|
|
Post by pelwrath on Aug 25, 2022 9:03:37 GMT -6
If any here didn't know, POV is my kryptonite,most likley due to how I write the movie in my head. I don't see a shift and was operating under a flse dichotomy of POV. Until recently to me 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person were ways that the character talked and omniscient or limited where what they knew of the situation. I have a character, Gina who speaks in 3rd person, I always thought I wrote in 1st person, via the chacater who was talking, even to use thougts or descriptions from the characters POV. Hence head bopping. The other day a friend aske dme if I've ever seen a Japanese movie Rashomon, which I haven't. "Watch it, it's close to how you write." I did and found this: The Rashomon effect is the situation in which an event is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved, and is a storytelling and writing method in cinema meant to provide different perspectives and points of view of the same incident. The term, derived from the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, is used to describe the phenomenon of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon_effectLink to the movie description: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RashomonIn looking over what POV actually is, I saw in multiple places, "If your a famous writer, you don't have to worry about this." Funny, don't the rules apply to all writers? I'm becoming more familiar with the definitions of POV. Mybook blurb is 2nd person, apparently some of the book is as well, and it's also 3rd person limited. It's was mentioned that paragraph, sceene, or chapter breaks can correct this but how do I as a technically poor writer, recognize when I've done a POV shift? I'm very much a pantser, I write the scene I see. To me there is no shift in POV, only the character who's is the focus. One way that was mentioned, is the POV of a scene should be the charater with the most to loose. |
|
|
|
Post by RAVENEYE on Aug 25, 2022 10:29:57 GMT -6
I think I mentioned this in the beta read I did, didn't I? During a scene that jumped between two or three characters, if I remember? The advice was to help you decide which POV to go with, if you decided to choose just one character to focus on in that scene. Not necessarily "should," but because the character with the most to lose can provide the greatest amount of tension to move the book forward , rather than the POV of an observer who has less invested in the scene's outcome. (Writing from the POV of a character who has more to lose can make it easier to write a scene that holds the reader's interest, not because the scene "should" be from that character's POV, if that makes sense.)
For example: The Great Gatsby is not from Gatsby's POV, ever. Even though the story is about him and he has the most to lose (woman, reputation, wealth, life). The story is told by an observer, Nick, only. Nick has nothing to lose. So his method is totally acceptable. That said, you're writing an adventure story, not high literature. So readers may expect the immediacy of the POV of a character with much to lose and much to gain as a result of the conflict. Head-hopping is a TOUGH habit to break. I didn't think I was committing it during my first novel either, but I go back and read it now, and I see all kinds of POV infractions I committed. Simply because I hadn't gotten a full grasp on deep immersive POV yet (even though I thought I had). 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person is only part of the POV topic. The only part of your story written in 2nd is the foreword/prologue. The rest is in 3rd. Even though you present characters' thoughts in 1st (as you should). Seeing a book as a movie definitely leads to head-hopping. That was my issue too. I saw my early novels as movies, and so I wasn't able to separate the characters' experiences scene-by-scene. A book is NOT a movie. Modern books are not structured like classics that condoned head-hopping (thinking of Dune here), and in a short book like yours, the fewer the POVs the better. Here's a way to narrow down the characters as potential POV characters. So the main "good guys" are Zeph, Brielle, and Agate. The main "villains" are Lawrence and Bathory. * Zeph and Brielle are ALWAYS in the same scenes together. So there's no need for both of them to provide info on the same scenes. Therefore, I suggest picking Zeph and omitting Brielle. Unless you want the human viewpoint, then pick Brielle for most of their scenes. * Definitely keep Agate's POV. Omit all other POVs in her scenes. * Definitely keep Lawrence. * And Bathory is a great villain (love her), but the POV of her scenes might be more interesting coming from one of her children (ONE, not two or three), and omit all the POVs of her stooges and hirelings and thugs. Her daughter gets killed, so she's not a good choice, pick one of the others.  To help maintain a single POV in a scene: "if my POV character can't feel it, know it, see it, taste it, touch it, then omit it." Crossing that boundary into what a different character thinks, feels, sees is a POV shift, a head-hop. |
|
|
|
Post by ScintillaMyntan on Aug 25, 2022 10:36:46 GMT -6
All right, I think you're mixing up something here. Point of view refers to a couple different things.
