Forum: Author Hangout

I think when there's a lot of suspense in the story omni is the way to go because you need to inform the reader of the dangers lurking the POV character doesn't know about in limited.

I've always disliked that approach. I'd rather the cliched 'The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, although he couldn't see anything suspicious' to 'Little did he know that a man was watching him from the shadows'.

AJ

I'm skeptical that those would be the only two options.

The rumbling in the distance and the smell of ozone sent a chill through TamponMan's veins: this fucking author always made him fight a fucking supervillain in a thunderstorm.

AJ

My point is that I dislike authors temporarily exiting 3rd limited to head-hop or omniscience as a way of building suspense. I'd prefer the author to stick to 3rd limited.

AJ

My point is that I dislike authors temporarily exiting 3rd limited to head-hop or omniscience

The last novel I read (I think it was a James Patterson thriller) was written in 1st-person. But every chapter began in 3rd-omniscient to give the reader information the 1st-person narrator didn't have. At first I found it annoying, but it worked once I got used to it.

Actually, in 3rd-limited, you can switch POV characters so in one scene you can have one of them plant the bomb and then another scene has the other one sitting at the table with the bomb under it. What I've found is that's not always convenient to start another scene to switch POV. Like if the POV character is walking down the street and someone is watching him from a dark alley. That's easy to do in omniscient. You have to break some rules to do it in 3rd-limited. But if breaking the rules works, it works.

Actually, in 3rd-limited, you can switch POV characters

The whole point of 3rd limited is that the reader experiences everything through the eyes of the subject character - if the author switches characters, it's no longer 3rd limited.

AJ

The whole point of 3rd limited is that the reader experiences everything through the eyes of the subject character

Not the subject character. The POV character.

You can change the POV character at a scene change which is typically a new chapter.

Not the subject character. The POV character.

That's what I meant :-(

You can change the POV character at a scene change which is typically a new chapter.

I would argue that it's then no longer 3rd limited.

AJ

You can change the POV character at a scene change which is typically a new chapter.

I would argue that it's then no longer 3rd limited.

Sure it is. It's called 3rd-person limited multiple.

It's called 3rd-person limited multiple.

That's like describing American Football as a single-player multiple game because only one player controls the ball at a time.

Once you switch viewpoints, you've sacrificed all the advantages of using 3rd-limited. I'd consider the result a version of omni.

AJ

Once you switch viewpoints, you've sacrificed all the advantages of using 3rd-limited. I'd consider the result a version of omni.

I'm trying to figure out what advantages of 3rd person limited you've sacrificed. Honestly, if I want to do a story from one character's POV I'll most likely do 1st person, as it provides a tighter connection between me and the character I'm writing (not to mention as a reader.)

Honestly, if I want to do a story from one character's POV I'll most likely do 1st person, as it provides a tighter connection between me and the character I'm writing (not to mention as a reader.)

The dispute about 1st or 3rd for writing a story from a single character's POV will probably continue forever. I've done both and I can't decide ;-)

If you prefer first, that's fine.

As an aside, Gender Genie (which seems to have disappeared) regarded 1st as slightly more likely to be chosen by a female author, and 3rd as slightly more likely to be chosen by a male author.

AJ

That still doesn't answer what advantage of 3rd person you think you give up by using a select set of 3rd person narrators sequentially.

That still doesn't answer what advantage of 3rd person you think you give up by using a select set of 3rd person narrators sequentially.

You answered it yourself - you don't get the same closeness and empathy with the character if you write an ensemble story.

AJ

You answered it yourself - you don't get the same closeness and empathy with the character if you write an ensemble story.

I disagree. What I said was that you lose it when going from 1st person to 3rd. I've done one story using two 1st person narrators, and it has that closeness, it's just clumsy. Doing multiple 3rd person-limited narrators sacrifices the immediacy of 'I', but is still more intimate that what you get with omniscience as you are part of that persons thoughts and limited to what they see/hear for the duration of the scene.

I can see how it might be more intimate for the author to use a single 1st POV rather a single 3rd POV. But I don't think that extends to the reader. What can an author show readers in single 1st that they can't show in single 3rd limited?

