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Post by metalikhan on Feb 16, 2009 21:40:13 GMT -5
If I understand your quandary correctly, it's not whether to use multiple POVs but at what point you determine it's time to cut from one to the next. Is that right?
If so, I can only share how I determine the "when". Every writer develops his or her own feel for when it's time in the story. I look at two things. First is whether a scene is running at about the same time but a different location — one of those meanwhile, back at the ranch type of scenes. I try to keep the time frames fairly close until such point (as well as beyond the point) where the storylines intersect in some way, such as the meeting of the POV characters or the repercussions of one storyline affecting the other.
The second thing I look at is whether a particular POV can go no further in his or her part of the story without a significant amount of back-telling about what's been happening with the other POV character(s). The only time I ever used back-telling in a story was because the character was one who liked recounting what she did and how she did it in detail; and she was as annoying to the main character as she was to the reader. It was a part of her personality but I tried to be very careful about not being too heavy handed in showing that detail about her.
Anyway, back-telling slams the brakes on a scene. It sits there idling while your characters chit-chat about escaping the Goolorkian flesh-eaters and hotwiring an intergalactic getaway transport earlier in the story (not something that happened outside of the story's time-frame, I should add). There should be scenes in the appropriate time period of the story showing the characters escaping the Goolorkian flesh-eaters and hotwiring their intergalactic getaway transport.
One thing you can try is to cut and paste your scenes into a separate file with all the scenes of one POV together without interruption from other POVs. You will be able to see both the continuity in that single character's journey as well as the places where vital information supplied by scenes from other viewpoints are necessary.
Hope some of this helps.
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Post by tris on Feb 19, 2009 10:28:16 GMT -5
So if it doesn't involve any backtelling, but is actually a scene shift viewpoint (ie what's happening to two different characters in two different locations at roughly the same time), multiple POVs are permissible?
I usually try to keep the POVs to the main two characters since their story lines are running simultaneously, but they're not always together. There are an occasional secondary character in concurrent scenes that have a brief jump into their heads to add to the general tension of the story, but which do not give anything away (ie....the he was a bad man, but I didn't want to you know until he ambushes the hero type of thing).
So am I heading in the right direction with this, or do I need a refresher course on POVs 101?
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 21, 2009 8:08:11 GMT -5
Tris,
A book can have as many POVs or viewpoint characters as you wish. So long as they're kept separate by scene breaks when you move from one POV to another, you can have a ton of "periscopes" into the world of your story.
The more you have, though, the harder it can be for the reader to follow. In that case you really need to make your characters differentiated--especially your viewpoint characters. It's frustrating for a reader to get a page into a scene and realize she's not in the head of the person she thought she was in because the author changed POVs but the difference wasn't marked enough.
Jeff
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 23, 2009 0:23:14 GMT -5
This may be somewhat off-topic, but I had been writing in omniscient third person POV. Doink, doink, doink. I honestly didn't know any better. So, when I finished reading Jeff's tips...and pounding my head on my desk...I tried writing a new scene using the suggested third person POV. I was surprised at how much EASIER it was to write! Things started to flow and made sense without a lot of tweakage. I just wanted to throw my two cents in and say thanks. This is a great place to learn and grow. And Jeff, no charge for the plug on your tips. You get that one for free.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 23, 2009 8:12:18 GMT -5
Huzzah! Thank you, Duchess.
I appreciate the free props. It's fitting, considering that the Tips are free too! LOL.
Free is good.
Oh, and congratulations that The Duchess won an Oscar (costume). Was that you?
:-)
Jeff
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 23, 2009 9:11:45 GMT -5
A friend of mine out in California recently posted something on Facebook about the Academy snubbing him this year. He's a career actor and part of all that hoopla out there. I responded by saying that I've snubbed the Academy for many years...they just don't know it. But wouldn't that be a fantastic honor? I only wish that the movies that were recognized were ones that the rest of America enjoyed. Not just the high-brow Academy artsy-types.
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Post by tris on Feb 24, 2009 20:02:10 GMT -5
Duchess There's nothing high browed about the kind of movies the Academy touts. Most are so shallow they'd wither in 30 degree weather! Nice to know there's someone else outthere snubbing the Oscars!
Jeff, Thanks for all the good advice. I didn't have trouble keeping the scenes and characters straight so my readers wouldn't get confused. I was just confused on how many different POVs I could legitimately have and not knock myself out of the running. I'm still working through the Tips section!
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 25, 2009 8:49:22 GMT -5
For some thoughts about how to introduce multiple viewpoint characters and storylines, and help your reader keep it all straight, take a look at Tip #71.
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 26, 2009 9:41:28 GMT -5
Something else I've noticed while keeping this whole POV thing in mind - I'm using FAR less "ly" words when I write. And oh, was I guilty of the "ly" usage... Jeff, your tips really work! Thank you for posting them.
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Post by tris on Feb 26, 2009 15:35:32 GMT -5
I just wish I'd found this forum and all Jeff's tips before I published my first novel. Now, I'm really glad I haven't put the sequel out yet. I've got a lot of rewriting to do!
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 26, 2009 15:46:15 GMT -5
I agree, although I am not published. But I do have a full ms to work through... Whew! I know all the hard work will be worth it.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 26, 2009 22:19:36 GMT -5
You guys are sweet. I'm very glad the Tips have been helpful to you.
In April or May I hope to have them all out in print form, in The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction.
I'm teaching at a lot of Christian writer's conferences this year. More than I've ever done. Largely because I knew I'd have a new craft book to sell. But also because I love teaching Christian fiction.
Working with writers like you, who want to learn and are hard workers, is a complete joy.
Jeff
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Post by Divides the Waters on Feb 28, 2009 20:10:14 GMT -5
This may be somewhat off-topic, but I had been writing in omniscient third person POV. Doink, doink, doink. I honestly didn't know any better. So, when I finished reading Jeff's tips...and pounding my head on my desk...I tried writing a new scene using the suggested third person POV. I was surprised at how much EASIER it was to write! Things started to flow and made sense without a lot of tweakage. I just wanted to throw my two cents in and say thanks. This is a great place to learn and grow. And Jeff, no charge for the plug on your tips. You get that one for free. I had to write an entire novel over. I had learned after the fact (not through Jeff's tips--I didn't find out about WTME until much later) about third person limited being the current preferred form. So while I did NOT enjoy having to do the work of rewriting an entire book, I do agree that TPL has allowed me to create much more vivid insights into my characters, and tighter writing. Of course, it's sometimes a little difficult to explain to someone who has never had the different POVs clarified, but it is well worth it in the long run!
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Post by duchessashley on Mar 9, 2009 14:34:24 GMT -5
Here's another technical question -
I recently heard that when changing POV, you should give a line break, then start the new POV paragraph flush left, no indentations/tabs. Is this standard? Or is this a style choice?
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Post by torainfor on Mar 9, 2009 15:02:51 GMT -5
The line break is standard to the POV philosophy discussed here. I think the flush-left part would be up to the book's designer (if that's the right word).
There is another philosophy of POV changes. It's much more subtle and, I would think, harder to write. In it, you can switch POVs in the midst of a section as long as you pull back to a broader view in between each. But, maybe this is just a form of omniscient.
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