POV Rules and descriptions

My advice is to forget the labels - write the book as you want to write it and then decide what POV it is in afterwards in edit. Omni gets a bad press but it is not remotely scary or difficult and is the natural default voice of story telling. You don't have to jump from head to head you can stick to one for most of the time and pull out to a wider perspective only when it is required by the story. If it doesn't work, change it but at least get the story down first. YMMV IMHO etc etc.

Third person limited is a POV that stays solid in what that person can see, hear and and think, etc. So showing something they wouldn't be able to see breaks POV.

However, third person omniscient shows what everyone can see, heal and think, etc., so you'd be able to show someone who wasn't your main character.

If it helps you keep them straight, think of who your narrator is. Someone is telling the story, either while it happens or after the fact.

If it's a particular character, and you show everything from their perspective, it's third limited (or first, which is basically the same thing with a different pronoun). They're not aware of events beyond that moment, or what is happening elsewhere.

If it's you as the author, or another person who has knowledge of all the events and is telling the story, then it's third omniscient. They're aware of events even if they aren't present, either because they can see it all as it happens, or because it's already happened and they're relating those events.

There's a lot more to this, but these hit the basics and hopefully help you separate them

In my book (not my book, book, but the one with rules I keep in my head) there's nothing wrong with mixing 3rd limited and Omni so long as you do it gracefully. Also, there's nothing wrong with writing a book from multiple POVs so long as it's clear (section breaks are a good thing) whose POV you're in. In other words, don't go hopping about willy nilly.

Halting State by Charles Stross is a good example of _second_ person POV for those who haven't seen it. Bit off topic I know.

If you're doing 3rd limited, then you are LIMTED to what the POV character can observe, feel, think, etc. That's why it's called "limited" for a reason.

Otherwise, you would be writing 3rd omniscient.


(to me, it seems like you want to write omniscient -- to describe anything that is necessary -- but you want to stick with just one character at a time. That's certainly legitimate, and you can do that. However, with omniscient, you won't be able to use the character's voice while you're writing it, since you're technically in the narrator's voice, not the character)

Yes, and if you are writing 3rd omni, there is nothing wrong with zeroing right down into one of your characters and telling the novel from his perspective for a while. That's why it is omni --- the narrator knows everything and can zoom down on anyone she wishes. (just finished reading Margaret Drabble's Witch of Exmoor).

Yeah, as Charlie Horse said, don't go hopping about willy nilly. Basically, there are several ways you can do this.

As you've said, you switch to another PoV when your main PoV leaves the room. I wouldn't consider that omniscient, if it is divided by breaks. I don't think it's omniscient even if it isn't divided by breaks, though I may be wrong. Omniscient, as I've always seen it, requires the previous PoV (in this case the one who left) to be in the room and for thoughts to switch back and forth throughout the dialogue and narrative. You can't dip into both character's thoughts if one of the characters is missing from the action. Is this how you are writing it?

Omniscent can get annoying quite quickly. Imagine this: You have an intelligent omniscient narrative, yet the narrative also changes to two separate PoVs with limited intelligence and different speech, and you keep switching back and forth between all three within paragraphs... Yeah, annoying.

So basically a few things:

1. Who is your narrative? If it's in third person, then it's either the PoV or a 'bystander' simply watching. Omniscient works better if the narrator is a bystander and the voice is separate from the thoughts imo.

2. Section breaks are good, if I am correct about the way you are writing (character is MIA).

3. Third person limited (or 'close') colors the narrative in the PoV's voice, his language, his thoughts. It can be hard to experience the thoughts of another by adding omniscient. Uncomfortable to switch from one voice to another voice, then back again. It can be done! I am reading The Wreck of the River of Stars (sci-fi) right now, and it does it quite gracefully. It seems quite hard though and you have to be very careful.

CupofDice said:

Omniscent can get annoying quite quickly. Imagine this: You have an intelligent omniscient narrative, yet the narrative also changes to two separate PoVs with limited intelligence and different speech, and you keep switching back and forth between all three within paragraphs... Yeah, annoying.