AJ

It's not that the author can show the reader more in one or the other, it's that the use of 'I' immediately brings *me* into the story. The use of 'he' adds a layer of distance — I'm not the one in the story, I'm being carried along in the character's head.

So, if it's 1st person and 'I' break 'my' arm, it brings me to imagining (or, in my case, remembering) what it feels like. If it's 3rd and 'he' breaks 'his' arm, I'm more likely to focus on how that will affect 'his' life.

The use of 'he' adds a layer of distance

Not if it's written in a deep (close) 3rd-limited. By getting rid of the filter words (e.g., felt, saw, heard, etc.) the reader is not watching the character from a distance see something, feel something, etc. The reader is living the story as the character. The reader hears the gunshot rather than be told the "he" or "I" heard the gunshot.

There's actually less distance than if it was "I". With 1st-person, the "I" is telling the story to the reader. With a deep 3rd-limited, the reader experiences the story through the POV character.

I'd be interested in seeing an example of a more intimate 3rd person limited. At least for me, if I'm reading 1st person and I don't feel like I'm present, I'm not going to finish. I may have seen a 3rd person limited that pulled that off, but I'm not remembering it right now.

It's not that the author can show the reader more in one or the other, it's that the use of 'I' immediately brings *me* into the story.

I've seen that claimed but surely, if it were true, 2nd would be even more successful.

AJ

What can an author show readers in single 1st that they can't show in single 3rd limited?

The voice of the 1st-person narrator. "The Catcher in the Rye" is a good example.

The voice of the 1st-person narrator.

I'll give you that. But I found the whiny sense of entitlement to be offputting rather than engaging.

AJ

Once you switch viewpoints, you've sacrificed all the advantages of using 3rd-limited. I'd consider the result a version of omni.

Not at all. Within the scene, all the advantages of 3rd-limited are there. The reader is living the scene through that POV character.

I don't read Romance novels, but I would bet many (most?) are written in 3rd-limited multiple from the POVs of both the heroine and hero. If they were written in omniscient, the omni narrator would tell the reader what each is thinking and feeling within a scene. But then you would lose the intimacy between the reader and character that you have in 3rd-limited.

I'm far from an expert in anything, especially POV which for me is the hardest part of writing fiction, but I've read a lot about it because it's so hard for me to do "right."

If they were written in omniscient, the omni narrator would tell the reader what each is thinking and feeling within a scene. But then you would lose the intimacy between the reader and character that you have in 3rd-limited.

I just don't see that. If you lose intimacy by using omni to tell what the characters are thinking in an ensemble story, you would also expect to lose intimacy in a single POV story when reporting what the POV character is thinking. But in an ensemble story, you've already lost the intimacy - readers might still engage with their favourite character but there's the dilution factor of having all the other POV characters who they care less about.

AJ

But in an ensemble story, you've already lost the intimacy

Maybe the "ensemble" is the confusion. In 3rd-limited multiple, you don't have an ensemble. You have few POV characters, one or two, probably no more than four (and I would think the latter is pushing it). When you have a lot of characters, you write it in omniscient.

We'll have to disagree on that. I think that more than one POV means you have an ensemble and if you switch viewpoints between them, even if each chapter is written as 3rd limited, the overall story counts as omni.

AJ

even if each chapter is written as 3rd limited, the overall story counts as omni.

Oh god, no! We can't agree to disagree about that because that is wrong.

In 3rd-limited, there is no all-knowing narrator. In omni, the only narrator is the omni narrator.

There are rules for how to do each, but that foundation is a given.

The overall story can't be considered 3rd limited because the narrator knows the internal thoughts of more than one person.

AJ

The overall story can't be considered 3rd limited because the narrator knows the internal thoughts of more than one person.

I understand that you believe that, but ever other source I've looked at disagrees with you. They all say that the narrator is limited to the POV and thoughts of one character at a time.

The also say that when the narrative breaks — at a scene change or new chapter — the POV character can change, as long as you are now limited to that character for the duration of the current narrative flow.

