Point Of View (POV)

In another thread, the subject of POV was raised. I got this advice from a writing forum. POV is a mixed bag. If you write brilliantly and coherently no one pays much attention to POV. Just tell an interesting and entertaining story.

A. The most important lesson: Be consistent in tense and POV, understand the differences and make them work in your narrative. The pronouns; she, he, they, it, etc indicate third person POV. The story is told through a narrator storyteller or observer of the action.

1. May be in future tense, present tense or past tense (shouldn't be mixed in paragraphs)
a. Future: She will be going to the store in the morning.
b. Present: She is going to the store.
c. Past: She went to the store. (probably the easiest to work with)

2. May be Omniscient:
'"I ain't gonna tell him anything," Leonard thought, as he watched the policeman pick up the billfold. He spat on the ground and narrowly missed the cop's shoe.

Sergeant Bloom felt angry as he sidestepped the spittle and opened the billfold to see if there was anything to identify its owner.'

3. May be Limited to the narrator/writer's view of events:
'"I ain't gonna tell him anything," Leonard hissed as he watched the policeman pick up the billfold. He spat on the ground and narrowly missed the cop's shoe. Sergeant Bloom looked angry as he sidestepped the spittle and opened the billfold to see if there was anything to identify its owner.'

(Generally 3rd person Limited POV is simplest to use and most best selling books on the market use this POV)

B. First Person Point of View indicated by the pronouns; I, we, us and is limited to what the storyteller views. May be in future, present or past tense.

C. Second Person Point of View indicated by the pronoun; you are most often used in nonfiction and instructional material. 'You will understand the point of view topic once you have addressed the problem in your writing.' (rarely used in fiction writing)

More about third person:

"There are basically three different styles to the third person POV. You can limit yourself to what any external observer could see of the situation; "Danny and Joe slowly tossed the baseball back and forth in the summer heat." You can, as in the excerpt from Bebe Campbell, describe the view from behind one character's eyes, including their thoughts and emotions: "Every time Danny tossed the ball back he hoped that Joe would finally say 'That's it, let's go get a drink.'" Or you may choose to be an omniscient narrator, dipping behind the eyes of all characters. After Danny's observation, you could say, "Every time Danny slowly lobbed the baseball back, Joe wished he'd put some fire into it. They were never going to win a game this way. The nerd was probably hoping he'd call the practice and
go for drinks."

The temptation of most writers is to tell the reader everything that all characters are feeling. The irony is, this distances most readers from the story. Describing dialogue, facial expression and action, then letting the readers figure out the thoughts & emotions themselves, makes the readers feel more involved in the story."

The above excerpt is from: StreetWrites POV workshop, more in the URL provided.

Third person limited is the most common manner of writing fiction. It simply means staying within the head of a single character. Some writers, such as Ben Bova, never leave the POV character for the entire length of the novel.

One way of think about third person limited is to think of it as first person, only with "he" and "her" replacing "I."

Instead of writing, "I watched the sun burst over the horizon like God's own fireworks" You write "She watched the sun burst over the horizon like God's own firework."

That's basically the difference, though in some scenes it can get just a bit more complicated, but only very rarely.

In longer novels, sagas of the length of say, Lonesome Dove or a Tom Clancy novel, the writer leaves the POV character when the location changes. Say you jump from a chracter in New York to one in Russia. This is the big advantage of third person over first person.

But even then, you stay within POV while in the same chapter, or very long scene. If the chapters are very long, you can get away with a page break for POV change once, rarely twice. But usually a chapter break works somewhat better.

Though Stephen King wrote Bag of Bones, a very long novel, in first person, meaning not one POV change the entire way.

If a character can see it, hear it, taste it, feel it, smell it, think it, or know it, you're still within his POV. You can describe any of the above, what he's thinking, feeling, seeing, and so on, and still be in his point of view.

If, on the other hand, you try to describe something the POV character can't know, such as someone else's thoughts, or how that person is feeling, you've switched POV, unless you do it THROUGH the POV character.

Something like this. Say the POV character is someone named Steve, and he's talking to a woman named Maria. You can write,

Maria bit at her lower lip and moved her glass around and around in her hands. Steve had seen her do this a thousand times. It almost always meant she was worried about something. It also meant trying to talk to her about moving to New York right now would be useless.
She would think about nothing else until whatever her current worry was had been banished.

The above is all in Steve's POV because he can see her biite her lower lip, see her twirl the glass. And he can surmise that Marcia is worried about something because he knows her so well.

