Forum: Author Hangout

Point of View

Mushroom 🚫

I have noticed that there is selection to pick 2nd Person POV when posting a story. And at times I have wanted to do a search for a specific POV in a story, but that ability is not here.

I have wondered if there would be a demand for a more specific use of this in listing story codes. A Female 1st Person or Male 1st Person POV. Also in a 3rd Person POV or various POV (say where a story alternates between various 1st person and/or 3rd person).

Most of my stories are in 1st Person, some as male and others as female as the story demands. And I have also used 3rd person more than a few times, mostly when I wanted to keep something secret which would be disruptive or obvious if I had told it in 1st person. Being able to state this in a code might help others find the story say if they are looking for a cheating story from the point of view of the female, or a pregnancy story from the point of view of the male.

Replies: Dominions Son helmut_meukel hiltonls16

Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@Mushroom

There's a code for 2nd person POV, because it's extremely usual in fiction meant to be read as a story.

But even if there were codes for 1st and 3rd person pov.

For a first person story, generally (there are exceptions), the entire story is told from the perspective of the main character.

In Third person, the Narrator is someone other than the main character, but the narrator doesn't have to be a character in the story.

Doing fiction in 2nd person is very different. You are literally telling the story from the reader's point of view.

2nd person narration would look something like this:

You go to Walmart. When you get there, you see a 300 pound naked woman break dancing.

From what I've seen, most of the stories tagged 2nd POV are miss tagged. Most of the ones that are correctly tagged are some kind of attempt at a pick your own adventure story.

Lets go back to your suggestion of a 1st person POV story about a pregnancy. There's no literary requirement that it would have to be from the pregnant woman's point of view.

It could be told from Daddy's point of view. Perhaps the pregnancy is their second child and the story is being told from the first child's point of view.

Replies: Vincent Berg Uther_Pendragon

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Dominions Son

extremely usual

I think you mean "unusual".
But no, you'll probably never see the breakdowns you're asking for. The "male" and "female" codes are only included to describe sex partners in porn stories, but as "black" and "Asian" designate sexual kinks (ex: BBM and/or Asian kink). What's more, they're mostly used for squick avoidance, so readers can easily avoid anything with a 'gay' or 'Watersport' tag.

Besides, this gets confusing, as I primarily write in 3rd omni, but my sentences frequently switch between present and past tense—separated by commas, of course, and my dialogues are mostly present tense 1st POV. Besides, SOL readers are not quite that literature minded.

Replies: Dominions Son Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@Vincent Berg

But no, you'll probably never see the breakdowns you're asking for.

I'm not the one asking for them.

Dominions Son 🚫

@Vincent Berg

I think you mean "unusual".

Yep.

Uther_Pendragon 🚫

@Dominions Son

There's a code for 2nd person POV, because it's extremely usual in fiction meant to be read as a story.

I think you meant UNusal, ther.

But even if there were codes for 1st and 3rd person pov.

For a first person story, generally (there are exceptions), the entire story is told from the perspective of the main character.

In Third person, the Narrator is someone other than the main character, but the narrator doesn't have to be a character in the story.

That's not the defining characteristics. A 1st-person story can be what I did, but it can also be what I SAW. (At one point, I thought I had invented the term "Watson POV." Others had used it first, though.

3rd person is what happened.

helmut_meukel 🚫

@Mushroom

I have noticed that there is selection to pick 2nd Person POV when posting a story.

I was curious about this, because I couldn't imagine how to do it. Therefore I downloaded some stories with this tag but didn't understand why the authors used the tag.

Now when I see a story description with this tag my reaction is: 'another idiot's story to avoid'.

HM.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@helmut_meukel

but didn't understand why the authors used the tag.

In previous discussions of this issue, I believe the consensus was that the authors who abused the tag (which is more or less all of them) intended it to mean a story told from more than one viewpoint.

AJ

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I believe the consensus was that the authors who abused the tag (which is more or less all of them) intended it to mean a story told from more than one viewpoint.

That's alternating POV.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Vincent Berg

SOL doesn't have a code for alternating POV.

AJ

hiltonls16 🚫

@Mushroom

I think part of the problem with the 2nd POV tag is that it mixes two concepts.

As Dominions Son pointed out 2nd person is writing addressing the reader.

Point of View can change within a story in either first person or third person.

For example, Oyster50 writes in first person and changes which character is the narrator as he needs, to tell us about their point of view.

Similarly a third person narrator - not a character within the story - may follow a single character's point of view and the reader only knows what that character knows, or may report on a number of characters so the reader sees multiple points of view.

Replies: Dominions Son Switch Blayde

Dominions Son 🚫

@hiltonls16

Similarly a third person narrator - not a character within the story -

Actually, it can be a character within the story telling the tale at a latter date.

There are some traditionally published books that start out with a scene of an older person telling the tale to a younger generation.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Dominions Son

There are some traditionally published books that start out with a scene of an older person telling the tale to a younger generation.

