A few musings on switching POV

[Zero Angel]

As much as I'm enjoying Song of Ice and Fire, I find the POV shifts frustrating at times, especially because of how seldom most of them overlap. I find myself wanting to skip through and read all of Jon's chapters - or else skip Jon and Daenerys so I can focus on what's happening with the other characters. I don't think it's a good thing I can do that without missing much.

GRRM's success with a multitude of POV characters, I think, is the exception instead of the rule. He's setting up disastrous, independant conflicts all over the map, and it wouldn't work any other way. But even just reading it can be at times a daunting endeavor that wouldn't be worth the investment, I feel, if it wasn't for the quality of his storytelling powers.

This is what I did for the last book I read of his. I was able to do this successfully for (I believe) each character. The storylines started out close together, but by now they are spread to the ends of the kingdoms with little to no overlap. But this has resulted in the entire work not being satisfying. I won't pick it up again until the series is done.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I'm a big GRRM fan so I can say that most of the POV shifts don't bother me a bit. Every now and then, when reading GoT, I'd be perturbed by a shift to a character I'm not as fond of but it doesn't bother me enough to dismiss the brilliance of the story and the extreme realism & depth of the characters.

That being said, POV shifts (well in truth, too many POV characters) is exactly what turned me off of Jordan's WoT series.

 

[ScipioSmith]

That wouldn't bother me if they were all equally awesome characters. But being forced to spend time with Elaida or Padan Fain instead of Rand or Nynaeve is irksome.

 

[WyrdMystic]

I love this as my current work switches POV a fair number of times through a close proximity group. I've found myself favoring a subtle omniscient POV where the work would seem to be 3rd person limited apart from a few sentences here and there that flow seemingly unnoticed, proving that the narrator is actually removed from the in focus character. This allows me to use tricks that, although probably frowned upon in mainstream fiction, makes the work more varied and improves the flow. In terms of my preference when reading - I really don't mind whether the POV is switched in chapter or never switched at all as long as it makes sense to me and I know where I am (and of course, that I am enjoying the words as they play out in my head).

 

[ccrogers3d]

Personally, I don't mind POV shifts from chapter to chapter. What irks me is POV shifts from paragraph to paragraph! I've heard it's not technically wrong, but I never do it in my writing because I hate seeing it when I'm a reader.

 

[Mindfire]

I don't care for tons of POV shifts. It feels like the story is bouncing around a bit too much. Nonlinear is great for some people, but not for me. Now if it's only a few characters, I don't have a problem. But with more than that it starts to get confusing because you forget where you left off with the character by the time the story gets back to them.

 

[BWFoster78]

I don't care for tons of POV shifts. It feels like the story is bouncing around a bit too much. Nonlinear is great for some people, but not for me. Now if it's only a few characters, I don't have a problem. But with more than that it starts to get confusing because you forget where you left off with the character by the time the story gets back to them.

If you go back to my original post, the point was that switching POV while staying with the same storyline isn't nearly as annoying as switching frequently to other locations and events in different characters.

 

[Mindfire]

If you go back to my original post, the point was that switching POV while staying with the same storyline isn't nearly as annoying as switching frequently to other locations and events in different characters.

True. But someone brought up Martin's style of doing POV shifts on this page. I decided to provide the counterpoint.