Click to expand...

Um, if there's an omniscient narrator, the narrative doesn't change to the character's voice just because the narrator is focusing on that character.

To me, that's mixing 3rd limited with omniscient, and it's silly. You're already in omniscient!

Yes, it is silly maestrowork. And I've seen it done before.

It was something like-

The space ship floated to the station. yadda yada. The metal...thing floated to the station. yada. The huge metal thing floated to the station.

Yes, I've seen that before.

CupofDice said:

Yes, it is silly maestrowork. And I've seen it done before.

Click to expand...

Example?

maestrowork said:

Example?

Click to expand...

Sent you a PM.

What, the rest of us never get to see the example?

Maryn said:

What, the rest of us never get to see the example?

Click to expand...

Sorry.

Rules are made to be broken. There is nothing wrong with starting a section: "Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." You could also use omniscient that stayed with one person most of the time.

That's more or less what I do -- omni that settles comfortably into one head for most long scenes. I don't try to apply rigid rules, just keep it smooth and natural.

Be careful of head hopping on one scene though. I have been guilty of this and an agent called me out on it. :\

There's no head-hopping if she's writing in omni, though.

RobinGBrown said:

Halting State by Charles Stross is a good example of _second_ person POV for those who haven't seen it. Bit off topic I know.

Click to expand...

On the off-topic topic: I think second person can be very effective - quite personal. It kind of implies present tense - as writing in second-person past tense would likely read like an episode of This Is Your Life - which means the narrative seems to unfold in real time.

Other second-person examples:
Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerny
The Fall, by Albert Camus

Read A Man in Full a while back and most chapters start with an omni intro but then drill down and focus on one character's POV with no filter words.

Interestingly only in the later chapters does Wolfe show multiple POVs from within the same scene. For most of the book, each chapter has the omni narrator focusing in closely on the one character.

maestrowork said:

There's no head-hopping if she's writing in omni, though.

Click to expand...

There shouldn't be, but if omni is done wrong, it can head hop. When I did a viewpoint workshop, that was the main problem most of the writers had when they attempted omni. Most of them tended to leave the omni narrator and jump into the character, which caused the head hopping.

Linda Adams said:

There shouldn't be, but if omni is done wrong, it can head hop. When I did a viewpoint workshop, that was the main problem most of the writers had when they attempted omni. Most of them tended to leave the omni narrator and jump into the character, which caused the head hopping.

Click to expand...

I believe there is an example of how not to head hop in omni in The Power of Point of View by Alicia Rasley.

Linda Adams said:

There shouldn't be, but if omni is done wrong, it can head hop. When I did a viewpoint workshop, that was the main problem most of the writers had when they attempted omni. Most of them tended to leave the omni narrator and jump into the character, which caused the head hopping.

Click to expand...

Oh, I see... yeah, that would be what I called mixing view points. Instead of staying as the omni narrator they jump into the character as if they were writing 3rd limited. That's definitely a problem.

maestrowork said:

Oh, I see... yeah, that would be what I called mixing view points. Instead of staying as the omni narrator they jump into the character as if they were writing 3rd limited. That's definitely a problem.

Click to expand...

It's only a problem if it's done badly - you can move from one intimate viewpoint to another that's kind of the point of it: the omni narrator can know the thoughts feelings and opinions of any character and is not limited by time or place.

timewaster said:

It's only a problem if it's done badly - you can move from one intimate viewpoint to another that's kind of the point of it: the omni narrator can know the thoughts feelings and opinions of any character and is not limited by time or place.

Click to expand...

That's not the same as "view point."

The narrator knows what the characters are thinking and feeling, but the narrator is not going to tell the story from their view points. The narrator is going to tell it from the narrator's view point. God doesn't just become Ray simply because he knows what I think and feel.

We've gone through that before. I suggest we go by the text-book definitions of view points instead of using our own interpretations, for clarity's sake.