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POV Basics

Incanus

Auror
I think Point of View is an interesting subject. Thus I have selected, organized, and paraphrased some of the basics pertaining to it, mostly compiled from various sources, books, and articles. However, the examples I used are from my own observations and analyses.

POV is a complex issue and entire books could be written about it, so this write-up is hardly to be considered comprehensive. This is essentially a first draft, so comments, critiques, questions, elaborations, and refinements are more than welcome.



POV Basics

Point of View is one of the most important elements in fiction, and often the least appreciated. It is the filter through which all the other aspects of story are determined, informing and influencing choices at every level, from theme or scene, to sentences and even individual words. Having a solid understanding of POV, and its options and variations, is crucial to producing fiction that ‘works’. Neglecting it, on the other hand, invites missed opportunities for exploring a story’s potential, or worse.

First-Person Point of View

One way to look at First-Person POV is to think of it as a character monologue, as if the entire story were in quotations. This way, every word in the story is used in the way the character would use it, not the writer. The details included in the story should only be details that this specific character would notice, or choose to comment on. Conversely, what is left out can also further characterize the First-Person narrator, albeit in a more subtle way. The great strength of this POV is its intimacy, while its weakness lies in its limitation due to the narrow scope inherent in having only a single viewpoint character.

A difficulty with this POV is providing a physical description of the narrator that does not draw too much attention to itself, and without resorting to the character looking at their reflection in mirrors or ponds. However, there are a few techniques to use to sneak in some of these details, but they can be mishandled all too easily. 1) Use a comparison or association that isn’t out of place in the narrative–“The huge warrior beside me made me conscious of my small frame”. 2) Have another, observant character mention some of this info (taking care not to end up presenting an unnaturally obvious ‘laundry list’ of traits). 3) Using the plot itself–“Scanning the tavern’s occupants, I noticed that I was the only dark-haired Gondor-woman in the place”. (Poor examples, I know, but it gets the point across.)

First-Person POV has another consideration that is unique to it: the amount of time that has elapsed between the events of the story, and the writing of those events by the fictional character. I’ll use some examples to illustrate this idea. The Sherlock Holmes tales, and The Catcher in the Rye, are accounts written right after, or soon after, the events being depicted. Holden Caulfield’s ‘teenaged’ observations and parlance make this obvious. While on the other hand, stories like Stephen King’s Stand By Me, or Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (at least the movie versions of these), each have narrators that are decades older than their younger selves. The differences due to this gap in time can be subtle, yet significant to the narrative choices.

And of course, decisions about the Main Character and Protagonist overlap with POV. For instance, in Sherlock Holmes stories, Watson is the Narrator, but Holmes is the Main Character and Protagonist, whereas in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is all three. To Kill a Mockingbird uses a slightly different arrangement: Scout is the Main Character and Narrator, while Atticus is the Protagonist.

Third-Person Point of View

There are two main kinds of third-person POV, often referred to as omniscient and limited. In a general sense, omniscient POV offers the greatest range of possibilities to the writer, but tends to lack intimacy with viewpoint characters, as opposed to the first-person POV as described above. Third-person limited, however, tends to bridge this gap.

Omniscient POV comes in three major varieties:

God’s-eye-view–this is usually what is thought of when discussing omniscient POV. It is virtually without bounds, moving backward or forward in time, showing any event at any place, and leaping from one character’s thoughts to another’s as often as may be needed.

Camera-eye-view–this POV shows only that which can be seen from the outside looking in. It does not get into characters thoughts, nor does it interpret events, instead only reporting them. (I’m not sure I’ve ever read a story that uses this POV strictly; I can’t see it being used in anything other than flash fiction, or a short story.)

Focused omniscience–in this POV, the ‘go-anywhere’ camera-eye-view is used in conjunction with the ability to enter the thoughts of a single character’s head.

Third-person Limited POV: The most commonly used viewpoint. Often employed as a ‘multiple-limited’ POV in which more than one character can be followed, though only one at a time, and with clear delineations between them. Either way, an important aspect to this POV is that varying degrees of character depth can be achieved. This is done by how closely the words used for internal character thoughts resemble those which the character themselves would use. A more formal, descriptive tone keeps the character more remote, while a tone that mimics the character’s own voice feels more intimate.
 

Panda

Troubadour
I'm working on a novel that has what you call "multiple-limited" POV, so I've been giving this style of POV a lot of thought lately. Here are two things I've come to believe are important, and I'm curious to hear your opinion on them:

1) Having a consistent pattern to your POV changes is important. The chapters in my story follow a pattern of ABACABAC... (where A, B, and C are the three POVs). I find that this is helpful not because the reader needs a pattern, but because it helps prevent the story from being unbalanced. I initially had the first half of the book focus mostly on character A, with the later parts focusing more on B and C, but this felt unbalanced to me. I felt like the reader might think "Hey, why isn't the story focused on A anymore? And why should I care about B and C? Aren't they minor characters?"