Feel free to keep on arguing, but you're plainly wrong this time, regardless of whether you want to admit it or not.

you're plainly wrong this time

I disagree with the writing experts but that doesn't make me wrong. I believe the writing experts are coming at it from the wrong angle, deciding what they want to be 'right' then retro-justifying it. They're not looking at it logically from the readers' point of view.

AJ

I believe the writing experts are … not looking at it logically from the readers' point of view.

Is the following acceptable to a reader?

------
I gazed into Sue's smiling face and my heart melted. She loved me. We were perfect for each other.

Sue didn't know how long she could keep the forced smile. What a jerk, she thought. I'm going to take every penny he has and ruin him.
---------

The experts would say that story is 1st-person. They would also say the author made a mistake because the 1st-person narrator could not tell the reader what Sue was thinking. But if the reader likes it done that way, I guess the experts are wrong.

Now substitute 1st-person ("I") with 3rd-limited ("He") in the example. The same rule is violated. The reader is given knowledge to something the POV character doesn't know.

Now if it was omni, the omni narrator would know what Sue was thinking. Of course the narrator would have to tell the reader that instead of hearing Sue's thoughts directly. Everything the reader is told is from the single god-like omni narrator.

Now if it was omni, the omni narrator would know what Sue was thinking. Of course the narrator would have to tell the reader that instead of hearing Sue's thoughts directly. Everything the reader is told is from the single god-like omni narrator.

I disagree with the assertion that a godlike author/narrator has to narrate from a single, remote viewpoint. They're godlike, they can put readers directly into characters' heads.

If the author wants to write the scene that way, I believe writing experts would mostly hate it. But I think the discordance of the head-hopping actually increases the effectiveness. But using that technique repeatedly would probably be exhausting for readers.

AJ

They're godlike, they can put readers directly into characters' heads.

No they can't. They're not the author. The author is God. He's the Creator. The omni narrator can be a character in the story who's telling the story, like Death in "The Book Thief," or they can be some invisible something outside the story. The omni narrator is all-knowing because the author made him that way.

Saying that, of course the author is the narrator. The author is every character in the story. All the characters are speaking the author's words, thinking the author's thoughts, doing what the author wants them to do. But if the author does his job right, the reader doesn't feel the author's presence. The reader is immersed in the story and lets the characters do their thing and, if it's omniscient, lets the narrator tell the story.

I was equating, possibly wrongly, narrator with author.

Of course, there could always be more than one author. Allegedly some husband/wife duets have the husband writing the male characters and the wife writing the female characters.

AJ

The overall story can't be considered 3rd limited because the narrator knows the internal thoughts of more than one person.

The narrator in 3rd-limited only knows the internal thoughts of one person — the POV character. In 3rd-limited multiple, each POV character knows their own thoughts and no one else's.

There is no all-knowing narrator. That's omniscient.

Just how many characters' heads does the narrator have to take the reader into before it counts as a form of omni? To me, the answer is two. If writing experts say differently, I regard that as a sign of the poor quality of the writing expertise they pass off.

AJ

Just how many characters' heads does the narrator have to take the reader into before it counts as a form of omni?

You're looking at it from the wrong angle. The question is, who is the narrator?

With 1st-person and 2nd-person, it's easy. It's not as straightforward as pronouns with limited vs omni. Is the narrator god-like? Then it's omni. Is the narrator a single character within a scene, the POV character for that scene, then it's limited. With omni, there is only one narrator. With limited, there's one for each POV character.

In all cases the author is the narrator. The question is, could the point of view character be the author? With a single 1st POV or single 3rd limited POV, the POV character and the author could be the same because we know what they know. With ensemble stories, the author has to have a degree of omniscience to know what's in the various characters heads. So each separate POV section in the ensemble story is as per label, but overall the story counts as omni in my opinion. I think the latter is what matters because the reader thinks the author knows more than any single character does therefore has a degree of omniscience.

In any case, I'm not sure it matters much to most people. Whichever way the author feels is the best way to tell the story is the right way to go, no matter what writing experts might say.

