Multi-viewpoint voice

[torainfor]

So, I've started this story that will have four, maybe five viewpoint characters. They're all pretty different. As I write, I find my narration changes depending on the character from whom's eyes I done be writing. From.

Is this normal? Should I keep the voice the same? It's hard to do when one character is a blue-collar-born 20-something Earth astronaut and another is an 800-year old super-intelligent priest. As I write, the narration voice naturally becomes the viewpoint character's voice. I can see how this would make for some dizzying reading.

[Divides the Waters]

Jeff introduced the notion of having narrative match inner voice in one of his tips (that I am too lazy to look up right now). It's a new one to me (that is, for anything other than first person narrative), but it makes a certain amount of sense. I actually think it might help, in this regard, since you have 4-5 viewpoint characters. It would keep their scenes/chapters/whatever distinct.

[Spokane Flyboy]

I know I've seen this style in a book before, but I can't remember what book. I personally think it would have a certain charm to it.

[Divides the Waters]

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, by Heinlein, perhaps? (I didn't care for that one because it was multiple 1st person POV, which, in my opinion, only Stoker has managed to pull off successfully. Not to mention the fact that Heinlein was a completely amoral author. But that's beside the point.)

I use multiple POV myself, borrowing a bit from George R.R. Martin's technique of staying within one character's head for an entire chapter before moving on to the next. I'll have to get back into his books to see if he does the kind of narrative shifting you're talking about.

[Jeff Gerke]

It's Tip #66, torainfor. Check it out.

Good instincts, by the way.

Jeff

[Teskas]

I've tried writing from more than one POV, but ever since I've cleaned up my act (thanks to Jeff's Tips and Self-editing for Fiction Writers) I find it gets messy. The art of writing from one POV seems to be enough of a challenge. A more successful technique for me is to write multiple POVs inferentially. I'm using dialogue to show the attitudes or viewpoints of other characters without asking my reader to occupy their interiors. Whereas with the POV character, I allow his sensations and private thoughts to appear, and try to keep my reader with him. Maybe as my writing matures, multiple POVs won't be so difficult to tackle.

I have noticed that, when reading an outstanding writer, it is difficult not to import his style into one's own work. I've come to the conclusion that it is really important to decide what is one's natural narrative style.

For example, I admire lyrical writing, and find it my favorite read, but it isn't my voice, so there's no point in me imitating it for narrative. But, if I were writing an idealistic young man or woman, who has no experience of life, it might be the perfect voice. If I'm writing a tough guy for a character, I might, for example, use Dashiell Hammett's or Ernest Hemingway's style as his voice, to distinguish it from my own narrative voice in the passage.

So there seems to be advantages to reading widely. As long as imitating another writer's style is kept within boundaries, modeling it seems to have a legitimate place.

[Jeff Gerke]

You're on the right track, Teskas. Good thoughts.

And you're right that there is an intermediate step between writing omniscient POV and writing multiple distinct viewpoint character voices, and that is learning the discipline of simply staying inside one viewpoint character's head per scene. Sounds like you're doing very well.

Jeff

[Divides the Waters]

Third person omniscient vs. third person limited. Many think that if you do third person limited, you are "limited" to one POV. That's not the case. It's simply a mode that you apply to a scene or chapter. It doesn't affect the number of POVs you can utilize in the story.

[Jeff Gerke]

Divides, please explain what you mean by third person omniscient. To me, those terms are contradictory.

Jeff

[Divides the Waters]

Well, at least when I was in school, Third Person Omniscient was the classic "Tolkien" point of view, where you could dip into anyone's head at random. Third Person Limited stayed as tightly focused on one POV as First Person. They may have redefined the terms, but this is how I remember it:

1st person: I went to the mall, and thought how beautiful the day was.
2nd person: You went to the mall, and thought how beautiful the day was.
3rd person limited: Rob went to the mall, and thought how beautiful the day was. Jeff said it was too cloudy.
3rd person omniscient: Rob went to the mall, and thought how beautiful the day was. Jeff thought it was too cloudy.

Not the best examples, but you get the idea. A truly "omniscient" POV used to be a first person narrator who could also dip into people's heads, a.k.a. The Storyteller. C.S. Lewis, for example, and Tolkien in The Hobbit. Almost never seen anymore.

[Jeff Gerke]

Thank you for the clarification.

To me, any omniscient POV is evil and must be destroyed. (Unless of course we're speaking theologically, and then I love the Omnisicent One!)

Jeff

[rwley]

What if your narrator is the Omniscient One?

RWL

[Divides the Waters]

Even I would be leery of trying to do anything from His point of view.

[rwley]

Yeah, that's a little TOO speculative. I know I'd get it wrong, and I don't want that judgement hanging over my head.

RWL

[metalikhan]

A question just slightly off what you were discussing:
If you have multiple POVs in your novel, is it necessary to retain them in sequels? The MC remains so throughout the series; but if you have spent time in other major characters' POV in the first manuscript, would the reader feel cheated if you don’t return to all of them in the second or third novels? Or if you introduce other characters in their stead?