00 (Dec 18, 2014)

Find yourself an artist and write a webcomic instead!  

In all seriousness, maybe write the book in third person omniscient? That perspective is not used a lot any more, but it's about as close to movie as you can get with a book.

Otherwise you will just have to do a ton of practicing and reading.  The more you read the better idea you will have on how to structure multiple points of view in a book without giving the reader whiplash.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Dec 18, 2014)

I am now reading a prolific author who changes POV from one paragraph to the next, with no warning. Um, that isn't a license to kill, it really doesn't work well. (Or -- I just realized -- maybe it's genius.)

But well marked changes in POV, as you change scenes, should be no problem. I mean, it sounds perfect for your book. Giving different POVs can add a lot of depth to your book. And of course just handle the problem of showing different scenes in different places.


----------



## Morkonan (Dec 18, 2014)

Jared77 said:


> ...Any suggestions on how to do surgery to my book?  I can post real samples if that will help.



How far apart are these PoV's? In distance and time, that is.

An "Epic" usually has many different PoV's, widely separated in space and, sometimes, in time. So, if it's an epic, you're using a widely understood format.

What narrative mode are you using? For instance, if it's first-person, limited-omniscience, you could run into serious issues when giving introspection coming from multiple characters. That would be a clear "POV" problem. But, if it's third-person, omniscient, there's no such issue and it's not definable as a "problem" on the face of things.

However, you can also run into confusing problems when you're switching POVs in close-quarters, frequently. For instance, say you've got all of these people in the same scene. They're all doing what you say and thinking as you say they are. You're relating all of that to the Reader. What's the effect? A heck of an active scene! At times, it could be far too "active" for comfort and the Reader could be exhausted by the time it's over.  So, sometimes, you might change chapters, scenes and perspectives, even out of order, in order to give that alternate perspective, maybe even move that POV character from the scene and into something else, just to give the Reader a "break" from a scene with a heck of a lot going on in it. ie: 
_
Chapter starts to wind down, Bob takes off, thinks about his takeoff flight, Mary reacts. Then, chapter change, Mom reacts in the same scene, but moves to go fold the laundry and relate some introspection and angst about the situation while doing so. Mary walks in, new paragraph, notices Mom and her depressed state, tries to cheer her up. Paragraph and scene change, aliens formulate a plan to steel the hubcaps off of Bob's shiny new spaceship. Bob reacts, catches aliens, is faced with huge amount of drama, chapter change, Mom stops folding clothes, worries about Bob, Mary gives up trying to cheer her up, becomes an alcoholic..._

Lastly - As you know, writing a novel is not like writing a script. There are similar strategies, but a script is a tightly focused bit of work with little liberty that can be taken. In a novel, you've got as many words as you want to use, without having to worry about an audience needing to go to the bathroom or to pick up their kids from school. Don't be afraid of "too much print."


----------



## Apex (Dec 19, 2014)

Jared77 said:


> Ah...POV.....
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> ...




I do understand many will say, “Yeah, POV switching is okay, you are the writer, and can do what you want.” Very few great writers have ever done it, and gotten away with it.
I would suggest you copy all your scenes. You already have a plot. Set the plot out in three sections;

Beginning
Middle
End

Divide the saved scenes along the plot line to where you think they will fit. You can change them around later as you un-stuff the mess. Look at it this way. It is a movie on film, and you are the cutting room. The problem is not as bad as you think. You will find sections which need to be tied together, and this you an fix by writing short sections for the blank spots.
When you get the mess together, do a full read, and mark the weak spots. Two, or three rewrites, and you have a best seller. 
Print all scenes out. Lay them on the floor from beginning to end…it’s easer than doing it on the computer. Take two shots of whisky, stick your head out the window, and shout, “It’s done, damn it,” and go to bed.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 19, 2014)

> I do understand many will say, “Yeah, POV switching is okay, you are the writer, and can do what you want.” Very few great writers have ever done it, and gotten away with it.



Judging by the development of free indirect style that has gone on for hundreds of years, many of the 'great' writers have successfully alternated POV. In fact, there are few writers I've read who haven't; changing the focalizer is just one of the many techniques available to the writer.



> have many different scenes with several different POV characters. And I also have the POV switching within the scene, even if it's just a little thought of a character.



What I think you need to do is keep track of your focalizers; whose experience is the story being filtered through? Unless we're meant to connect to an omniscient and omnipresent, bodiless perspective, we need to connect to our characters and what they're experiencing, and we won't if we don't stay focused on them when we need to.

You can, for instance, have the second scene with Bob as the focalizer - have him notice Mary's reaction and filter it through his perspective. Find characters that pop up more than others and give them more of the spotlight. When the narrative is through their eyes, whether in first or third person, make it feel like it's coming from them. Inject the prose with their personality. Then you'll have more of a sense of character in the narrative, which I think is what your story will be lacking overall if the alternation of perspectives is as disjointed as you make it out to be.


----------



## Kyle R (Dec 19, 2014)

One recommendation I have is to consider the story of each POV character.

When I have multiple POV characters, I make sure each character has their own story arc, even if it's a small one. I try not to have throwaway POV characters (unless they serve a specific purpose, that is).

By that I mean, if I were to cut away all the other scenes from other POV characters, and combine all the scenes from any one individual POV, each character would have a complete story of their own.

Think of Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler in Michael Crichton's _Jurassic Park_. Two different POV characters, but each with their own complete story arcs.

I only mention this because readers can get frustrated if you introduce POV characters that don't get fleshed out. Especially if you do it often.

