POV - what do you think?
Ever since I joined the cloud the concept of POV has caused me a
lot of torment. Even though I have listened and
followed the advice clouders give on this, I still find myself
reading published books that do not follow the rules... So,
in plain english - pretend I'm a child - can someone explain
the different types of writing narrative, i.e. 1st, 2nd and
3rd. And if possible, let me know what the popular one
is.
I get the impression 1st is in for YA novels. Then again,
it depends on the story. I have read some YA novels written
in 2nd (I think). And Harry Potter is written in 3rd - am i
right?
To put it in context...I prefer to write from a female POV, but
at times I want to slot in the male POV. How do I do this,
without having to switch all the time? How can I do this
smoothly? I am just working on a brand new novel, and I
want to get it straight in my head before I get sucked in and
then have to edit a lot!
Thanks a lot for you help... it's really appreciated.
6 Comments
Point of view is about whose eyes this particular part of the story is being seen through, but it also includes HOW they see it. (Different people in a scene would feel and understand the events differently, and a fly on the wall differently again).
You can pick a particular character, and tell the story entirely in their point of view - either in first person if they're a character in the story - the internal, character-narrator, or in third person (with an implied narrator external to all the characters) but locked into a particular pov for a chapter or some such, and then switch to another.
Or you can move to and fro between characters more fluently, as seems best for this bit of the story. It takes a little learning to do, but to my mind it's much the most powerful and flexible kind of narrative.
But rather than go on about it here, I did a series of blogs about point of view and narrators, which might help:
http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/10/point-of-view-narrators-1-the-basics.html
(I was very struck, in a group of fellow authors who were all writing their third published novel, that about six of us said that we'd up to now written first person narratives with character-narrators, or locked into single povs in third person narratives (not me - I rarely like this) but now we felt bored and restricted, and it was time to step up to the really grown-up option: a narrative in third person, moving between different points of view as seems best, with a privileged/knowledgeable/omniscient narrator...)
Thank you, Emma - for the second time in two days, you have set my mind at rest with your words! :) :)
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Or you can move to and fro between characters more fluently, as seems best for this bit of the story. It takes a little learning to do, but to my mind it's much the most powerful and flexible kind of narrative.
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But, I have been told on the cloud (critque section) this is not the best way to write. I always questioned this from my reading of a range of novels...you have answered my probelm. thanks a lot...
But don't listen to people who say you mustn't use a moving point of view. It's bollocks, peddled by narrow-minded creative writing teachers and editors who can't be bothered to understand or teach it properly, and so, sadly, it's filtered down to the soup of creative-writing talk on the Net, to be believed and repeated by a depressing number of aspiring writers who'd be quite capable of handling it properly if only anyone showed them...
I'm writing in third person as narrator and regarding female/male POV, I'm inside the female's head with access to all her thoughts but showing the male's POV in his actions and reactions which she doesn't understand at all. (There's a language + culture barrier). They are both strong characters and I know them inside and out. I hope I'm showing him clearly to the reader.
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