Point of view can mean which character's knowledge or opinions we're working from. Let's say: "The hero approaches the castle. The king might be waiting for him eagerly." This is in the hero's point of view. He can't know whether the king is waiting for him eagerly, but he thinks he might. So even though we didn't use any direct quotes or first person, it's in his point of view because we can see him wondering about the king but not knowing for sure.
On the other hand, "The hero approaches the castle. The king is waiting for him eagerly" is not in the hero's point of view. He has no way of knowing the king is waiting for him, yet we're given that information for sure anyway.
A regular story sticks to the hero's point of view. It makes the reader identify with the hero by knowing only what the hero knows and seeing his thoughts. What you're talking about in your post is that some writers switch up the point of view for effect. It could be interesting to see the same event from the point of view of different characters. So this would be like seeing the hero think the king is eager to see him, and then switching to the king's point of view and seeing that he's actually really grumpy.
Point of view can also refer to whether you're using first, second, or third person, which is another, more basic matter. This is the difference between saying "The hero approaches the castle" and "I approach the castle." If you're talking about a character by name or by he/she/they, then they don't suddenly become 'I.' If you're telling us something your neighbor did, you would call him 'he,' right? Never 'I.' If you used the word 'I,' it would be referring to you, not him. If he spoke, he would likewise call himself 'I.' Yes, some stories switch narrators, but you shouldn't switch narrators in the middle of a scene.
Does this all make sense? It's hard to help exactly because I don't particularly understand what you find confusing.
|
|
|
|
Post by pelwrath on Aug 25, 2022 20:47:33 GMT -6
Raveneye and Scintella- Thank you both for your responses. I have only associated POV with the 'speaker' in the scene, never with any naration being done. I've always assumed, that in any book, the narration is from a character who's retelling the story. Which character never matter to me when I'm reading. The Great Gatsby isn't told by him, that's nice and keep reading. I've always had at least a grasp on the POV from the characters perspective. The fact that it also applies to the narrator really was a shock. I'm the farthest from a technically oriented writer as you'll ever find. To me the story is paramount. Why write a technically correct book, that's boring as flies on poop? Raveneye, nice little trick for me to remember for POV determination, thanks. Which is better, adding a break to indicate a POV shift or rewrite the section? I do need to remember that I'm not writing a script but a book. The head hopping is what I need to imrove on, as that is jaring to the reader. In honsety, I've never noticed such in any book I've read. Though If I don't know I'm doing it, I wouldn't know if the author of a book I'm reading is doing it. Apparenty GRR Martin does this but by naming his chapters after a character, he has a way of staying on track. Ignore characters so I can reduce the chanaces of a POV shift? So, excessive charcters are a bad thing, like violating Occam's Razor or cutting words? If i don't really need the character, then removes them?(change history in my books case, which I already have) Foundthese sites that talkabout head-hopping. www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2014/04/30/head-hopping-fiction-writing/writing.stackexchange.com/questions/39246/is-head-hopping-always-bad
|
|
|
|
Post by havekrillwhaletravel on Aug 26, 2022 2:49:12 GMT -6
I think you’re confusing 3rd-person limited and 3rd-person omniscient. 3rd-person limited follows one character. In 3rd-person limited, you are … err, limited to what that particular character sees and knows. In this case, head-hopping (suddenly jumping to a different character’s perspective) is weird because the reader is suddenly introduced to things that the narrator couldn’t possibly know.
In 3rd-person omniscient, the story is told by an all-seeing, all-knowing narrator (who doesn’t play a part in the story’s events). This narrator knows what’s going on inside each character’s head and sees/knows everything occurring inside a story. In this case, head-hopping isn’t an issue.