I read a story where the prologue character had a fascinating POV—then that character never appeared again. I stayed with the story longer to see that character reappear, but they never did. I felt ripped off. :grief:


----------



## Apex (Dec 19, 2014)

Cadence,
You said: "Many of the 'great' writers have successfully alternated POV."  Who were these writers? and what books did they do this in?


----------



## Bishop (Dec 19, 2014)

Apex said:


> Cadence,
> You said: "Many of the 'great' writers have successfully alternated POV."  Who were these writers? and what books did they do this in?



Asimov, Heinlein, Harrison for starters... those are just some that I'm intimately familiar with.

King shifts perspective often as well.

All have used 3rd omniscient with swapping character focus. As for swapping between 1st and 3rd person in the same novel? That I've not really seen--probably is out there. I know there's many a book with swapping characters within 1st person, but I'm not intimately familiar with any of them.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 19, 2014)

> "Many of the 'great' writers have successfully alternated POV." Who were these writers? and what books did they do this in?



Steinbeck did so brilliantly and subtlely in Of Mice and Men; Forster did so cleverly in Where Angels Fear to Tread; Palahniuk did so spectacularly in Fight Club; Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby; Markus Zusak in The Book Thief; McEwan in Enduring Love.

Those are just a few that I can list off the top of my head. They, and their stories, have all been considered great in one way or another.

My favourite alternation of POV, however, is in the film Kick-Ass; three completely different father-son relationships, three completely different outcomes, and one incredible story as they come together.


----------



## Morkonan (Dec 19, 2014)

Cadence said:


> ...My favourite alternation of POV, however, is in the film Kick-Ass; three completely different father-son relationships, three completely different outcomes, and one incredible story as they come together.



That's a good point, one with which many may be familiar with feeling the effects of.

The result was a story with three _major_ characters in it, not just one with some side-kicks. (Father/Child relationships, really.) Each of these people had their own storyline and their own development as a character. And, each of these contributed to the main character's story in a much more meaningful way because of that. It was really a great movie, in that respect.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 19, 2014)

> Each of these people had their own storyline and their own development as a character. And, each of these contributed to the main character's story in a much more meaningful way because of that. It was really a great movie, in that respect.



And for a lesson in how not to do POV shifts, see Kick Ass 2.


----------



## Riis Marshall (Dec 19, 2014)

Hello Jared

I think your original post may contain the answer to your question.

Feedback from good friends - _very_ good friends - who are willing to: (1) read your draft from beginning to end and (2) are honest enough to critique your work objectively, can help. And it sounds as though one has already helped (I am one of those fortunate writers who has a few).

There are loads of articles, blog posts and entire books out there on how to manage POVs well. Reading a few might help but no article written by somebody else, no matter how well written, can project what constitutes 'good POV' onto your style.

So, prevail upon your patient friends and when you hand them a draft, ask them specifically to think about how your story is being told. It's probably not a good idea to discuss POV directly, but ask them how smoothly the work reads: does anything seem to disrupt the flow or jar them out of their involvement?

 And, yes, all the posts here for this thread contain gems about how somebody out there did - or does - it successfully.

I tend to structure entire chapters from a single character's POV and I try to indicate this with my opening paragraph, but it doesn't always work. An example is the chapter where the hero meets the girl he's going to save eventually from the bad guys and they spend time getting to know each other. Trying to keep these two POVs separate, chapter-by-chapter, or even section-by-section within a chapter would make the whole thing so awkward as to be unworkable.

We all struggle with it. Good luck.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


----------



## Apex (Dec 19, 2014)

Cadence said:


> Steinbeck did so brilliantly and subtlely in Of Mice and Men; Forster did so cleverly in Where Angels Fear to Tread; Palahniuk did so spectacularly in Fight Club; Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby; Markus Zusak in The Book Thief; McEwan in Enduring Love.
> 
> Those are just a few that I can list off the top of my head. They, and their stories, have all been considered great in one way or another.
> 
> My favourite alternation of POV, however, is in the film Kick-Ass; three completely different father-son relationships, three completely different outcomes, and one incredible story as they come together.



I don't have all the books you have listed. I do have Steinbecks, _Of Mice, and Men. _The whole book is writen in omniscient pov.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 19, 2014)

> I do have Steinbecks, _Of Mice, and Men. The whole book is writen in omniscient pov._



It isn't one POV, however, and it isn't truly omniscient; Steinbeck marks his use of third-person _limited_ well, in that it's noticeable without drawing too much attention away from the characters the loose narrator embodies. Whenever we have George and Lennie, we're getting the pair filtered through the observations of George; similarly, one chapter clearly has the narration filtering itself through Crooks.

The word 'omniscient' gets tossed around far too much; few narrators truly are the gods that the word suggests, since they restrict themselves by focalizing through particular characters. That change in focalization is a powerful mechanic for POV alternation within a novel; the POV can feel constant, while the focalizer is subtlety changed in order to give the narration a different feel when certain characters exert a measure of control over what's revealed and what isn't. For a narrator to be truly omniscient, they need to have more than free reign over who they focalize with; they need to be in touch with universal truth, as James Wood (my favourite contemporary critic) advocates.

A lot of beginning writers say they're writing in 'omniscient' as a cop-out for not actually thinking about their POV; at least that's what I've found. To use omniscient well, you have to make it omniscient, and you don't have to keep it that way either. Steinbeck only begins in omniscience; the way that the god of the opening narrative lowers itself into the consciousness of the character is, for me, one of the aspects of the novel relevant to the wider context of the american dream.


