POV - Point of view!

[kanshu]

The POV, or point of view is important when it comes to writing.

What does the POV do?

Generally speaking, it defines WHO tells the story, from whose "eyes and ears" the reader experiences what is going on.

There are various perspectives from which a story can be told. The most common two are

3rd POV - a look at the scene from some outside narrator. This narrator can either be all-knowing (omniscent) or just describe what he/she sees, without being able to look into the character's feelings or without knowing anything about the background history.

one character POV - you tell the story or scene from a certain character's POV. This has the advantage that you can explore the character's feelings, and describe what the character sees and DOESN'T see. It's important to keep an eye on not letting the character tell or see things that a 3rd POV narrator would know about, but not the character himself. Such "mysteriously gained knowledge" makes the scene unrealistic.

What are your experiences with writing various POVs?
Do you experiment, or do you just use one specific POV variation?
What kinds of mistake can one make with the various POVs?
What annoys you most about those mistakes?
What can you do to avoid POV-mistakes?
Can you give some examples?
Can a scene really win or lose by using a different POV?
Whatever else comes to your mind concerning this topic?

[Me-Nuriko]

There is also the 'close third' POV. 'Close third' is 'a informal, omniscient, inside-the-character's-mind' POV. (My beta and I have been discussing this very much recently. ;D )

To your questions:
When I first started to write, all I knew was that there were 1st person POV, and 3rd person POV. Nothing else. I didn't think about it at all. ^;; I jumped between different persons POV without thinking. I still think such can work sometimes, but one have to know what one is doing. It gets clearer to the reader if one use only one person's POV for a longer piece, a chapter or several paragraphs. And when a switch is done it must be made obvoius.
I don't use 1st person POV (not yet anyway), but I do use different kinds of 3rd POV. 'The Problem with clothes' is written in 'close 3rd', but in other stories I often switch between 'normal 3rd' and 'close 3rd'. Now that I'm aware of what I'm doing, I think it's okay. There are several professional, famous authors that use that style, too.
Mistakes: A common mistake is that the author switch between different persons' POV in a way that makes it unclear to the reader, who talks, who thinks, who reacts etc. That usually happens when the author (like me in the beginning) doesn't give the POV much thought. I don't mind switches as long as it clear who does what.

Avoid mistakes? Well, first of all, be aware of what you're doing. Give some thought to how you want to write your story. Whose POV? The same POV in the whole story? If you have an omniscient 3rd POV, or a 3rd from a certain character's POV that you switch between characters, make it clear who does what!

Using a 3rd from a certain character, makes it difficult when you want to describe what more than one character is thinking/feeling in a scene. But it's still often preferable to the omniscient 3rd, because it often gives a better flow to the story.

What else? Heh, I've been discussing *how* to write 'close 3rd' and switches between '3rd' and
'close 3rd' a lot lately! But that discussion is several pages long, and includes comments from books in the topic, and opinions from my beta, her beta, and myself.

There are tons of things that can be said about POVs, this is only a very small part of all my musings on the subject.

[Ganheim]

First Person: telling the story from the "I / me" perspective of one of the characters.

Third Person: observing a scene from an outside, often nebulous observer. This can be a slightly modified form of 1st when the observer is focused on one character, or can be an all-knowing sees-everything narrator.

Anyway, that's my truncated definition of them. There's also Second Person, which uses "you", but I have never ever seen a good book written in the 2nd, that's more the realm of open-ended interactive RPGs and such.

optimoose said:

What are your experiences with writing various POVs?

For me, I've written in many different forms, and which one I use depends on what exactly I want to do. I've gotten into writing in 3rd person, focusing on one character. Writing in the 3rd is great because it gives a great amount of literary mobility. For example, if you're writing a fight scene, you can jump from focusing on one character to another character.

Using 1st person is also good because it forces you to remain grounded in the present, driving the story ever onward in whatever manner it's supposed to go.

What kinds of mistake can one make with the various POVs?

Mixing up is one of the POV mistakes I've seen. Another one is when you try to expand beyond the limits of one POV, such as describing the thoughts of another character when writing from first person. This can work on occasion, like when you have a telepathic character, but usually it doesn't. Stepping over your bounds - or being to afraid to explore the bounds - of the POV is usually the true problem I see with POV mistakes, when the error isn't really bad grammar or writing.

What can you do to avoid POV-mistakes?

Unfortunately, there isn't really that much that you can do on your own. The best way to keep from making a "POV mistake" is by writing, experimenting a little if that suits you, and having a third party look at your writing.

Can a scene really win or lose by using a different POV?

I don't think there's necessarily a "best POV" for a particular type of scene, it depends on the author. If the author can pull it off, any scene can work in any POV. You may have to take different paths to get to where you want the scene to go if you take one POV over the other, but that's just the journey of a story.

[Terra Fire]

Ganheim, I agree with you. That sums it up quite a bit.

;}

[narrizan]

Hello there folks I found this whilst wandering the corridors of the lj's and I found this. Although a lengthy post. I found that it had useful examples and explanations. I read trhough it and found some of it useful...whethter I will actually remember to practice it is another matter entirely!

here you go! :

matociquala.livejournal.com/895077.html?view=14054757#t14054757