Keeping your POV straight

spectrefox · Dec 5, 2009

I've read recent posts and searched through the forum. There were some posts on "Is it ok to switch?" and "Does this switch work?" but none that really addressed my situation.

I would like to know if any of you have advice to keeping your POV in check! I have seen some advice on keeping your tenses in check, or redudancy, or cliches, or a host of other things. It's in the same vein though.

I was rereading my short story and noticed that I started with a goal (to keep third limited) but I ended up migrating to objective. The scenes where the MC was talking and generally "doing stuff" were in third, but sometimes I'd end up in obj, describing something or other about the surrounding area that my MC knew, just not as deeply as I was describing it to the reader (i.e., MC knew about this, but ohoho, it goes deeper than that!). Sometimes these paragraphs would show up between third-limited scenes

!

However, I also have some obj scenes that occur after scene breaks. I believe these are fine by themselves. The POV switch up above occurred in seemingly random places.

So what would you recommend I do next round to keep myself in the right POV? Should I even worry and leave it to the rewrite and editing to fix it? Your help is very much appreciated!

Matera the Mad · Dec 5, 2009

You are talking about Third Person Omniscient, and the feasibility of mixing a bit of it with Third Person Limited, without going into more than one character's head. The answer is, if it works, do it. Working with a third-person character POV is not as restrictive as first person. Narrative from outside the character POV is perfectly all right, as long as it doesn't go beyond the boundaries of the character's knowledge in a scene "owned" by that character. Is making sense that?

Bufty · Dec 6, 2009

Sounds as though you may be letting yourself get carried away and over-explaining things so the reader 'doesn't miss anything'.

Ask yourself why you are explaining things beyond the present knowledge of your character and why that information can't be revealed to the reader as and when it becomes known to the character.

Sevvy · Dec 6, 2009

Try not to switch POVs in the same scene, because that can lead to confusion for the reader. If you do it between scenes, that's easier to handle, but don't do it unless it's really necessary.

And while writing your first draft, I wouldn't bother fixing it, just get the thoughts as they come to you on paper. Worry about fixing it during re-writes.

spectrefox · Dec 6, 2009

Thank you all for responding quickly

. I will work on all the things ya'll suggested.

Danthia · Dec 9, 2009

It's good that you notice it. That way, you can fix it. It could just be a way you work out something in the text as you write. You might need more info than your character at that point, so you explore it as you write it. Just be aware of it, and watch for that when you edit. Then you can take it out or tweak it so it's in the right POV for the scene.

bonitakale · Dec 10, 2009

As long as you don't dip into other characters' heads, moving closer to and further from your pov character is usually okay. What trips people up is when they forget and start describing the pov character in a way that only others would see him or her.

You can say, for instance, that he's wearing a blue suit for the funeral, but you can't say that he's wearing a look of sorrow, because he doesn't know that (unless he's putting it on deliberately, and even then, all he knows is that he's trying to look sorrowful.)

Boy, is that oversimplified. Of course, you can do anything, including sticking in an omniscient paragraph at the beginning of the funeral scene, which might work very well.

But if you're tightly into the character's pov, telling how the tie feels around his neck, how the music depresses him, how the cookies afterward taste to him -- and if, in the middle of all that, you have one phrase or sentence about his sorrowful expression, then you've broken your pov. This may make the reader feel as if the author isn't in full control, and we readers need the author (the pilot, the tour guide, the surgeon) to be in full control of our experience. That's very important.

Keeping your POV straight

spectrefox

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Sevvy

Spec Fic Writer

spectrefox

Danthia

bonitakale