----------



## Jared77 (Dec 19, 2014)

Thanks for everyone's posts!  Sorry I'm just now getting back to this thread.  I have something annoying called a "day job" that I had to go to today.

3rd Person Omniscient: Well, this is what I _thought _I was writing in.  Turns out I was writing in "Recovering Screenwriter" POV.  But anyway, yeah it will be 3rd Person Omni, I just have to smooth things out.

I've been reading Stephen King's The Shining, and he generally is sticking to one POV in each chapter, but occasionally he goes into the head of two different characters in the same chapter, even the next paragraph.   Is this a sin?

I'll try to address specific posts here more closely tonight, but gotta take care of the family first.  Sick wife + toddler = Never quitting day job


----------



## Jared77 (Dec 19, 2014)

Morkonan said:


> However, you can also run into confusing problems when you're switching POVs in close-quarters, frequently. For instance, say you've got all of these people in the same scene. They're all doing what you say and thinking as you say they are. You're relating all of that to the Reader. What's the effect? A heck of an active scene! At times, it could be far too "active" for comfort and the Reader could be exhausted by the time it's over.  So, sometimes, you might change chapters, scenes and perspectives, even out of order, in order to give that alternate perspective, maybe even move that POV character from the scene and into something else, just to give the Reader a "break" from a scene with a heck of a lot going on in it. ie:
> _
> Chapter starts to wind down, Bob takes off, thinks about his takeoff flight, Mary reacts. Then, chapter change, Mom reacts in the same scene, but moves to go fold the laundry and relate some introspection and angst about the situation while doing so. Mary walks in, new paragraph, notices Mom and her depressed state, tries to cheer her up. Paragraph and scene change, aliens formulate a plan to steel the hubcaps off of Bob's shiny new spaceship. Bob reacts, catches aliens, is faced with huge amount of drama, chapter change, Mom stops folding clothes, worries about Bob, Mary gives up trying to cheer her up, becomes an alcoholic..._
> 
> Lastly - As you know, writing a novel is not like writing a script. There are similar strategies, but a script is a tightly focused bit of work with little liberty that can be taken. In a novel, you've got as many words as you want to use, without having to worry about an audience needing to go to the bathroom or to pick up their kids from school. Don't be afraid of "too much print."



Especially in my final battle - several of the main characters are together: a couple of the heroes, the main bad guy, his main henchmen, etc.  I tend to switch around the battle as if you were watching it in a movie.  My friend is saying I should probably stick to the POV of the main hero character.  I guess my question is....how do I do that if other things are going on around him that he doesn't know about?  

He's also suggesting I use more chapters and simply split up the POV's more that way.  That's fair and I might do that.  But again with the final confrontation, that wouldn't work.

I like your point about not being afraid to use too many words.  My words are a bit scant at the moment, again because that's what you do in screenwriting.  You keep it as tight as humanly possible.  With a novel you can and should flesh it out.  I need to work on fleshing out the main character's POV, and a couple of the other mains, and probably de-value or erase the minor character POV's.

What about the bad guys though?  I remember the first time I read Lord of the Rings thinking: "Wait, we never ever see things from Sauron's POV."  It was strange, but pretty darn cool at the same time.  Created a tremendous sense of awe of the bad guy.  I can't do this with my novel.  Way too much the bad guy is doing that we need to see.  You know, like Darth Vader and the Emperor scheming type stuff.


----------



## Apex (Dec 20, 2014)

Cadence said:


> It isn't one POV, however, and it isn't truly omniscient; Steinbeck marks his use of third-person _limited_ well, in that it's noticeable without drawing too much attention away from the characters the loose narrator embodies. Whenever we have George and Lennie, we're getting the pair filtered through the observations of George; similarly, one chapter clearly has the narration filtering itself through Crooks.
> 
> The word 'omniscient' gets tossed around far too much; few narrators truly are the gods that the word suggests, since they restrict themselves by focalizing through particular characters. That change in focalization is a powerful mechanic for POV alternation within a novel; the POV can feel constant, while the focalizer is subtlety changed in order to give the narration a different feel when certain characters exert a measure of control over what's revealed and what isn't. For a narrator to be truly omniscient, they need to have more than free reign over who they focalize with; they need to be in touch with universal truth, as James Wood (my favourite contemporary critic) advocates.
> 
> A lot of beginning writers say they're writing in 'omniscient' as a cop-out for not actually thinking about their POV; at least that's what I've found. To use omniscient well, you have to make it omniscient, and you don't have to keep it that way either. Steinbeck only begins in omniscience; the way that the god of the opening narrative lowers itself into the consciousness of the character is, for me, one of the aspects of the novel relevant to the wider context of the american dream.



I am not a beginning writer. Nor am I a God of omniscient POV. My menter, Sol Stein, was against the use of the omniscient POV. All of my writing from day one has been done in omniscient POV.
It is true many writers, new, and professional do not know the construction of it, nor how to keep the author hidden from the reader. Sol Stein was a great writer, and editor of many best selling works of famous other writers…he was also one of the leading publishers in New York City before he came to teach in California. Just goes to show, even the best can’t learn it all. I hate 1[SUP]st[/SUP] person. Can’t stand it.  One of my favorite writers, considered the best fiction writer in all of South America, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude using omniscient POV. Marquez was not a trained writer when he started writing, he did not know one POV from the others…he just started writing like people told stories from mouth to ear. I learned many years ago to tell stories from mouth to ear before all the stuff like computers, and TV. A time when people entertained each the with tall tails. I feel omniscient is the only POV that does not restrict the writer. It is like flying a glider…you can feel the bumpy spots in the air.