AJ

In all cases the author is the narrator.

The author writes the words so of course the author knows what's in every characters' head. He put those thoughts there. But the author is the creator, not the narrator, who decides who will tell the story, how much they'll tell, when they'll tell it, and if what they're telling is true.

In an autobiographical work the author is the narrator. He's telling his story.

Even when the author breaks the 4th wall he's not a narrator. He interrupts the story to talk to the reader, but as the author. That's why it's called author intrusion.

I've always disliked that approach.

Alfred Hitchcock described the difference between suspense and surprise as:

Surprise is when two people are sitting in a coffee shop and a bomb goes off under the table. Suspense is when we see a man place a bomb under the table and watch the two people meet to have coffee.

If the reader does not know the bomb is under the table, there is no suspense.

Suspense is when we see a man place a bomb under the table and watch the two people meet to have coffee.

According to Chekhov's gun, that can't be suspense because the bomb has to go off.

Presumably Hitchcock's opinion was based on the traditional 3rd omniscient method of storytelling.

AJ

Presumably Hitchcock's opinion was based on the traditional 3rd omniscient method of storytelling.

It was based on movies which has omniscient cameras.

According to Chekhov, the gun didn't have to go off. It had to be used in the play once introduced earlier. And the suspense isn't the bomb going off. It's whether the bomb will explode or not (or if the people will get away before it goes off).

And in my opinion it was likely more about the cost of props in a stage theater production than anything to do with story telling

Not my understanding. I found the following:

A Chekhov's Gun can be just about anything — a physical object, character traits or personality quirks, or even a line of dialogue that conveys important information. If it turns out to be important by the end, it's a Chekhov's Gun.

Basically, Chekhov's Gun is a narrative principle that states that if the audience's attention is drawn to some kind of element in great detail, that element should be somehow necessary in the overall story because — theoretically — if the writer hadn't included it, it wouldn't be important.

Where?

https://screencraft.org/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-chekhovs-gun/#:~:text=Anton%20Chekhov%20used%20an%20actual,dialogue%20that%20conveys%20important%20information.

To give a little sense of where my concern is coming from, I think I'll share here a little excerpt from the story I'm working on. This is one of those parts that I'm worried might fall into the category of head-hopping and if I should come up with a better way of doing it. My concern is that I don't want to slow the story down by describing one character's reaction to something happening and then backtracking to describe another's. Therefor I want to be able to show the scene from different characters' perspectives without needing to chop the scene up, and I wonder if I've done it in a successful way.

In this scene, the mother character Keiko is lounging by her pool while her son Marcus comes out to go for a swim, when they are joined by his girlfriend Raven who goes brazenly skinny dipping in front of them, openly making out with Marcus in the pool without concern that Keiko is watching them. Meanwhile, Keiko's younger son Zander is up in his room and sees what's happening from his window:

--Keiko was by no means squeamish, but the display that Raven was putting on was testing even her limits. Marcus at least showed enough self-consciousness to open his eyes and glance up at Keiko, aware enough to realize the awkwardness of making out with his very naked girlfriend right in front of his mother, but not enough to stop doing it. Raven just had that way of getting people to want to do things her way.

Kind of like how she was getting Keiko to stay and continue watching them, when what sense of propriety Keiko had was telling her she should have gotten up and gone back in the house by now.

And Keiko wasn't the only one who couldn't look away.

While dinners in the Greenfield house tended to be an on-your-own kind of deal, Keiko did at least have time to make her kids some breakfast most mornings, and Zander had emerged from his room just long enough to dish himself up with some of the bacon and eggs she'd prepared before bringing his plate back upstairs. And then he'd almost dropped it when he looked out his window and saw Raven approaching the pool in her birthday suit.

By now his breakfast was set precariously on the edge of his desk and was growing cold, completely forgotten, as he gazed down through his screen window. With the glass open he could hear everything that was being said down there, and he had a full view of Raven's magnificent figure as she swam through the water and made out with Marcus right in front of Mom.