2) In reading about POVs, I've seen other people say that the more POVs you have, the less the reader cares about each character, so having too many POVs will ruin your story. I agree to an extent. There are certainly exceptions to the rule: I love A Song of Ice and Fire, and that series has a few dozen POVs. Hell, each book opens with a prologue by a new POV, who then dies at the end of the prologue, never to be mentioned again. But generally speaking, the less you focus on a character, the less the reader cares. This is why I don't have more than three POVs (I initially was going to have five). I'm a bit concerned about the fact that they don't all get an equal number of chapters ("A" gets two chapters for every one chapter that "B" or "C" gets), but trying to force the pattern into ABCABC instead of ABACABAC didn't work with the plot.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
In reading about POVs, I've seen other people say that the more POVs you have, the less the reader cares about each character, so having too many POVs will ruin your story.
I believe this is true only if your POVs aren't equally interesting, or near as interesting & distinct. By distinct, I mean having more than one POV performing similar roles in your story.

I personally don't think patterns, pertaining the order of POVs matter. Do what the story requires.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I believe this is true only if your POVs aren't equally interesting, or near as interesting & distinct. By distinct, I mean having more than one POV performing similar roles in your story.

Are multiple characters ever equally interesting to readers?
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Are multiple characters ever equally interesting to readers?
I agree it's subjective, which is why the rest of the sentence reads, "...or near as interesting & distinct."

It'd be an impossibility to make all characters equally interesting to all readers. Still, we can come close if we put equal effort toward all our POVs, and if we vary our casts. Variety, after all, is interesting.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
It can be jarring to have a change of PoV if you are not expecting it.
I read a series of books that had a [sort of] group PoV and then for 1 chapter it leapt to someone completely different to tell a bit of back story.. and then back again.
As it was, the back story [I think] diminished the effect of what was occurring... you know how "it" started so all the speculation about "Why.." were moot, you knew even if the characters didn't...
 

Incanus

Auror
@Panda: I'd say establishing a pattern like you have is fine, and can absolutely work, but may not be strictly necessary. The strength of doing your way is that once the pattern is clearly understood by the reader, they'll know who's viewpoint to expect next without having to give it much thought. The difficulty with it could be that you end up bending or comprimising the plot in order to fit the pattern. For instance, if it is character A's turn, but you don't have much for that character at this point in the plot, then you may end up with a 'filler' chapter so that the pattern is maintained.

I think the crucial thing with the multiple-limited POVs is that you establish--unequivocally--the new POV in the new scene as quickly as possible. GRRM does this in a simple, elegant way by naming the chapters for the viewpoint characters (which he got from Stephen R. Donaldson, by the way). I'm not sure that trick should be used again anytime soon, though.

Another option for multiple viewpoints would be the omniscient POV. Though it is going out of style somewhat, it may still be a viable option (it could possibly come back into favor by the time you've written and published a book! You never know.)

The main point of this thread was to talk about how POV effects a story's presentation, narration, and the way in which the character and plot content are handled.
 

Panda

Troubadour
I believe this is true only if your POVs aren't equally interesting, or near as interesting & distinct. By distinct, I mean having more than one POV performing similar roles in your story.

I personally don't think patterns, pertaining the order of POVs matter. Do what the story requires.

I agree. That's why I went from five POVs to three: "D" never had a scene where either "A" or "C" weren't also present, so anything that could be told from his POV could also be told from A or C's view. "E", meanwhile, did have a couple of scenes that none of the other POVs witnessed, but I eventually realized that these events worked better if they were treated more subtly and not actually witnessed by the reader.

At this point, choosing the POV characters became more about character development than narrating the plot. I decided that developing A, B, and C and letting the reader know their thoughts was worth not letting the reader know the thoughts of D or E. Of course, I won't know if I've made the right decision until I actually finish writing the thing and others read it, but that's part of the fun of writing, isn't it? :) You've got to decide for yourself the best way to tell the story you want to tell.

@Panda: I'd say establishing a pattern like you have is fine, and can absolutely work, but may not be strictly necessary. The strength of doing your way is that once the pattern is clearly understood by the reader, they'll know who's viewpoint to expect next without having to give it much thought. The difficulty with it could be that you end up bending or comprimising the plot in order to fit the pattern. For instance, if it is character A's turn, but you don't have much for that character at this point in the plot, then you may end up with a 'filler' chapter so that the pattern is maintained.