I would rather have the freedom to write: 

The cobbler stone street beneath his feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts.

Rather than being restricted with: 

Lets see anbody write that better in 1st person?


----------



## Jeko (Dec 20, 2014)

> I feel omniscient is the only POV that does not restrict the writer



And that is why it's often weaker; it's the restrictions in art that make it shine. What good is a story that unfolds in the blink of an eye? The reader has to be restricted from knowing the twist at the end by the middle that precedes it, and the beginning that precedes that. Similarly, no writer uses all their creativity at once; it's all about control. Art is fundamentally a matter of limitation. 

Ultimately, omniscient in most literature is just first-person with the god of the tale never mentioning himself. :encouragement: 



> I would rather have the freedom to write:
> 
> The cobbler stone street beneath his feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts.
> 
> ...



Okay:

'The cobbler stone street beneath my feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts.'

Doesn't seem to take much away from the line. Though I do agree that first-person can often be used less effectively; I advocate that it should only be preferred it it 1) helps the story be told in the way it needs to be told or 2) carries a strong and effective voice.

I think the most adaptable POV lies between omniscient and first-person; free indirect style.


----------



## Terry D (Dec 20, 2014)

Bishop said:


> Asimov, Heinlein, Harrison for starters... those are just some that I'm intimately familiar with.
> 
> King shifts perspective often as well.
> 
> All have used 3rd omniscient with swapping character focus. As for swapping between 1st and 3rd person in the same novel? That I've not really seen--probably is out there. I know there's many a book with swapping characters within 1st person, but I'm not intimately familiar with any of them.



James Patterson's Alex Cross books do this. The chapters in which Cross appears are written in first person, all others are written in third. It works pretty well for him, or at least it did in his early career, I haven't read any Patterson in a long time.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Dec 20, 2014)

Apex said:


> The cobbler stone street beneath his feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts.



Are you telling this the from the POV of the person walking down the street. I mean, is he noticing the smell of the fish?

Or maybe the narrator is describing the street but the person walking down it hasn't noticed? As in, "The cobble stone street beneath his feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts. But he never noticed, he could only think about where he was going."


----------



## Apex (Dec 20, 2014)

EmmaSohan said:


> Are you telling this the from the POV of the person walking down the street. I mean, is he noticing the smell of the fish?
> 
> Or maybe the narrator is describing the street but the person walking down it hasn't noticed? As in, "The cobble stone street beneath his feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts. But he never noticed, he could only think about where he was going."




 The cobble stone street beneath *his *feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts.

The *HIS* in the sentence makes it 100% omniscient.

 If it was written: The cobble stone street beneath *my*feet smelled of fish, and unidentified animal parts,
the *MY* would make it first person. In the omniscent the writer does not have to say the character smells it...is clear he does smell it if he is walking on it.
Those who use more than one POV in a story run the risk of confusing the reader. A publisher does not care which POV a writer uses. If a writer uses more than one, and makes error, the book will be rejected.
Here is the first trap a writer falls into when using more than one POV. All readers do not read each word. Their eyes go across the words. The eye will only stop at words they are not sure of. The same thing happens to the writer...here is the danger: The writer knows all the words he has written, and will not see his own error. That is why it is best to have your work edited, unless they have been trained in how to edit.

Please do not take my post on this subject wrong: I am not trying to change any members writing styles, nor make them look like they don't know what they are doing. POV is perhaps the most important part of a story. Mixing POV is never recommended by anybody within the industry…it is far to risky, and only the best have gotten away with it. If any on this forum feel they are as good as the best of the best…go for it.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 20, 2014)

> The *HIS in the sentence makes it 100% omniscient.*



This is the problem I'm talking about; the word 'omniscient' being tossed around as if it describes every version of third-person narration the writer has available to them.

The line you gave could be in omniscient, but it could also be in third person limited, and could also be in first person if the homodiegetic narrator is describing someone else's experience. The 'his' makes it more likely to be third person, but signifies no omniscience. We need a whole text analysis to discern whether omniscience has been achieved.

Emma, I think the useful distinction is between 'POV' and 'focalizer'. The POV can change the way it behaves, and thus technically itself, by using different focalizers. In one chapter, the narrative is in third person yet filtered through the perspective of one character; in the next chapter, it's still third person but now filtered through a different character. This is how most of the stories I've read in third person operate. One would call the POV third person throughout, and thus it technically stays the same, but the actual 'point of view' subtlely changes from character to character. Thus, there can be POV alternation within a constant POV. 



> A publisher does not care which POV a writer uses.



Yes they do. If a POV doesn't work - say, the entire story about a superhero is told through the perspective of a bland character who's supposed to make the superhero look cooler but only succeeds in making the whole story boring; that certainly wouldn't work - then the publisher may reject the story on that basis.



> Mixing POV is never recommended by anybody within the industry



And yet they publish countless books with multiple POVs each year? I think you've got your facts wrong.


----------



## Apex (Dec 20, 2014)

The diference between the two is: There is no difference.  As far as making the switch between characters obvious, is the same in both.

*Third Person Multiple:* This type is still in the "he/she/it" category, but now the narrator can follow multiple characters in the story. The challenge is making sure that the reader knows when you are switching from one character to another. Make the switch obvious with chapter or section breaks.
*
Third Person Omniscient:* This point of view still uses the "he/she/it" narration but now the narrator knows EVERYTHING. The narrator isn't limited by what one character knows, sort of like the narrator is God. The narrator can know things that others don't, can make comments about what's happening, and can see inside the minds of other characters.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 20, 2014)

> making the switch between characters obvious...
> 
> ...The challenge is making sure that the reader knows when you are switching from one character to another.