"The Green Mile" is an example. It's told from the POV of the supervisor of the Green Mile (death row) many years after the story takes place. If I remember right, it's written in 1st-person yet tells the reader stuff the character doesn't know. That is, the character at the time of the event happening. But since he's recollecting about what happened in the past, he can say something like:

I didn't know it at the time, but found out after reading the report that…

Switch Blayde 🚫

@hiltonls16

a third person narrator - not a character within the story - may follow a single character's point of view and the reader only knows what that character knows,

That's not omniscient. It's 3rd-person limited which is just like 1st-person except for the pronouns (i.e., he vs I). It's the most commonly used for genre fiction today.

So if Joe is the POV character for the scene and he opens a door to an empty room, you could write his direct thoughts as:

Where is everyone? Joe thought.

or you can write it as part of the narrative, but because it's 3rd-limited the reader knows it's what Joe is thinking, as:

Where was everyone?

Note the tense difference. The story is written in past tense so the second one is in past tense (part of the narrative). But even though the story is in past tense, the direct thoughts are in present tense (like dialogue).

If it was 3rd-omniscient, told by a narrator not a character in the story, it would be something like:

Joe wondered where everyone was.

Having tags for POV is bad because most people don't understand what that means in literary terms. I haven't checked all the stories coded as "2nd-POV" but none that I checked were 2nd-pov.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I haven't checked all the stories coded as "2nd-POV" but none that I checked were 2nd-pov.

I've seen a couple that based on the description were attempts at choose your own adventure type stories. I haven't looked at them, but it would make sense for those to be done in 2nd person.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

My understanding is that:

first person is where I say what I saw or happened, thus it's always - I saw, I said, I did.

third person is where someone else is telling the story, often from an omniscient point of view, thus it's usually - Fred said, John did, Mary told me.

second person is where someone else is telling the story about you to you, thus it's usually - You did, you said - so it's a lot like first person, but told from the point of view of the person standing beside you recounting the event.

.........

Then, of course, you can get into if the story is in past tense or present tense. I leave out future tense as it's rarely used and I've never seen it done well. NB: Most future stories are told in the past or present tense while set in the future.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Then, of course, you can get into if the story is in past tense or present tense. I leave out future tense as it's rarely used and I've never seen it done well. NB: Most future stories are told in the past or present tense while set in the future.

(i.e. They're told by the character (or narrator) in the future, and thus they use either present tense (dialogue) for past tense (referring to events in the present day).) Thus it's the same as any other POV, except the 'future' is treated as a location, not a tense!

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

POV is simply whose perspective the story is told from.

It is a character in the story or an omniscient narrator.

The character does not have to be the MC, even in 1st-person (e.g., Moby Dick, Sherlock Holmes, The Great Gatsby, etc.).

Each scene is told from only one character's POV (there are gray areas here but not worth getting into at this level).

How close you want the reader to be with the POV character usually determines if it's 1st-person or 3rd-limited. Want them real close, as in Huck Finn, make it 1st. Want distance, make it 3rd-limited.

The difference between 1st and 3rd-limited is basically the pronouns (and possibly the language - the narration is more like dialogue in 1st-person - the narrator is talking directly to the reader). In 3rd-limited, it's still from a single character's POV, but the character isn't telling the reader the story. It's as if there's a camera following the character around that can also get into his thoughts. So you can say "He heard the door slam shut and jumped" or "The door slammed shut. He jumped." (The more filter words - felt, heard, saw, etc. - the more telling vs showing. They're telling the reader what he heard rather than hearing it).

In 1st and 3rd-limited you can have an unreliable narrator. Really hard to do with an omniscient narrator because it's all-knowing. In "Catcher in the Rye" he was a very unreliable narrator. Everything is skewed toward the POV character's perspective. If he thinks a car is blue, it's blue even if it's really green (remember, that's true in both 1st and 3rd-limited). He can't hear what other characters are thinking. He can only observe their reaction. And he can't tell the reader anything he doesn't know, hear, smell, etc. Unless it's 1st-person with the narrator recollecting on what happened in the past (like Stephen King's "The Green Mile").

Mushroom 🚫

One other thing I have done other than playing with POV is also to play with tense.

Now most stories are in past tense, something that already happened and is being narrated. And a few times I experimented with future tense (something that would happen).

One experiment I did was in a present "real time" tense. Sometimes called "Historical present", I write it as from the point of view of several characters, each one telling their exact thoughts and experiences as it was happening. I may have to revisit that sometime, but I remember it was a lot of work writing that one. Sadly that is one of my lost stories (I was posting at a site that is long gone now).

Replies: Reluctant_Sir Vincent Berg

Reluctant_Sir 🚫

@Mushroom

Just my opinion, of course, but I find present tense stories annoying.

The way they are written gives an unwanted urgency to every action, an immediacy that gives makes the story hard to follow and even harder for the reader to get invested in.

It can be done, the mind is nothing if not flexible, but I don't want to have to work that hard to overlook something I dislike in order to see if the story is worth continuing.

