"Point of View" in fiction writing. Which POV works best for you?

[CTyankee]

I'm trying to move from POV omniscient to POV omniscient limited: participant.
Do any of you switch from one to another POV? Tell me about your experience and include writing samples if possible...THANKS!

[Orrex]

1. Do you mean switching POV within a single work?

Or changing POV from one work to the next?

[CTyankee]

2. I meant writing the story and then trying it from a different POV.

It's a short story. I wrote it in Omniscient but have read that that POV doesn't work very well with short stories, or as well as it does with a novel. So I'm wondering how to get it to Omniscient limited participant (which in my story would be the main character).

[HamdenRice]

3. Free indirect discourse

It's difficult but provides the most natural "read" and transition from narration to inner thoughts.

[Orrex]

5. I like that POV, but I'm not very good at writing it

You're right about it being the most natural "read." When it's executed properly, the reader doesn't even realize that "the transition from naration to inner thoughts" has occurred.

[HamdenRice]

8. It took me a long time and close reading of others to get it

I only realized it was best for me after writing a paragraph about a guy wondering what his wife was thinking about him, and when I re-read the story, I realized I had used three different pronouns in one paragraph for the main character!

It went something like (and this isn't that paragraph but an illustration), "he wondered what she thought of him. Does she think I'm a failure? How do you know what your wife thinks, anyway?"

At workshop, my instructor said it was "free indirect discourse," which I had not heard of, although I was familiar with other povs.

Then I went through this long quest trying to figure out how you make the transition from narration to interior monologue. I re-read the last chapter of Jonathan Franzen's, "The Corrections," which is a tour de force of free indirect discourse, over and over, and realized that he uses a pretty mechanical fix: have the character carry out an action and then move into that character's discourse, eg, "He looked at the orange. It looked fresh."

[Mojambo]

4. First draft is usually 3rd person for me.

Then, if appropriate I re-write in first person.

I find if I try to do the first draft in first person I lose myself in the main character's head and have trouble moving through the plot.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. Wow!

Reading your OP and all these responses, I realize how meager my knowledge of the writing specifics has been.

I never gave any thought to POV or from what perspective to write anything. I just write it, and if it pleases me, I assume it will please others.

Why are you concerned? Do you not like what you wrote, and, if so, do you know why you don't like it?

If you don't like it, write it again, but maybe you should do something different, like start with the ending, and write back from there. That's always fun.

I'm sorry, but I just don't know enough about the techniques and what they're called to be able to help. I just write...............

[HamdenRice]

7. So-called "POV errors" can take the reader "out of the story"

First, I should mention there is a fantastic collection of short stories entitled "Points of View" that have been used to teach literature and writing for decades. The stories are organized according to the various points of view with short introductory essays explaining what each one is, and what effect it has on the reader.

http://www.amazon.com/Points-View-Revised-James-Moffett/dp/0451628721

The reason pov is important is that making a pov error can be jarring to the reader (unless the writer deliberately wants to jar the reader).

For example, a common pov is "close third person." The story is about, and from the perspective of a person who is not the narrator. (A story from the pov of the narrator, in which the narrator uses sentences like, "I went to the store..." is called first person.)

So a third person story would say, "Joe went to the store." A close third person pov would include Joe's thoughts, "Joe went to the store. He thought the celery looked fresh," and so on.

So if you go on for pages and pages about Joe and what Joe is thinking, if you have Joe come home and write, "Joe's wife Susan thought Joe bought the wrong things..." then you've violated the pov. If the story is solely from Joe's perspective, he can't have access to Susan's thoughts.

This kind of pov violation causes the reader to say, WTF???

On the other hand, if the story were omniscient third person, then the narrator could have access to all the character's thoughts, and reading Susan's thoughts wouldn't be jarring.

There are many other reasons to be concerned about pov. For example, most starting out writers use first person. "I went to the store and I thought the celery looked fresh." Although, at first, it seems the first person gives you the most intimate look "inside" the character/narrator, after a while, the first person becomes very limiting. For example you can't describe the main character very easily. This gives rise to the common first person gimmick of the character looking in the mirror to describe himself/herself, "I passed a mirror and noticed my devilisly handsome grin." :rofl: You're kind of stuck in one person's mind.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

9. Double WOW!

There's so much in your post. You've obviously spent a lot of time studying the art, or science, or craft, or whatever it is, of writing. Thank you so much.