The stories I've read disagree; often their goal is to be subtle about it. Let the reader feel that you've changed focalizer without explicitly telling them. The less obvious it is, as long as it's successful, the more the reader can 'feel' that character through the prose for themselves. The opposite is true for first person alternations, however; if you don't make it clear who's narrating when, we'll give one person the voice of another.

Each choice of POV brings with it a heap of implications; the decision you make always makes a difference.


----------



## Kyle R (Dec 20, 2014)

Apex said:


> I am not a beginning writer. Nor am I a God of omniscient POV. My menter, Sol Stein, was against the use of the omniscient POV. All of my writing from day one has been done in omniscient POV.
> It is true many writers, new, and professional do not know the construction of it, nor how to keep the author hidden from the reader. Sol Stein was a great writer, and editor of many best selling works of famous other writers…he was also one of the leading publishers in New York City before he came to teach in California. Just goes to show, even the best can’t learn it all. *I hate 1[SUP]st[/SUP] person. Can’t stand it.*  One of my favorite writers, considered the best fiction writer in all of South America, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude using omniscient POV. Marquez was not a trained writer when he started writing, he did not know one POV from the others…he just started writing like people told stories from mouth to ear. I learned many years ago to tell stories from mouth to ear before all the stuff like computers, and TV. A time when people entertained each the with tall tails. I feel omniscient is the only POV that does not restrict the writer. It is like flying a glider…you can feel the bumpy spots in the air.
> 
> I would rather have the freedom to write:
> ...



You wrote that whole post in first person.


----------



## voltigeur (Dec 21, 2014)

POV continues to be the most controversial part of my writing. 

My beta readers basically now are in 2 groups, one is a writers group that as I have mentioned before meets during business hours and is mostly published authors. They hit me on POV all the time. Sometimes it is my mistake like when I have changed POV inside a sentence. Other times it feels like they are challenging the way I’m writing the story. 

They almost exclusively use some limited view point. As 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] person or first. The lady that runs the groups is a former editor and has told me that in the genre of Historical Thriller I play by slightly different rules. I'm telling the story with third person omniscient because I want ther freedom to move from one character to another. 

I met with another friend who is my technical advisor and the beta reader that is a fan of the Genre that I’m writing in. He says he has no problem with my POV’s 

My friend brought up a point that no one has shared with me before. 

He said he thought the difference in other writers he has read and myself is that their character’s story is the story. I’m writing about an _event_ that is larger than any character in the story. The event is the star, the characters experiences are how the reader sees the event play out. I found that comment very interesting. 

In general: 

He did say that I have quit head hopping and my transitions are more logical now and flow better. 

Both groups agree that I need to trust my instincts. He said I wrote better dialog before I found an online editor program. 

I’m still trying to balance brevity with voice.  But those are other topics for other threads.


----------



## Apex (Dec 21, 2014)

Kyle R said:


> You wrote that whole post in first person.



Because it is a post, not a story.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 21, 2014)

> Because it is a post, not a story.



Stories can be told through any medium; letters, diary entries, text messages, pictures - even posts on an online forum. The concepts of narration that we're talking about apply as much to the Iliad as they do to anything anyone writes, and once the writer understands that they need to communicate their story in a similar way to which their readers will be communicating to each other throughout their everyday lives, they will be able to approach their communication of their story with greater understanding of how success is achieved.


----------



## Apex (Dec 21, 2014)

Cadence said:


> Stories can be told through any medium; letters, diary entries, text messages, pictures - even posts on an online forum. The concepts of narration that we're talking about apply as much to the Iliad as they do to anything anyone writes, and once the writer understands that they need to communicate their story in a similar way to which their readers will be communicating to each other throughout their everyday lives, they will be able to approach their communication of their story with greater understanding of how success is achieved.




It seems every time I make a comment, you find error with it. Please tell me, have you been published by a standard publisher? Have you worked for a standard publisher?  Why do you believe the wrongness you give to my comments are correct?


----------



## Jeko (Dec 21, 2014)

> It seems every time I make a comment, you find error with it. Please tell me, have you been published by a standard publisher? Have you worked for a standard publisher? Why do you believe the wrongness you give to my comments are correct?



Whatever contact I've had with publishers is irrelevant, as are any other personal qualities or remarks. I'm disagreeing with you often because I often disagree with what you say; if you think I'm wrong and want to talk about why, then that's an opening for a good discussion.

I'm not going to 'validate' my comments with expereinces, qualifactions, etc. That doesn't lead to a good discussion; it only leads to one writer trying to make themselves look bigger than the other.


----------



## Apex (Dec 21, 2014)

Cadence said:


> Whatever contact I've had with publishers is irrelevant, as are any other personal qualities or remarks. I'm disagreeing with you often because I often disagree with what you say; if you think I'm wrong and want to talk about why, then that's an opening for a good discussion.
> 
> I'm not going to 'validate' my comments with expereinces, qualifactions, etc. That doesn't lead to a good discussion; it only leads to one writer trying to make themselves look bigger than the other.



I have worked for two standard publishers. I have been published (standard) for over twenty years. I have learned the trade from experts. It matters not to me if you agree with my comments or not. When I answer a question as I did on post #28 of this thread, and you find fault, than it seems there is something more in your comments. Unless you can give me a good reason, I will not respond to you in the future.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Dec 21, 2014)

I don't know the terminology. Cadence? Anyway.. "Ender nodded. It was a lie of course that it wouldn't hurt a bit." This is obviously 3rd person. It is just as obviously POV of Ender. The second sentence is not some abstract fact an omniscient narrator is telling us. It is what Ender is thinking, and the reader knows that and the author meant it that way.