*
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is written in 3rd-person omniscient. Bear this rather long excerpt (colours and parentheses added by me): In the above passage, the reader is told what Aureliano does/thinks, what Ursula does/thinks, what happens in the future. These aren't mistakes. They're characteristics of 3rd omniscient.
I’m going to poop-ily rewrite this passage in 3rd-person limited, from Aureliano’s POV: In 3rd-person limited, the blue section would be “incorrect”. Aureliano can’t see Ursula putting the bar on the door as it takes place out of his sight. Aureliano can’t know what Ursula is thinking (though he can wonder and imagine). The green section would also be “incorrect”. Aureliano can’t know what will happen in the future. If those sections were included in 3rd limited, then the reader might question why Aureliano (a character without magical powers) can suddenly read Ursula's mind or see the future. This would probably break immersion.
If I want to show what Ursula is thinking/doing in this scene, I can choose to write a chapter from her perspective (effectively rewriting the scene but telling it from her POV).
*
I don’t see why you would have to cut down on any characters as long as you stay in one character’s head for a scene. 3rd person limited doesn't mean all other characters can't be fleshed out. If you want to jump to a different character's POV, then like GRRM, you can focus on different characters in different chapters or separate POVs with breaks within a chapter.
* If you’re asking WHY modern writing cautions against 3rd-person omniscient, I personally think that’s because: a) Ease - 3rd omniscient is just harder to pull off. b) Intent – Does 3rd omniscient match the intent of your story? 100 Years is written in 3rd omniscient because it's (I think) the POV that best fits the book; the story isn’t about any one character, but an entire family through the generations. Harry Potter is written in 3rd limited because the story is mostly interested in Harry’s experiences. We learn about other characters of course, but always through Harry's lens#. Everything and everyone is processed through Harry's limited knowledge and his biases.
3rd limited matches some of the story's themes and is used for certain effects. For instance, throughout the series, Harry (and the reader) "knows" that his father, James, is a "good guy". Harry obviously doesn't remember anything about his father. He arrives at this knowledge because that's what all his father's friends keep telling him. So when Harry sees a memory of James bullying Snape, that comes as a gut-punch for both Harry (and the reader). This reveal wouldn't have as big an impact if the story was written in 3rd omniscient and the entire series had sentences like: "Harry growled, 'My father was a greater man than you'll ever be'. Snape grimaced. He decided to omit the fact that James was kind of a dick during his time at Hogwarts."
#UNRELATED TANGENT: Why do Harry and other characters still wear glasses? Can't they just magically repair their vision? Surely a Wizarding society who has the leisure time to invent a sport where teenagers fly hundreds of feet above the ground and bludgeon each other with semi-sentient balls have also invented Wizarding optometry along the way. A Potterhead is probably going to come along and give me an in-universe reason why Harry chooses to wear glasses.
c) Accessibility – For whatever reason, 3rd omniscient is a harder sell to some (many?) readers. So there’s nothing stopping you from writing 3rd omniscient, but just know that it’s a choice that some readers might not agree with. |
|
|
|
Post by pelwrath on Aug 26, 2022 7:54:37 GMT -6
Whale, thanks you for your imput. In your examples, I'm not sure I would've caught the blue if I was writing in limited. I'll ask this. The blue isn't wrong so much as it's tied to the first part. If it was seperated by a paragraph beak (3 lines) would it then be okay? It's been seperated from the limted section and moved to it's own, like below?
[He (Aureliano) gave her a distant smile, raising his hand with all his fingers extended, and without saying a word he left the house and faced the shouts, insults and blasphemies that would follow him until he left the town.
Ursula put the bar on the door, having decided not to take it down for the rest of her life. “We’ll rot in here,” she thought … (one sentence) … She spent the whole morning looking for a memory of her son in the most hidden corners, but she could find none.]
So how do you shift between POV characters?
Paragraph break. At the very least, always use a paragraph break when shifting between two characters.
Chapter break. ...
Line break. ...
Scene break Some authors use a symbol or * * * to indicate a change of character POV.