I don't know about any of that stuff. I just write. When I don't write, I read. When I don't read, I listen to music or watch movies. And when I don't do any of that, I follow the advice of an old writer friend, and I walk.

But, does knowing all that make you a better writer? Does it enhance the story you want to tell?

Or are you doing it, concerned about some imaginary "reader" out there who might or might not understand your story?

It seems to me - and this is only my experience - that the best writing is the easiest writing. That what you put down on paper is, from the start, the best you're ever going to get, because it's essentially stream-of-consciousness, and lacks the frills and flutters that might find their way onto the written page with what people call "tweaking."

I only do first drafts, and then I hand it over to my agent. Sometimes she has suggestions, which we talk over. About half the time, I agree with her, but the changes she suggests are always very minor, and I've learned to accept them as her need to be involved, offering little more than cosmetic alterations, which make no real difference in the ms.

Then she sends it to my editor/publisher at HarperCollins. There, that marvelous woman goes to work on the ms, and a few weeks, later, after a number of joyful conversations that are really fun, she sends me an editorial letter, which details how she envisions the final draft. I'm free to agree or to disagree with her, and that's what the fun really begins.

But never do I recall a conversation about "readers." Not in all the years I've been doing this.

It's probably a very good exercise, but when you write, for it to be successful, I think you must write from your heart, and screw the conventional wisdom. If you tell a good story, and you tell it true and straight through, you'll have a good story.

Sometimes all those "shoulds" get in the way of a good story, and that's a damn shame.

Thank you, though, for the time you took to elucidate all those things. They do seem very basic, things anyone might have gleaned by reading and getting a good grounding in literature, but some people prefer to have simple realities spelled out for them, I think. And I think they use that sort of stuff to keep from writing, the idea of which seems to frighten some people who claim to want to write.

It's a complicated business, writing, and it's also very, very simple. It's up to the individual to decide which way he wants to go with it.

I like easy..........................................

[HamdenRice]

10. Congrats on having a publisher!

Some people are natural writers and some aren't. I'd written non-fiction for years and tried to write fiction and it never worked. Then I took several fiction workshops and it took off at a completely different level, and much of that was a result of the techniques I learned. My workshop is a non-degree Brooklyn community-based group, and the founder is an alumna of Iowa, and the instructors are Iowa or other MFA programs and they definitely have a series of technical guidelines. The guidelines, however, don't tell you what to write or how to write, but mostly how not to take your reader out of the story. So yes, I'm always thinking about a reader, but that's perhaps from also having been a non-fiction writer who was trying to convey confusing material as clearly as possible. When I go through one of my stories and realize the chronology is off, or that I assumed the reader knows something that I only mentioned later in the story, that does bother me. I also find when reading other writers' stories that if I have to stop and say, 'wait a minute, who's saying this?' or something like that, it breaks the hypnotic effect of reading and "being in the story."

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. I think we all have to find out ways,

and whatever works to help people become the kinds of writers they want to be, well, I'm all for it.

Sometimes, though, there can be too much going on between the writer and the actual writing. That was what I was talking about in response to your very kind and informative post about POVs.

I spent some time writing appellate briefs, a task I wouldn't even wish on George W. Bush. Dry, unappealing (no pun intended), strictly limited, and vitally focused on swaying a judge. Scary stuff. It goes beyond informative into the advocacy realm, and with whatever is at risk, it's nervewracking work, but also devilishly difficult writing.

When I took up fiction, it was only as a way of unwinding after a day of practicing law. I've never taken a writing course or read a book about writing. What I have done since the age of three is read. Everything and anything. And I am convinced that reading - not crap, but difficult and challenging works, books that make you go to the dictionary to look up words, books that might, at first not seem terribly interesting, books that just happen to be within reach - is the secret to good writing.

I don't trust groups, nor do I trust writing teachers. Sure, there are the basics that can be taught, and they are essential, but a few dozen readings of Elements of Style can take care of that. I'm of the opinion that writing is a talent, just like perfect pitch or people who can play musical instruments by ear, and it can be cultivated, but it cannot be taught. Either it's there or it's not.

But, that's a lot of nonsense, too, since what's "good writing"? Am I a better writer than someone who's not published? It's all so subjective, and so much of a crapshoot, of being in the right time with the right agent at the right time, that the idea that anyone is a better writer than anyone else is laughable.