This author changes POV. "...Nothing to be frightened of. Bee casually aimed at them, pushed the button and -- nothing happened." This is clearly third person, but it is clearly from the perspective of Bee, and it has to be understood that way.

Orson Scott Card doesn't seem to change POV often, but he does it without remorse, and without any problem. And I am not even counting the fly-on-the-wall perspective on the commander conversations.

And he freely clarifies. In the middle of a Bean POV, we get "He knew he'd made a good commander." If Card was confident of the change in POV, he could probably have written just: "He'd make a good commander." I am guessing that is part of being clear.

Apex, does this count as a great book. Is this what you are saying is wrong?


----------



## Jeko (Dec 21, 2014)

> Orson Scott Card doesn't seem to change POV often, but he does it without remorse, and without any problem.



Could you give the examples as a larger extract from the text? This seems like a good study of how third-person multiple can work, but to work out exactly what's happening we'll need to be able to pick apart the structure that Orson uses. 



> I don't know the terminology. Cadence?



I think the only two terms that are important are 'point of view' and 'focalizer':

*Point of view:* where the narrator is positioned. A third-person narrator is naturally outside the heads of characters, but can go into them and/or speak 'through' them (as your examples show). A first-person narrator is naturally in the head of a character.

*Focalizer: *when a narrator filters their narration through a character (basically going inside their head), that character is the 'focalizer'; it's their perspective and consciousness - their 'focus' - that's being used by the narrator who holds the story's point of view. Often the focalizer for third-person narration is the main character, because we want to know what's going on inside the main man/woman's head. The term rarely applies to first-person narration.


----------



## Jon M (Dec 21, 2014)

A description of a character's actions ("Bee") does not indicate a change in point of view. Omniscient narration is probably more common than most think.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 21, 2014)

> Omniscient narration is probably more common than most think.



I think some version of third person limited is the most common; a lot of stories in third person take one character, or more than one, and stick with them, and we 'feel' them through the whole of the narrative (or whenever they've got the narrator's attention, and thus ours).

Omniscient, on the other hand, is harder to genuinely pull off. James Wood outlines why:



			
				James wood said:
			
		

> So-called omniscience is almost impossible. As soon as someone tells a story about a character, narrative seems to want to bend itself around that character, wants to merge with that character, to take on his or her way of thinking and speaking. A novelist's omniscience soon enough becomes a kind of secret sharing; this is called "free indirect style," a term novelists have lots of different nicknames for-"close third person," or "going into character."



Of course, he's just one commentator on the craft, but his views on narrative are, at least for me, the most up-to-date.


----------



## Jon M (Dec 21, 2014)

Cadence said:


> I think some version of third person limited is the most common; a lot of stories in third person take one character, or more than one, and stick with them, and we 'feel' them through the whole of the narrative (or whenever they've got the narrator's attention, and thus ours).
> 
> Omniscient, on the other hand, is harder to genuinely pull off. James Wood outlines why:
> 
> ...


I'm reading Selby's Requiem for a Dream right now, and I can see how readers might think it's Limited, or some sort of alternating POV, but it's not--it's clear from the first pages that it is omniscient. And I'm not sure if people understand this about omniscient, but, like camera lenses, it is not a static focal length, it doesn't have to be. A story doesn't necessarily have to be narrated from the cold, unfeeling vantage of a wide angle lens. Narrative distance shortens, and for a time you might think you're reading Third Limited, that the rules and the point of view has changed, but most of the time, in capable hands, the rules haven't changed. It's still omniscient. Selby frequently dips into the heads of his characters--Harry, Sara, Marion, and Tyrone C. Love--and you might think, God, what sloppy technique, the POV is all over the place, but that view is misguided. Because in a story like Requiem, what you are seeing is a writer, craftsman, who understands narrative distance and how to manipulate it.


----------



## Apex (Dec 21, 2014)

Jon M said:


> I'm reading Selby's Requiem for a Dream right now, and I can see how readers might think it's Limited, or some sort of alternating POV, but it's not--it's clear from the first pages that it is omniscient. And I'm not sure if people understand this about omniscient, but, like camera lenses, it is not a static focal length, it doesn't have to be. A story doesn't necessarily have to be narrated from the cold, unfeeling vantage of a wide angle lens. Narrative distance shortens, and for a time you might think you're reading Third Limited, that the rules and the point of view has changed, but most of the time, in capable hands, the rules haven't changed. It's still omniscient. Selby frequently dips into the heads of his characters--Harry, Sara, Marion, and Tyrone C. Love--and you might think, God, what sloppy technique, the POV is all over the place, but that view is misguided. Because in a story like Requiem, what you are seeing is a writer, craftsman, who understands narrative distance and how to manipulate it.



DITTO


----------



## Jon M (Dec 21, 2014)

This may be an interesting exercise--may not be totally accurate or analogous--but: I've got a movie playing in the background, and I started to think of omniscience and narrative distance in terms of how close or far the actors were from the camera, how big or how small they were on screen, in other words. I found it to be a very useful visual depiction of what goes on in an expertly crafted story featuring an omniscient narrator--the subtle and ever-changing manipulation of distance.


----------



## Apex (Dec 21, 2014)

Jon M said:


> This may be an interesting exercise--may not be totally accurate or analogous--but: I've got a movie playing in the background, and I started to think of omniscience and narrative distance in terms of how close or far the actors were from the camera, how big or how small they were on screen, in other words. I found it to be a very useful visual depiction of what goes on in an expertly crafted story featuring an omniscient narrator--the subtle and ever-changing manipulation of distance.



