I am writing in first person, however there are several places in my story where I need to describe an outside scene that none of the characters can see since they are all indoors. When doing this, what POV should be used?
I am writing in first person, however there are several places in my story where I need to describe an outside scene that none of the characters can see since they are all indoors. When doing this, what POV should be used?
I am writing in first person, however there are several places in my story where I need to describe an outside scene that none of the characters can see since they are all indoors. When doing this, what POV should be used?
If, on the other hand, you want the reader to know something that the POV character cannot ever know (and you are 100% sure of this decision), then you probably want to go to omniscient for those scenes.
It's usually a bad idea to mix POVs like that, especially just for plot convenience. Who is telling the story? The first person narrator? Or an omniscient narrator? When a writer does that, I'd say he or she lacks the discipline and a change like that would also jar me out of the story.
I disagree. Any and all combinations of POVs can and have been used with great success by talented writers making artistic choices that worked.
Can you give me a few examples where a mix of first person and omniscient works well in a single work? I'm curious.
What if I dropped first and did third limited or third omnipresent ?
I am writing in first person, however there are several places in my story where I need to describe an outside scene that none of the characters can see since they are all indoors.
Others that are present are inside as well and they are not part of the story.
No one is outside to describe the scene and the important even that takes place during the birthing.
The reader needs to see this, it is am emotional description of the entire scene both inside and outside.
The reader will see the event but it is only later in the story that they will understand it's meaning.
Honestly, this sounds horribly confusing and clumsy to me, reacting as a reader. If any event takes place that is important to the story, SOMEBODY has to witness it, unless you choose to retreat into a very distancing omniscient narrative viewpoint. Which sounds to me inappropriate. Why not have some character having actually witnessed whatever event it is, and relate it at some appropriate time later to your heroine, and thereby to the reader?
Can you give me a few examples where a mix of first person and omniscient works well in a single work? I'm curious.
(...)you can have someone have told the MC about her birth. If there was something remarkable about it, someone would have mentioned it at some point in her life. Even if she wasn't aware as she was being born; she'd still know what happened.