PoV

[A. E. Lowan]

For some reason, this really long example didn't attach earlier. No worries, for I am merciless and implacable. Here we have a whole room full of potential POV's, but we stick with one. Everyone else is also responding to conflict just as if they were POV characters - and later some are - and the trick is to get inside of their heads and let them see, or not see, their motivations and their responses to the world around them.

~~~
From Ties of Bood and Bone: The Second Book of Binding
~~~

Clean and dressed, Alerich went in search of Odette’s advertised breakfast. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a red, cotton button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone, his longish, black hair still damp. The rented house was large—but not so large that he could not find the dining room in short order. Even still, he was the last one to breakfast and his grandmother’s gunmetal-blue eyes narrowed slightly with disapproval as he entered. Bloody wonderful.

“I’m glad to see you have finally decided to join us, Alerich.” Hildreth’s tone was arid, her clipped Dutch accent still present—even after decades of living in England. Her crisp, white hair was pulled up into some complicated coiffure of Odette’s doing.

Quiet conversation around the table stopped for a moment, all eyes on Alerich. His blood ran cold at the shifting sight of the demon, sitting in what passed for its human form near his father’s end of the table eating roasted bone marrow, and Alerich wondered if someone had died last night. At least no one was trying to make him eat the victim—this time. Today, it seemed to prefer to be mostly male, and his form was something close to stable, though even as he watched, it changed subtly.

Arariel.

The demon crunched bone like a candy cane, the sound making Alerich’s skin prickle unpleasantly—remembering other times, other bones, other victims—and smirked at Alerich for a moment before its gaze slid back to Elspeth, covetous. Greedy. Alerich’s twin was the first girl to be born into the Ashimar line in five generations, but his sorcerer father would not give her to the demon. His relationship with Alerich might be fraught, but he doted on Elspeth. In this, at least, she was safe.

Alerich looked away, looked toward his friends, toward comfort, and tried not to smile. Almost all eyes were on Alerich. Fitz, faced toward Hildreth’s man, Thorne, was still speaking. “…and no celery, my good man. Terrible thing to do to good vodka, I must say.”

The tall, liveried servant wore a carefully blank expression as he bowed and slipped away to fulfil Fitz’s request.

Thomas waved his hand at Fitz from across the table, bringing his attention to the rest of the room.

The deaf wizard surveyed the situation, sighed dramatically, and fell silent.

Alerich crossed the spacious room to the end of the table before his grandmother could find anything more scathing to say and kissed her soft cheek. She had the powdery scent of expensive perfume. “My apologies, Grandmother. I’m delighted that you’re here.” And he was. She was the woman who had raised him and protected him after his mother’s death, as much as she could. He was certain she had no idea why his father wanted him poisoned. He just wished she wasn’t so obsessed with this damn wedding.

Or so insistent that it was happening.

Hildreth looked placated and the quiet talk around the table resumed. “I missed you, my dear boy. With the wedding so close, there are too many details to be left to chance.”

And they were off to the races. Alerich sat down beside his grandmother and sighed. “Just dress me in that dinner jacket she’s picked out and stand me upright at the end of the aisle. Isn’t that my right as the groom, to leave the details to you ladies?”

A brief look of annoyance flashed across Hildreth’s face. “It would please me if you were more involved.” She took a sip of her tea. “And if you would stop dodging Celia’s calls.”

Odette set a plate in front of Alerich, and he dug into his potatoes to buy a moment, ignoring the meats with Arariel crunching so nearby. Celia was carrying tales to his grandmother, again. He chewed and swallowed, forming his next words with care. “Celia and I are not compatible, you know. We don’t actually like talking to each other.” Granted, most of the dislike seemed to be on his side of the phone. Celia was certainly happy to ring his number as it pleased her.

Hildreth made a dismissive noise. “You hardly know each other. I hardly knew your grandfather when we married, and we came to love each other very much.”

At the other end of the table, Alerich’s father, Magnus, coughed, and for an instant, Alerich caught a look of derision on his face.

Hildreth raised her chin and her voice. “Do you have a problem, Magnus?”

Seated between their father and Thomas, Elspeth shrank in on herself just a little bit, as if to make herself less of a target without making it too obvious that was what she was doing.

Magnus waved his eagle-headed cane as if waving away the question. “Of course not, Mother.” The rage that simmered in the depths of his midnight-blue eyes said anything but. Alerich had seen it before but did not know the full story behind it. Given the way Grandmother beat Elspeth, he suspected her violence was the source.

Hildreth held his gaze, imperious, implacable, until at last Magnus looked away, anger and resignation eating away at him, and he raised his teacup for a drink as a barrier between them. Hildreth, disdainful of her son, turned again to face Alerich. “As I was saying…”

…she was sending him to his doom.

“…you will come to know Celia better in time. Have patience and an open mind.”