A perfect movie for omniscience used in a movie is; *The Assination of Jesse James* staring  Brad Pitt. Every writer should watch this movie. You will hear a narrator use the omniscient POV to the fullest. It is spot on.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Dec 21, 2014)

"Her lips were cool but warmed quickly." (A male and female are kissing.) If the narrator of this sentence is outside the two, then -- the way I am thinking -- this is just a fact. He might be aware of it or not; she might be aware of it or not.

If it's from his POV (focalized on him), then it is a thought _he _is having, a thought he is likely to react to. If it's from her POV, same for her.

That's what I"m trying to say -- you have to know POV to understand what is happening. Like Cadence said, most third-person writing, even though it could be omniscient, establishes a (focalized) POV.

The next sentence is the same: "Her body was tense but slowly relaxed." The next sentence establishes (_finally_!) the POV: "He enjoyed both changes." And now we know the next sentence is _his _thoughts: "She wasn't a woman who gave herself freely or easily."

Apex sent me a copy of writing that was truly and consistently from omniscient point of view. The above author, Nora Roberts, switches POV (focalization) rapidly without warning. Like Apex said (true?), most authors writing in third person establish a single POV and stick to it. Or mostly stick to it, as in the Card example.

(Cadence: http://www.onereads.org/enders-game-orson-scott-card?page=0%2C45,93)


----------



## Jon M (Dec 21, 2014)

You need to provide more than just a sentence when discussing point of view, for context. Those examples may or may not come from a characters viewpoint. You seem to think that a change in focus is the same as a change in point of view, which is not always true, and probably rare. "Establishing a point of view" seems redundant to me, since all stories require one. So it is something established right away. 

Just kinda proving my point maybe, most of the books that happen to be on my living room table feature omniscient narrators: The Corrections, Revolutionary Road, Haunting of Hill House, Requiem.The only one that isn't is Junky and Bright Lights, Big City, though I'd argue the latter has its moments.


----------



## Apex (Dec 21, 2014)

cc


----------



## Jeko (Dec 22, 2014)

> And I'm not sure if people understand this about omniscient, but, like camera lenses, it is not a static focal length, it doesn't have to be. A story doesn't necessarily have to be narrated from the cold, unfeeling vantage of a wide angle lens. Narrative distance shortens, and for a time you might think you're reading Third Limited, that the rules and the point of view has changed, but most of the time, in capable hands, the rules haven't changed. It's still omniscient.



I agree; what I'm talking about are the variations of omniscient that enhance or undermine the use of it, the variations that enable the omniscient POV to have POV changes within it on a deeper level.

There is, for instance, *full omniscient*, where the narrator is a god and behaves like a god, and thus reports anything they want to. We could see this in one scene, and then see *limited omniscient *in the next; the omniscient narrator remains the god they are, but chooses to only report things through a character's perspective, either objectively or subjectively. So, as you say, the narrator remains omniscient; yet, there can also be also a change in POV (unless you don't want to create this second level of thinking on the subject - that's up to the writer) within that omniscience.

Taking the excerpt from Ender's Game, I noticed a few uses of alternating POV through free indirect style within an omniscient narrator:

_Only then did it occur to William Bee that not only had Dragon Army ended the game, it was possible that, under the rules, they had won it. After all, no matter what happened, you were not certified as the winner unless you had enough unfrozen soldiers to touch the corners of the gate and pass someone through into the enemy’s corridor. Therefore, by one way of thinking, you could argue that the ending ritual was victory. The battleroom certainly recognized it as the end of the game.

_In this paragraph we get the sense that the narrator is explaining an understanding that is common in the world of the novel - the use of the second person powerfully advocates this as a shared understanding. Yet, through the syntax of the passage we also get the sense that this is Bee's thought process. It would make sense that Bee is making this all add up in his head in order to understand the situation. Thus, the narrator veers into free indirect style, though the narrator also veers quickly out of it by the end of the paragraph.

_Ender unfroze everyone at once. To hell with protocol. To hell with everything.
_
This is even more obvious; the narrator is not thinking 'to hell with everything'; those are Ender's thoughts breaking into the prose. So, as we've had free indirect style from two characters, and more explicit mind reading:
_
But there was something wrong. William Bee thought for a moment and realized what it was. 

_we can conclude that the passage is in omniscient. That does not change. What does change is the POV within the omniscient through free indirect style. These changes should not be seen as being as substantial as those on the higher and more common level of what is termed 'POV change', but they are still there. We get the Dragon Army victory analysed through Bee's POV and Ender's reaction to the game in Ender's POV. Bee and Ender are used as focalizers; we do not get their POV, but rather a sense of their POV through the omniscient POV that chooses to use them when it is useful to the story.

I think giving the omniscient perspective these 'layers' of thinking is a good way of knowing what you're doing with it; there can be POV changes on the upper and lower levels of narrative. Then again, we should probably find a better term for those lower-level POV changes than 'POV changes', since that could confuse them with the upper-level ones. Thus, I tend to use 'focalizer', with the fact in mind that a focalizer has a POV and that POV is being used by whoever holds the overall POV when the focalizer is being used.


