Scene Change Concerns

I've seen books handle POV changes in various ways. But the ones I'm thinking of are bestselling authors.

I've seen line breaks used often. (I think that is what they're called). After the line break, sometimes, I've also seen a change of time and/or setting signaling a POV change. Sometimes transitional words are used (like "Meanwhile", etc). Still, they tend to have line breaks or extra lines if it's a brand new scene.

One thing you may have to be careful of is "head-hopping". You don't want to be changing POV so suddenly in a nilly-willy fashion.

There are plenty of stories that have pov changes at scene breaks within chapters. Don't know what genre your story is, but I can think of plenty of examples in modern fantasy. I can give some, but I don't know if it's relevant to your particular story or not.

Now there's such a thing as doing it too often or in a way that doesn't make it clear to the reader why (or even that) you're doing it. You don't want to make your reader feel bounced back and forth like a volleyball, or make them struggle to figure out where, with whom, and when they are in the story at the start of a new scene (or chapter for that matter).

I think it helps to have scenes, including pov segments, come to some kind of satisfactory conclusion (a goal achieved, a crisis averted, a conflict resolved or a question answered) and for there to be some logical reason why you're going to the next pov.

Note on a manuscript preparation level, the standard symbol used to denote a scene change is a centered #.

This pound/hashtag symbol lets the reader of your manuscript know there's a scene break there, even if it coincides with a page break or some formatting glitch in e-format. When a novel goes to "press," of course, a blank space, or sometimes a fancy symbol, is inserted instead by the copyeditor (or the software being used to prep the manuscript). If you like using *** in your drafts, some editors find this acceptable, and of course, it's really easy to do a search and replace to change "***" for a "*" if you sub it somewhere where they'd prefer the pound sign.

KittenEV said:

I've been using the *** for signaling the change of scene, but it's kind of jarring I think. Is there a better way to handle a scene change or is *** still the way to go?

Click to expand...

All books use line breaks (which may or may not have some kind of graphic marker in them) for scene changes. There's no other way of doing it that I know of. If you don't have the line breaks, then you're still technically in the same scene, even if you shift location and/or time.

And fyi, when you submit your manuscript to agents or publishers, the standard formatting for a scene break is a single hash-mark: #

You can change POV without a scene break. You should signpost it somehow, but there are many ways to do that, some of them quite subtle.

I do agree with others that you don't want to be jumping here there and everywhere just for your own convenience as a writer (as in, "the plot won't work unless I show it from her POV--this is a sign your plot is broken). Use words, use grammar, use POV and change them when you need to. If you need to play with POV for a scene, go all in.

VeryBigBeard said:

You can change POV without a scene break. You should signpost it somehow, but there are many ways to do that, some of them quite subtle.

Click to expand...

They seem to be pretty rare these days, at least in the novels I've read. I've heard of a "hand off" approach that can be used to change from one limited third pov to another without an actual scene break, but I can't think of the last time I've seen it used by a writer in limited third. Maybe it's just the genres I read, though.

But regardless of the technique used, yeah, switch for a good reason, make it clear and unambiguous, and don't do it too frequently. You don't want to give your readers whiplash.

If your scene breaks that also switch pov serve the story, as in move it forward and make it unfold in a way that's entertaining to the readers, then more frequent switches can work, of course. It's the execution that's the challenge. Don't be afraid to try it in your draft, then reread after giving it a bit of down time to see if it works.

I think it's doable in third person, but you'd need to be surgical and sure-footed with your POV jumps. With TV you can see the actor or hear his voice, but in writing, those words could belong to anyone until you establish who/what/where. This can become tedious if you jump heads a lot. TV and novels are just two different mediums with their own quirks.

Generally, when you switch POV's, consider whether the new scene is worth the time you'll spent setting it up. While the author might need to spend the time to figure out what's in each character's head, the reader doesn't always need to know. Hope that helps a bit.

Be very careful indeed of trying to recreate a TV or film effect. Films and books are totally different mediums and a film can accomplish in seconds what may take a novel pages to cover.

The camera angles (not necessarily scene changes) in Films and TV can be as often as at four second intervals, which the eye can absorb in these mediums, but trying to recreate that rapid effect in a novel by rapidly/too frequently/unnecessarily/ switching POV's runs the serious risk of leaving the reader dizzy, and likely to toss the book aside.

Focus on the needs of the story and aim for flow and clarity. It may not be necessary to have two POV's - in the story, doesn't the excitement happen when they meet. Be careful not to want to reveal information simply because you know it.

Good luck.

KittenEV said:

Well, I know this is going to sound dumb, because this is a book not a TV show but I kind of want to have that affect where it cuts to different scenes. I like how it bounces around like that sometimes or bounces back and forth between characters in a scene especially if they are about to run into each other. I kind of want that same affect in my book, but don't know how to achieve it where it still is easy to follow and is understood.

Is that even possible to achieve since books are formatted vastly different from what I'm thinking?

Click to expand...

KittenEV said:

With this WIP I'm working on I've been using a lot of scene changes between the two different povs that the story is told from. I know I've seen some books where they start a new chapter with a pov change but that style doesn't work for my format since the pov will change mid chapter sometimes for just a short scene.

I've been using the *** for signaling the change of scene, but it's kind of jarring I think. Is there a better way to handle a scene change or is *** still the way to go?


Please help.

Click to expand...

If you're self-publishing, use any symbols you like to signal a change. I've read novels that used a row of flowers. It's whatever you think looks good.

In a manuscript, however. you should use a single # centered on the skipped line. This is a proofreaders' mark that tells the typesetter to skip a line. He's put in whatever symbol or symbols that particular publisher likes to use in such books.