As Raveneye is, to my knowedge, the only person in our group who has read my book, and I've never been told that switching between limited and omniscient is an issue, I'll assume that my POV shifts are only 1st person shifts, related to dialogue or deep POV thought, 1st to 3rd person character shifts.
|
|
|
|
Post by havekrillwhaletravel on Aug 26, 2022 10:08:44 GMT -6
In our hypothetical, 3rd limited 100 Years, we would be following Aureliano for the entire story. If we were to then write the lines - “Ursula put the bar on the door … ‘We’ll rot in here,’ she thought …” – in pg. 180, we would be “head-hopping”. That would be “incorrect” because readers might be wondering why Aureliano is suddenly privy to knowledge he can’t possibly know in this one instance. Why has this suddenly occurred now when we’ve been stuck with Aureliano for the past 180 pages?
If you were to switch characters in 3rd limited, I would personally suggest doing it in chapters. So: Crucially, the writer is still bound by 3rd limited in both chapters. The narration in Chapter X still shouldn’t reveal anything that Aureliano doesn’t know. The narration in Chapter Y still shouldn’t reveal anything that Ursula doesn’t know.
I have read a couple of stories who do switch characters within a chapter. They often do this with scene breaks (***).
Personal take from hereon. Just my thoughts, not authoritative and concrete writing advice. Feel free to disagree: I heavily disliked this approach. In fact, I can’t remember anything about those books except that they did this one thing. It feels like the worst of both worlds. The writer would still be constrained by the rules of 3rd limited – the narration is still stuck with the character in that scene; the reader would still only be privy to what that particular character knows.
And the writer has now introduced a very disruptive element to their story. If constantly switching characters is absolutely necessary to the story, I’m not sure why an author would be writing in 3rd limited instead of 3rd omniscient.
Again, if I'm reading a story that does this, I will be asking myself the 3 questions in my previous post: a) Ease – Can the writer pull this off without confusing their reader and find a way to minimize the disruptiveness of such an approach? b) Intent – What is the reasoning behind this approach? Is this the right fit for the story? Does this enhance the story rather than distract from it? c) Accessibility – Even if everything goes off without a hitch, there will be some readers who won’t jive with it. |
|
|
|
Post by RAVENEYE on Aug 27, 2022 10:10:31 GMT -6
There's no need to ignore or delete a character who's not a POV character (unless they truly are extraneous to the story, and I don't think any of your characters are extraneous). Rather filter that character through the POV character's observations. For example: Agate takes over all scenes in which she is present. So when she's in the lab with her sister, we learn about the sister's personality through Agate's thoughts and observations about her. We never learn the sister's thoughts and feelings unless she outwardly expresses them through body language or speech. A lot of your dialog already fills this role. It's just a matter of keeping the private thoughts, opinions, and observations to a single character per scene. And yes, studying how authors like GRRM stick to a single POV per chapter is a great way to learn how to do this. He's a very competent, powerful storyteller, and one of my faves, so I'm biased when I say study EVERYTHING GRRM does.  So yes, a great way to keep POVs separate is to use scene divider symbols or new chapters. Thanks for the links, too! |
|
|
|
Post by pelwrath on Aug 27, 2022 12:35:53 GMT -6
Raveneye,
Thank you, it’s good that I’m closer than I thought but I still need to smooth out that bump, to correcting that. I designed my chapters with GRRM in mind but more location than character specific. I figured the location would indicate what characters would be present.
Like deep POV, which I was sometimes did without knowing, my POV shifts are all the time, though they do occur far to frequently. My not noticing them, doesn’t make them nonexistent.
Received the 2nd round of edits back. Now to make changes, correct spelling for Alucard and a few other minor but troublesome issues. Finalize a cover/title, do a small marketing plan. On October 6 is the two year anniversary of my first book.
All here have been awesome and helpful in my journey.
|
|
To help maintain a single POV in a scene: "if my POV character can't feel it, know it, see it, taste it, touch it, then omit it." Crossing that boundary into what a different character thinks, feels, sees is a POV shift, a head-hop.
You add them to your profile as you do them around the forum.