Of course, there are those who should have their laptops taken away from them, all writing instruments removed from the home, and paper burned immediately. When my first book sold, every relative of every friend suddenly had a "book" that s/he wanted me to read. Because I was new to the game, and because I love my friends, I read these things.

Well, I tried.

I learned very quickly to make sure people knew I couldn't read unpublished works because of a clause in my contract with my publisher. That may or may not be true. But it works.

Ultimately, it's about getting lost in the story. If you get lost in your story, that's great, but you also have the responsibility of making sure you're getting your reader lost with you - that's imperative, and that's when you must think of the reader. If you get lost and don't know where you are, that's not good; if you get lost because you've successfully and willingly suspended disbelief, that's the best.

Trust yourself, that's all I know. I was such a naif when I started in this business, I asked my editor what a "writing workshop" was. Seriously. I had no idea.

And her answer to me was wonderful.

She said, "Something you'll never go to."

I think it's a whole lot more important to trust yourself and your talent than to trust the opinions of strangers, who might or might not know anything more than you do. I've heard stories of people having their efforts eviscerated in workshops, and they were never able to write anything again.

Of course, they never had to deal with critics and reviews, so maybe they got out at the right time.

But, I'm all over the place here - when I get started about writing, I wax endlessly, so forgive and ignore me - and what I've used so many words to say is that I think maybe worrying about the mechanics - POV, for instance - might detract the writer from the essential spontaneity and fun of getting the story down on paper. I think a writer, in his/her heart and head, knows exactly how to tell the story, but only gets flummoxed when s/he stops and thinks about it.

Sometimes the scariest thing in the world is to (so to speak) put pen to paper. If you don't start, you can't make any mistakes.

It's scary, and getting bogged down in the "shoulds" and the rules can sometimes get between the writer and the story.

Trust yourself - I guess that's all I know.

I'll shut up now........................

[sybylla]

11. I agree. POV errors are a problem for readers and sneaky for authors.

When I started writing, I never gave POV much thought, but I spend a lot of time on it now that I realize how much it influences the reader's perceptions of the story and what you can tell as an author. I do most of my fiction in 3rd limited participant. I've always looked at writing as a word puzzle. You know where you want to go with the story, you just need to find the right words. Limiting the telling to a participant's POV is a serious challenge and at the same time lets you really get into a character's head. Still, occasionally I'm forced to change POV style from chapter to chapter when doing the story justice requires something different.

That said, I've never rewritten a story from one POV to another. Sounds like an interesting and perplexing exercise. I think in the end you will write an entirely different story that the one you started out with. I have no particular advice except to analyze possible POV characters, choose one with diligence and prepare to completely rewrite your short story.

[valerief]

12. I feel most comfortable writing pov 3rd person. In my last

two novels and current one, I'm keeping the pov limited to one person. However, in the two prior novels, I had around four povs in each.

I HATE, absolutely HATE, when, within a single section, the pov shifts, even when I understand whose pov it is. I never finish a lot of novels I start because of that feeling. I restrict a single pov to a section/chapter, and I like to slide into present tense thoughts of the pov character and back to the third person narrative.

A novel is a story and people tell stories and only one person can talk at a time. Interrupting that story with another pov is rude, just as rude as interrupting someone in conversation. You've gotta let the person tell their story.

I've written some short stories in first person. That's comfortable. I tried reading a novel once in second person, but I hated it.

[Ozymanithrax]

14. What works for me works for the story...

I've published stories in first person, third person, and limited omniscient. What I have found is that the story or the character define the best POV.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Depends on the story

right now the current one is first person...

But I have done third person too... and others

[BamaGirl]

16. Third--deep pov

In romance we call it deep pov, which is probably close to what you're calling omniscient limited. Basically when I'm writing in one character's head, you're really in his/her head. You won't get anything else. It could almost be first person. I use third so I can have multiple pov's in a book without causing confusion and w/out switching first person several times. I've seen books written that way, and well written, but they're rare and tend to be more in the sf/f genre than mine.

And I think genre conventions should be taken into account in this matter. Omniscient pov is not going to sell in romance. It just isn't. Sf it might. I read a lot of sf and until very recently omniscient has been more common, but even there it seems on the way out. New authors aren't getting away with it.