The way to describe the reactions of others is through the eyes of the POV character. He can see another person's eyebrows rise, or the tremble of their lip, etc.

These point of view rules sound very rigid to me. I read a lot of commercial fiction, and it seems that I get the perspectives of many characters, even in short chapters. For instance, I am reading John Grisham's The Testament, and in Chapter 37, there is a second page break (four pages after the first) that begins with two paragraphs recounting a secondary character's actions and thoughts. The third paragraph switches to the main character. It flows nicely, and the activities of the two characters are related, though in different locations.

I read other authors who have frequent page breaks (scene changes), switching to different characters, all within the same chapters (which aren't necessarily long). This is especially effective when tension is building in a story.

So, I guess I'm wondering how strict this rule is and whether we can go with our own writing style if it tends to flow well.

Thanks for the input.
Vicki

If you mean when can you switch POV character, the rules aren't rigid at all when location changes. But there is a point of overkill, depending on the length and pace of the novel. Much depends on whether the chapter is five pages, or forty pages, and whether the novel is 300 or 800 pages. The longer the chapter, and the longer and more complex the novel, the more often you can get away with it. Grisham writes very long, highly complex novels.

But John Grisham doesn't sell well because of his great writing. His strength is wonderful storytelling, and great characterization. And even Grisham doesn't make abrupt changes in rapid succession all that often.

And slipping in very quick scene break POV changes every great once in a while, even at machinegun speed, can be very effective, just for a change of pace. But as with cayenne pepper, a little bit goes a long way.

And a lot of very bad writers (Not Grisham) get away with much they shouldn't. Head-hopping is probably one of the top three problems most writers have. It's very tough to avoid. Good writing is always hard. But head-hopping (switching POV inside a scene)is always bad, and most writers do it because they don't know how not to do it.
And most editors will bounce a head-hopping scene. Though some few romance writers get away with it. Nora Roberts is infamous for her head-hopping scenes. But she can't stop herself from writing them, so she developed other skills that allows her to get away with some head-hopping.

But if you mean what is and isn't staying inside POV, that's completely rigid. You're either in a character's point of view, or you aren't. Like being pregnant,

Vickie,

An interesting book I'm reading now with multiple first person POV is The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney. Each chapter is one of four women and it's melding together very effortlessly. Great characterization, also. I'm only half done but I'm finishing this one, and that's something. It's a fun way to 'head-hop' and still follow the rules.

I had a real problem with the head-hopping thing when I first started writing. I had so many rejections I decided to write single point of view and when I couldn't stand one POV, I changed to chapter breaks with names on POV, and all related to the main character POV. You might read this book and see if you like this style. It very clearly illustrates what the heck we're talking about.

Back to this topic (and stirring up trouble, I guess) -- I just picked up a new book (recent one by Mary Higgins Clark) and I'm finding that pov shifting thing all over the place. Sometimes it's in a scene like an observer going around a room, describing the people in a meeting or courtroom, say, and giving a few thoughts of each. Other times, there are only a couple of people in a scene, and the pov will shift. For the most part, it works and is not confusing.

I have read other books in the past where it was done poorly and was indeed confusing. I'm wondering if it's one of those rules that can be broken if you do it well......

Vicki

Any rule can be broken, if you tell a good enough story to get away with it. Nora Roberts breaks the rule constantly, but says she can't make herself stay is the same POV. And I think she's a pretty good writer. I haven't noticed Mary Higgins Clark breaking the rule too often, though the last novel of hers I read was YOU BELONG TO ME. Maybe I need to read her again. She's very clever at staying within the rule, but still getting across what others are thinking or feeling. But she is worse than some, and has lapses, though most of the time she does change location when true POV jumps.

But confusion isn't the only issue. Head-hopping is simply a very inferior way of writing a scene, and I don't think any writer head-hops intentionally. It gets you in trouble with too many editors, reviewers, and readers. It's almost always the lazy way out, and even when a writer gets away with it, they catch much flak, and rightfully so.

Mostly it's a matter of how well do you want to write, rather than what you can get away with.

I have an excellent book about this which I can't locate right now on my bulging, two-deep, messy bookshelves. Maybe I can find it later. Anyway, it's my understanding that if you write with one POV you should keep it that way, and not all of a sudden have another character's thoughts or feelings show up. If you use more than one POV, that's fine, too, at least as long as it's from the get-go.

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