----------



## Apex (Dec 22, 2014)

There is 1[SUP]st[/SUP], 2[SUP]nd[/SUP], and 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] person pov. Trying to put a pov in layers, you will confuse the reader more than yourself. In WW2 the army issued a book to the troops for the invasion of Italy. It was to help them speak to the locals. The book instructed the kids from Texas, New York, and Hollywood; “Just add an o to the end of each word, and the Italians will understand you“…”Whereo, foodo,helpo.” The boys found the books good for clean up after body function.
Start telling an agent you work on this layero, or that layero…you will find your work in the slush pileo.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Dec 22, 2014)

Okay, to think about it the other way....

(John and Pauline are introduced)



> John's first thought was that she was attractive; Pauline's first thought  was that his tie was askew.
> 
> John's second thought was that he wanted to hold her hand while they talked over a candlelight dinner; Pauline's second thought was that it was nice for a man to smile at her like he wanted to know her.



I hate arguing about words, but to me this is true omniscient POV. It is not told from John's POV; it is not told from Pauline's POV. It is told from a POV outside them, even if they are the only two people in the room.

You cannot head-hop much faster than this; does it set a record? But I have no problems reading or understanding it. Or even liking potentially liking something like that, or letting it go on for longer. Because....I was never confused about POV, I was never confused about who was thinking what.


----------



## Bishop (Dec 22, 2014)

I'll just go ahead and say that readers who are not writers do not notice POV. They might have an understanding of it from English 101, but in general they just... read. The story carries itself. I've read books in 1st limited, 1st omniscient, 3rd this-3rd that, 5th person ("I heard from this one guy who heard from his buddy..."  ). While there are many layers to POV, readers rarely get upset over it. In fact, I'm surprised the OP's readers even mentioned it--unless, by not reading his work, I'm missing something huge. Even when I read voraciously, I barely take not of POV unless there's something odd about it. In the character's head, out of the character's head... doesn't matter, I just read. 

In a book, if the first scene is "Bob flying a space ship" then the next chapter is "Mary watching the spaceship leave", there's likely no issue. It's just two perspectives on the same story, little to do with POV so much as character filtering.


----------



## Jared77 (Dec 22, 2014)

Bishop said:


> I'll just go ahead and say that readers who are not writers do not notice POV. They might have an understanding of it from English 101, but in general they just... read. The story carries itself. I've read books in 1st limited, 1st omniscient, 3rd this-3rd that, 5th person ("I heard from this one guy who heard from his buddy..."  ). While there are many layers to POV, readers rarely get upset over it. In fact, I'm surprised the OP's readers even mentioned it--unless, by not reading his work, I'm missing something huge. Even when I read voraciously, I barely take not of POV unless there's something odd about it. In the character's head, out of the character's head... doesn't matter, I just read.
> 
> In a book, if the first scene is "Bob flying a space ship" then the next chapter is "Mary watching the spaceship leave", there's likely no issue. It's just two perspectives on the same story, little to do with POV so much as character filtering.



My friend is trying to be a writer too.  So, he's not just a "reader".  But I do have some "mere readers" reading my book too, so it will be interesting to hear their take on it, if they even notice or care about POV.

With the "Bob flying a spaceship" statement - What if Mary watching is in the next sentence?  Or in the same chapter with a scene break?  That's what my friend was taking issue with.


----------



## Bishop (Dec 22, 2014)

Jared77 said:


> With the "Bob flying a spaceship" statement - What if Mary watching is in the next sentence?  Or in the same chapter with a scene break?  That's what my friend was taking issue with.



That's fine. It can even be in the same sentence:

Bob engaged the thrusters, and his ship began to shrink over the hilltops as Mary watched him ascend.

Honestly, I think your writer friend might be trying to find issues where he thinks there are issues because he doesn't write that way. Like, an inherent, subconscious bias away from writing that way. I used to have this bias against 1st person narratives, thinking them lesser in some way and unconsciously looking down on writers for using it. Until I realized I was being a narrow-sighted ass.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 22, 2014)

> There is 1[SUP]st[/SUP], 2[SUP]nd[/SUP], and 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] person pov. Trying to put a pov in layers, you will confuse the reader more than yourself



I don't see why; the variations of each of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person are important to the craft, and if you don't understand them, you might use one incorrectly. The concept of focalizers has also been around for some time now, though it's not something I consciously think of during the drafting process.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Dec 23, 2014)

If I understand correctly, authors writing in third person just leave off the thought tag when it isn't needed. True? (I hope Bishop doesn't mind if I use his book as an example. It has the advantage that we can find out what the author intended.)

"Dask [the MC] turned the shuttle around again, and the shadow [space monster] gave chase. He needed to distract it, keep it off the Redeemer [his space ship] for as long as possible—even if it meant his own life."

Now, what is Dask thinking in this scene? We know that he turned the shuttle around. The external narrator has told us that he needs to distract it to save his ship. Does Dask know that? Is he thinking about that right now?

I am thinking yes. The author meant, "Dask realized he needed to...." and he just left off the thought tag, because it was obvious. To me it _is _obvious, and I think the author made a good choice. (Really, I read the whole book without one complaint about POV.)

But....



> Still, something was wrong. He pressed the comm panel again and it failed to chime or even light up. The noise of air rushing through the vents reminded him that the life support systems remained. The fact that he remained anchored in his chair told him that the artificial gravity still worked. But the lack of any noise from the distant engines of the ship told him they were adrift.
> 
> The odds favored that the ship had some mechanical failure.



I read this as the first sentence of both paragraphs telling us what Dask was thinking. Then when I thought about it, I decided that the author was using an external narrator and these were just facts. The conclusion to the second paragraph suggests that the first sentence was not what Dask was thinking. "But Dask had a history that pointed his mind in another, more sinister direction."


----------

