FifthView
Vala
Fascinating discussion I love it
Back to POV, nothing distracts me more as a reader as when I read published authors who "head swap" throughout a scene. I find the story harder to follow. I've seen it done so many times, I deduce agents mustn't mind if the story is strong enough. Makes me think, "just get the story out" but I do wonder why the "head swap" wasn't edited out in later drafts. Someone has clearly made a call of story v rules. I prefer to the sticking with one character per scene but if a story (as a reader) takes me beyond that, I admit, I'll follow the story.
Much the same applies with objective v subjective. I'll read either - in order to go on story's journey. I'm easily pleased! There comes a point when we, as writers, must find the niche of our story. And we each eventually find our own niche, but this discussion makes me focus and realise I fall into half/half. I like the objective (in that I try focus and describe what the characters' see or hear) and the subjective (because I like to tie an emotion to the objective state to connect with the reader on an emotional level). You've both helped me see that. Thanks!
With the heart thumping, I'm trying to capture that moment when your heart beats so loud in fear that you hear it. Like the moment you lie awake in bed, hear a noise and you think someone who shouldn't be is in the house. My heart thumps - and races (I've had lots of these moments! Invariably my imagination!). Couldn't that be considered objective? Or perhaps "thumped in her chest"? except that makes me feel I'm telling and I should leave the reader to infer, don't you think? Or perhaps that simply boils down to personal preference?
Ignored is a tricky choice. I see that now and see your point FifthView. I wonder it's more a voice thing. I'm going to have to ponder on that. Do I edit out my voice but stay true to show v tell? I'm finding more and more that words ending in "ed" sound alarm bells in my head that I may be telling and I may need to edit the telling out in a subsequent draft. I lean more toward the rule because I'm still at a stage of my writing where I need to abide by rules not break them.
Much food for thought
I think the "objective" in objective narrative is meant to describe the reader's experience more than the general theoretical question of whether something is a "real" concrete phenomenon that happens in-world. The Wikipedia page says it's sometimes described as "fly on the wall." For any given scene, would a fly on the wall hear the heart thumping? How would a reader know about the thumping heart? If there's no dialogue—"My heart's thumping like it wants to get out!" Davis said—and if there's no magical or technological reason for the thumping to be heard by anyone other than the character, then technically we'd need a subjective view (from that character's head—or, from the head of an exterior omniscient narrator) to know about it.
But I think there may be a couple reasons for why purely objective fiction isn't common, heh. First, it's probably hard to write well without a lot of new thought given to it; almost all our fiction presents subjectivity in one way or another, so we are used to subjectivity in fiction. Second, readers like the closeness of subjectivity.
I think that considering objective writing helps us to focus on the subjectivity we put in fiction, for the contrast if nothing else. But the level and types of subjectivity and objectivity probably lie on a continuum, and different authors will use these differently for stylistic reasons and/or for effect.
As for head-hopping, my subjective opinion is that it's difficult to do well. I've tried. The issue for me seems to be writing the fluid, "organic" transitions that eliminate or at least greatly soften a jarring effect. But also, choosing which character heads to enter, and when to enter those heads within a given scene, is a major issue. How long to stay in one head before hopping is another issue. I read a book recently that I think would be a textbook case of how not to do all these things.
There was a Writing Excuses podcast covering intrigue, I think, maybe also suspense, in which Dune was an example: Going from head to head puts all the cards on the table for the reader, so we end up with an understanding of all character motives, plots, etc.—little is hidden—while also knowing that the characters themselves had little clue what others were thinking. This is one potential valuable effect. But head-hopping is hard to do well, heh.
I mentioned "ignored" because I liked the way it was used, heh. A lot of great writing could be better characterized as Show and Tell rather than Show vs Tell, depending on which part of any given book you are reading. "Show, Don't Tell" is a piece of advice that can be followed too fanatically.
On a fundamental level, all narration is telling, insofar as a narrator is telling us a story. "She opened the door" is the narrator telling us she opened the door. So, "She ignored the pain?" Now, because of this thread, I'm thinking that the advice has something to do with the way the objective and subjective are used. Typically, the advice to show, don't tell, refers to emotional or non-rational mental states: Don't tell us she's happy, show us; don't tell us he's confused, show us. These are subjective experiences for the character; no character or reader outside that person can observe those states directly but can only interpret behavior to infer the state. I suppose that showing rather than telling these things gives a solidity for the reader, lets a reader participate in assessing these states which otherwise might be vague or without scope.
But actions themselves can be impossible to observe directly from outside the character. By observing a character's behavior, we can infer that she might be ignoring something, but this is not like observing a character opening the door; we don't have to infer that, heh, because we see her turning the knob and pulling the door open.
In any case, slipping into the heads of characters changes things a bit. For Tizania, the pain is an objective fact, heh. Ignoring something is an action, in this case a mental act. So this kinda returns to an earlier thought I had about the double-narrator, or at least about blending narrator with character. Once we are in her head, the idea of ignoring pain takes on the reality, the solidness if you will, of opening a door. It is a new perspective, a new frame of reference, and for me it feels like showing rather than telling.
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