Raven glanced at Keiko, and said, "You sure you don't want to join us?"

Zander just about knocked over his breakfast plate when he jumped back.

"J-join you?" Keiko gasped.

"Yes!" Raven grinned. "In the pool! The water's nice and cool today!"

Oh, Keiko thought. Of course that's what she meant. What else would she…

Keiko shut that line of thought right off. "I, uh… I think I'm fine right here for now."--

What do people think? Does the juggling of viewpoints work here? Does it need a more definitive cutoff between Keiko and Zander's perspectives?

Where is the cutoff point of doing omni wrong?

I assume it's from Keiko's POV.

No, that is not jarring to me as a reader. Is there info the POV character doesn't know about? Yes. But it's not jarring.

You may find it helpful to forget about trying to limit your style to one of the predefined boxes.

Quote from an article:

Point of view is one of an author's many tools, and as with the rest of our toolkit, there are guidelines but no hard and fast rules. In other words, anything can be done well.

The article is titled "Who Killed the Omniscient Narrator? A Brief History of POV" and can be found at: https://darlingaxe.com/blogs/news/history-of-pov

Your quote is at odds with many of the discussions that I recall in this forum. The quote indicates that the different types of POV are guidelines and not hard and fast rules. In our Forum discussions, it was frequently stated that a writer must do (or never do) certain things in a specified POV.

I recall forum posters saying that head-hopping was bad and should never be used, but the article specifies head-hopping as a valid POV.

Bottom line for me is, I don't care. My writing style, regardless how someone would classify it, it good for me. My style is probably a mix, and I'm not interested in dissecting it to determine its components.

it was frequently stated that a writer must do (or never do) certain things in a specified POV.

It's never a "must do" or "never do" in fiction. Authors break rules all the time. When they are successful, they are considered great. When they are not, well, it takes skill to do that right and the ones who do it well are the exceptions.

Head-hopping is bad. This is how it's defined in the articlle:

Head-hopping third—this POV mode is like a multi-POV but without the clear delineation of the perspective shifts from one character to the next. The narrator is whichever character the scene is currently filtering through, but the author might jump between characters from one paragraph to the next.

Many readers find this POV mode difficult to read. It's easy to be pulled out of the story when you are left to wonder whose head you're currently inhabiting. While a few authors get away with head-hopping, this is more often a narrative issue that is smoothed out in a manuscript's development. In other words, this is the most difficult POV mode to get right, and even if you think you've got it right, many readers are still likely to disagree.

I don't see him recommending head-hopping.

It's never a "must do" or "never do" in fiction.

I was addressing what the posters said in this forum in past threads.

the article specifies head-hopping as a valid POV.

The article said it was a valid POV. I did not say it was a good POV or that the article recommended it.

The article said it was a valid POV.

I think the article mentioned it because people do it, not because it's valid. I think they were covering all bases.

I doubt the author of that article would state an opinion for the reason you indicated. If he had felt that way, he would have worded it differently.

If he had felt that way, he would have worded it differently.

Maybe so. My comment was based on what he said under head-hopping:

this is more often a narrative issue that is smoothed out in a manuscript's development.

I read that as it's usually done in error and fixed during editing. But he did say that when an author uses it, readers typically don't like it.

The article said it was a valid POV.

As SB pointed out, until around 1900, most novels were basically transcriptions of how the story would be told orally and head-hopping was common.

Perhaps the most hypocritical approach to head-hopping is from modern-day writing experts who simultaneously claim that head-hopping is wrong but it doesn't actually count as head-hopping if the author hops between characters' heads using the experts' preferred conventions.

AJ

I think the POV terms are descriptions after the story is written.

Not being an author, you wouldn't know that deciding POV is one of the first things the author decides.

Take "To Kill a Mockingbird." It's from Scout's POV and is a coming of age story. If the POV was from her father's POV (the lawyer), it would be a novel Grisham would write. If it was from the black man's POV, it would be a much different story.

Now look at "The Catcher in the Rye." I don't believe that novel would have been as successful if not in 1st-person with a cynical unreliable narrator.