Alerich nodded and accidentally took a bite of bacon, the meat tasting heavy and greasy on his tongue. He cast the rest of the piece aside. What choice did he have? Wizard matrons arranged marriages for their Bloodlines and guarded them jealously. All wizard marriages were arranged, from those of the Great Houses that sat on the Wizards’ Council like House Ashimar, all the way down the social, political, and magical scale to the Minor Houses that served them, like those that Odette and Thorne belonged to.

Like the one his mother, Carine, had belonged to.

Thorne returned with Fitz’s bloody mary, sans celery stalk, and Fitz’s face lit up with hungover delight. “Now there is a fine beverage! Thank you, my good man.” He took the glass and gifted himself with a long, appreciative drink.

Thomas smiled and waved at Fitz, catching his attention, and began signing, his chestnut-brown hands sketching words in British Sign Language with the grace of long practice. “What do you think about—”

Magnus set his teacup down with a sharp click. “None of that handwaving nonsense at my table. If you have something to say you will say it so that everyone can understand.”

Fitz had been looking at Thomas and so missed what Magnus said. He raised his hands and sketched out a quick, “What?”

Magnus brought his fist down on the table, making everyone and the plates jump. “What did I just say?” Fitz flinched and paled, turning his wary attention fully to the man.

Arariel looked amused.

Alerich was on his feet before the thought caught up to him. “He can’t hear you, and you know it!” That hadn’t taken long.

 

[Mathas]

One thing that I am confused about regarding POV is that I find it easier to to jump between characters viewpoints in the same chapter, sometimes in the same page, that way I can capture each characters thoughts and feelings from an extremely personal point of view. The thing with this is I've been told it's confusing, which I understand. I know it's probably best practice to focus on one character per scene and not jump around, but I don't know how to do that and stay true to how characters feel and think.

I feel like it is more sincere when a character thinks something, rather than the narrative voice saying that the character thought something! On a similar note, I tend to switch my narrative voice depending on if the scene is focusing on a certain character or group - like a narrative voice for the bad guys that is just bitter and hateful, and one for the good guys which is plaintive and hopeful.

Is it ok to bounce around with POV and voice or does anyone have tips to stay focused on one view point?

 

[Penpilot]

Is it ok to bounce around with POV and voice or does anyone have tips to stay focused on one view point?

If you want to move around from character to character, you can use an omniscient point of view. But it's an incredibly hard point of view to use without confusing the reader. Dune used this point of view.

In addition, using a single point of view helps to build intimacy with the POV character. Jumping around makes it tougher to do this.

And lastly, you can reveal a character's thoughts and feelings without jumping into their POV. It may not be as precise, but a lot of times we don't need to know with exacting detail.

For example.

Mike snickered to himself when he heard the footsteps coming down the hall. This was going to be fun. When the footsteps were close enough, Mike jump out from behind the corner and yelled, "Boo."

His brother Dan staggered back and gasped, with eyes popping out like round, pale moons.

Mike fell to the floor laughing. Definitely as fun as he thought it would be.

Once Dan stopped gasping, he stepped up to a still laughing Mike, held up a tightly balled fist to Mike's face, and flipped him the bird. "Eat sh!t, @sshole!"

In the trite little example, we never go into Dan's POV, but we still know how he feels and have a pretty good idea of what he's thinking.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It's probably "more difficult" because people don't read it that much these days. Dune is an unusual example of the omniscient 3rd with a whole lot of direct, italicized internal thoughts, while something more like a classic Dickens novel would be a more traditional style of 3rd Om where the narrator knows all. Third person intimate, or whatever one might call it, is 3rd omniscient except it sticks with the one character. There are several keys to a good 3rd Om that jumps around, probably the most important being to establish that Narrator's Voice right off the bat and then to stick with it. If you write an Arya chapter like GRRM in GoT and suddenly you're in Ned's head, it's gonna be trouble, but if you've done it and done it well the entire book, it shouldn't be a problem. The reality is, ASoIaF by Martin is 3rd Om one character at a time. Objective, Subjective, Limited, Intrusive... It's all 3rd Om, what matters is enough consistency to make it work.

One thing that I am confused about regarding POV is that I find it easier to to jump between characters viewpoints in the same chapter, sometimes in the same page, that way I can capture each characters thoughts and feelings from an extremely personal point of view. The thing with this is I've been told it's confusing, which I understand. I know it's probably best practice to focus on one character per scene and not jump around, but I don't know how to do that and stay true to how characters feel and think.

I feel like it is more sincere when a character thinks something, rather than the narrative voice saying that the character thought something! On a similar note, I tend to switch my narrative voice depending on if the scene is focusing on a certain character or group - like a narrative voice for the bad guys that is just bitter and hateful, and one for the good guys which is plaintive and hopeful.

Is it ok to bounce around with POV and voice or does anyone have tips to stay focused on one view point?