This is why I'm not 100% sure that I'm going to stick to the pattern. I like the pattern, but the plot is more important and if that requires sacrificing the pattern, so be it.

I think the crucial thing with the multiple-limited POVs is that you establish--unequivocally--the new POV in the new scene as quickly as possible. GRRM does this in a simple, elegant way by naming the chapters for the viewpoint characters (which he got from Stephen R. Donaldson, by the way). I'm not sure that trick should be used again anytime soon, though.

I didn't realize GRRM got that from another writer. I'm going the most common route: making sure the first sentence of each chapter has the POV as the subject. GRRM's way works well for his story because he has so many characters, but with only three POVs, I don't expect my story to cause much confusion.

Another option for multiple viewpoints would be the omniscient POV. Though it is going out of style somewhat, it may still be a viable option (it could possibly come back into favor by the time you've written and published a book! You never know.)

On the subject of unpopular viewpoints, have you ever noticed how few fantasy novels use the first-person viewpoint? It's all over the place in non-fantasy, but the only fantasy novels that use it that I can think of are Robin Hobb's Farseer books. I wonder why that is?
 

Russ

Istar
1) Having a consistent pattern to your POV changes is important. The chapters in my story follow a pattern of ABACABAC... (where A, B, and C are the three POVs). I find that this is helpful not because the reader needs a pattern, but because it helps prevent the story from being unbalanced. I initially had the first half of the book focus mostly on character A, with the later parts focusing more on B and C, but this felt unbalanced to me. I felt like the reader might think "Hey, why isn't the story focused on A anymore? And why should I care about B and C? Aren't they minor characters?"

2) In reading about POVs, I've seen other people say that the more POVs you have, the less the reader cares about each character, so having too many POVs will ruin your story. I agree to an extent. There are certainly exceptions to the rule: I love A Song of Ice and Fire, and that series has a few dozen POVs. Hell, each book opens with a prologue by a new POV, who then dies at the end of the prologue, never to be mentioned again. But generally speaking, the less you focus on a character, the less the reader cares. This is why I don't have more than three POVs (I initially was going to have five). I'm a bit concerned about the fact that they don't all get an equal number of chapters ("A" gets two chapters for every one chapter that "B" or "C" gets), but trying to force the pattern into ABCABC instead of ABACABAC didn't work with the plot.

some really interesting discussion about POV.

On your first point, I am with Incanus, you don't need the same pattern or even balance if your story does not call for it. Sometimes a POV character can be sidelined for quite a while and there is nothing wrong with that.

Many people feel that 4-5 POV's for a book is PLENTY. Some great authors do more, but there is a reason they are at a certain level. Many more than that can be very hard to carry off.

One thing I have learned about how to choose the POV character that always sticks with me is that you choose the character with the most to lose, or the most at stake in the scene and go with that one.
 

Incanus

Auror
On the subject of unpopular viewpoints, have you ever noticed how few fantasy novels use the first-person viewpoint? It's all over the place in non-fantasy, but the only fantasy novels that use it that I can think of are Robin Hobb's Farseer books. I wonder why that is?

I'd have to agree with this observation. I'm not entirely sure why that is either, but I can see how and why it isn't very compatible with 'epics'. The huge scope and scale of epics can't be properly told through a single, intimate viewpoint. A curious modern exception comes to mind, however: The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss. I didn't really love the book, but he successfully combined third-person and first-person--it's mostly in first-person, but does use a little bit of third-person POV as a framing device.

That said, there are plenty of fantasy short stories and novellas (and novelettes!), both new and old, that employ the first-person viewpoint.
 
On the subject of unpopular viewpoints, have you ever noticed how few fantasy novels use the first-person viewpoint? It's all over the place in non-fantasy, but the only fantasy novels that use it that I can think of are Robin Hobb's Farseer books. I wonder why that is?

I have wondered this too. I think its because a lot of fantasy stories are very engaged in the social and physical world beyond the character's mind - its that fantasy world which is so alluring and the foundation of the genre. Whereas a lot of literature set in the real world can be first person as the outside world is less important (hey we all know what the real world looks like) and the inner thoughts so much more important. Also it could be very hard to describe a person's first person viewpoint in a fantasy story, as their world is so much different to ours, so their viewpont might seem too alien to read or get in the way of the story?

I am reading Illium by Dan Simmons and it appears to have three MCs - one is first person POV the other two are third person limited. The first person MC is a modern day human like us, who has been resurrected in the future. So we are experiencing events as someone like us, we are baffled by everything just as he is. The two other MCs are fantasy characters so they have third person POVs, we don't get into their head quite as much but go with the flow of their more alien existence.
 
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