 

[JBCrowson]

One thing that I am confused about regarding POV is that I find it easier to to jump between characters viewpoints in the same chapter, sometimes in the same page, that way I can capture each characters thoughts and feelings from an extremely personal point of view. The thing with this is I've been told it's confusing, which I understand. I know it's probably best practice to focus on one character per scene and not jump around, but I don't know how to do that and stay true to how characters feel and think.

I feel like it is more sincere when a character thinks something, rather than the narrative voice saying that the character thought something! On a similar note, I tend to switch my narrative voice depending on if the scene is focusing on a certain character or group - like a narrative voice for the bad guys that is just bitter and hateful, and one for the good guys which is plaintive and hopeful.

Is it ok to bounce around with POV and voice or does anyone have tips to stay focused on one view point?

Here's something you could try:
Look at your head-hopped scenes and pick one character to be your POV for the scene. Usually if your main character is in a scene, theirs will be the POV.
Next, look at what you want the reader to know about the thoughts / emotions of everyone else in the scene - the stuff you like to head-hop to give them.
When you've done that, think about how another person observing them would know that is what they are feeling or thinking. Emotions especially, are very hard for most people to mask for very long (and even then you can usually tell someone is masking). If you find it hard to think up what those little indicators of emotional state might be, try watching a movie or show without the sound, and makes notes of when you think someone's emotional state changes, what made you think so.
Now add those tell tale signs into the descriptions of what your POV character is seeing / hearing in place of each of your head-hops. By the time you've done that you will hopefully have something you can improve by editing.

Good luck.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I feel like it is more sincere when a character thinks something, rather than the narrative voice saying that the character thought something!

Just feel this needs to be pointed out, but both of these are actually examples of third person omniscient. They're simply a different way of doing the same thing.

If you're writing true third person limited, then you can only ever look inside one character's head at a single time (either in a single scene or chapter). There is no narrator that tells the reader what other characters are thinking in third person limited.

The only difference between writing that a character thinks something, and having a narrator show the reader thinking something is one of style. That's it. Both fall into the same POV group.

As for being confusing or indirect, I disagree. It's slightly out of fashion, in part because some vocal and influential supporters tell readers and writers that it is. But there's nothing wrong with it, and any time I've read a good third person omniscient novel I've had no trouble reading it or following along.

Dune is always held up as a great example, but I don't think it actually is. It's a great novel, and definitely omniscient. However, it's also on the very extreme end, and pushes the form to its limit. That sort of thing is hard to do. However, a novel like The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is also omniscient, as is the Hobbit. For a more modern one, The Lies of Locke Lamora is also one, just a much less extreme version.

If you want to experiment with omniscient, then do so. Some of the greatest novels of all time are written in omniscient. If you're starting out, then I would aim more for something like the Hobbit or Lies of Locke Lamora than Dune.

There's one thing to keep in mind, and that is to be consistent. Both the strength and weakness of third limited is that you can hide thoughts from the reader, simply by being in a different POV. You probably don't want to do this in omniscient, since your readers will probably feel cheated and your tale will probably not read true. So if you're relying on a big twist from one of your characters, then omniscient is probably not the way to go.

 

[Devor]

Two things.

Is it ok to bounce around with POV and voice or does anyone have tips to stay focused on one view point?

It's loosely best to decide on a POV-style, signal it to your readers pretty much right away, and stick with it throughout. You can head hop, but start it early so readers know what to expect from you.

I have two POV characters. Each chapter has 2-3 scenes, and the head hopping happens on the scene break. I have to make sure each scene feels like a complete stand-alone emotional beat. And the scenes in a chapter have to tie together, even when the characters are doing different things. The characters are often together, but I refuse to repeat a moment for the other POV. And, I like to play with narrative a lot. Sometimes the character's voice will lighten up or even hit camera mode to show the action, then deepen on a good character moment. Sometimes the character's narrative voice gets so deep that the POV & tense will change as their thoughts take over. Whenever I can nail that shift it always creates a powerful moment. And I'll experiment with things big and small to mix it up.

I always wondered how do you decide who goes first...

By trusting your own creative judgement and making a decision.

I understand this question was raised in January and hopefully the OP isn't still struggling with this. And I hate giving a non-answer like this. But there's no substitute for a person's creative judgement. And a question like this plays right into that. There's no answer to this question. The one with the inciting incident is maybe right-ish, but then maybe all the characters have their own inciting incident, or maybe one can do a better job setting up context beforehand. Or maybe you'll find yourself adapting your story as you go so that whatever choice you make becomes the right one. Or on the flip side, maybe they're all equally wrong because you're still working through the learning curve.

Regardless, sometimes you just have to drink some coffee, take a deep breath, make a decision, and regret it forever, because you're a writer and just like the rest of us, you'll find your old works to be cringe.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Regardless, sometimes you just have to drink some coffee, take a deep breath, make a decision, and regret it forever, because you're a writer and just like the rest of us, you'll find your old works to be cringe.

And when you publish, this will still happen but now it's in the wild and you can't change it, barring making some potentially career-altering choices.