I have never read a future tense story, though I have seen a few authors use a future tense for small portions to give that passage a specific feel. Sometimes it works.

Replies: Switch Blayde awnlee jawking

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Reluctant_Sir

Just my opinion, of course, but I find present tense stories annoying.

I do too. I recently read about 150 pages of "American Dirt" written in present tense. I don't know if it was that or something else, but I quit reading. Although I liked "Killing Lincoln" and it was written in present tense. However, I believe I would have liked it better if written in past tense.

Keep in mind, present tense is currently popular. The teenagers on wattpad seem to mostly write in it. I wonder if it's because of the books they're reading (us old folks read books in past tense so we write in past tense - except Ernest) or some other reason.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

Keep in mind, present tense is currently popular. The teenagers on wattpad seem to mostly write in it. I wonder if it's because of the books they're reading (us old folks read books in past tense so we write in past tense) or some other reason.

The old saw is that present tense immerses the reader in the moment, and is perfect for younger readers who don't have as much experience with evaluating previous events and noticing the multiple levels and conflicting motives of the participants. Past tense, because it's seen as 'distancing', allows the reader to 'step back' and consider what's happening behind the scenes.

Thus the two reflect very different perceptions. While one group would rather dive headfirst into a situation and either sink or swim, the other group (generally) prefers to evaluate everything as it unfolds, hopefully avoiding trouble before they're caught in it.

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫

@Vincent Berg

The old saw is that present tense immerses the reader in the moment, and is perfect for younger readers who don't have as much experience with evaluating previous events and noticing the multiple levels and conflicting motives of the participants. Past tense, because it's seen as 'distancing', allows the reader to 'step back' and consider what's happening behind the scenes.

Thus the two reflect very different perceptions. While one group would rather dive headfirst into a situation and either sink or swim, the other group (generally) prefers to evaluate everything as it unfolds, hopefully avoiding trouble before they're caught in it.

Forty-five years ago, I had to muddle my way through evaluation of books like that for requisite classes. Why a STEM student needed that seemed mostly pointless then, and feels the same now to me.

When I read a book, I'm not evaluating a story like that. I'm picturing the events in my minds eye as described by the text. If a Lit major is writing for their peers, I could understand them writing in micro level nuances like that. For every other reader, which should read the majority of readers, they could care less. An author should never forget their audience if they wish their work to be read by the general public.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Remus2

If a Lit major is writing for their peers, I could understand them writing in micro level nuances like that.

Read the original passage again. I wasn't suggesting that authors write in ANY particular way, I was merely suggest WHY younger readers prefer present tense, while older reader prefer past tense stories. Again, those preferences more accurately reflect their perspectives, rather than any underlying storytelling techniques (i.e. it's an observation, NOT a g*ddamn commandment from the formal literary gods!!!).

Replies: Remus2 awnlee jawking

Remus2 🚫
Updated:

@Vincent Berg

I read it the first time twice through. In light of the vehement last sentence, I must not have been the only one to have taken your comments (at some point in your history) the way that I did.

(i.e. it's an observation, NOT a g*ddamn commandment from the formal literary gods!!!)

ETA: For the record, there isn't anything inherently wrong with that level of evaluation. Some people prefer it even. The majority of people just don't bother to go into it to that level.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Vincent Berg

I was merely suggest WHY younger readers prefer present tense,

Actually they don't. An Amazon 'look inside' of the top selling children's books as bought by children shows that virtually all are written in the past tense.

Psychologists reckon the preference is likely to be even more marked with very young children because they enjoy the security of knowing that the events are over with.

AJ

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@awnlee jawking

the top selling children's books as bought by children shows that virtually all are written in the past tense.

"Younger readers" here is YA (young adult). It's the teenagers.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

"Younger readers" here is YA (young adult). It's the teenagers.

The 'children'classification includes teenagers. It's a bit depressing that so many teenagers are buying the Wimpy Kid books, which are substantially below their supposed reading age :(

AJ

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@awnlee jawking

It's a bit depressing that so many teenagers are buying the Wimpy Kid books, which are substantially below their supposed reading age

And you know that they aren't buying them for younger siblings because...

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Dominions Son

And you know that they aren't buying them for younger siblings because...

In an absolute sense I don't. But it correlates with an article I read in which it was claimed that the Wimpy Kid books came top of a poll of teenage preferences (there was no poll size or methodology mentioned in the article).

They were probably buying the Harry Potter books for their younger siblings ;)

AJ

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@awnlee jawking

there was no poll size or methodology mentioned in the article

In which case you should take the pole results with a few metric tons of salt.

Replies: richardshagrin awnlee jawking

richardshagrin 🚫

@Dominions Son

the pole results

Poles polish a Polish pole.

awnlee jawking 🚫
Updated:

@Dominions Son

metric tons of salt

Shouldn't that be 'metric tonnes'? ;)

The same applies to counting which books are bought by children - how on earth did they do that? I'm surprised by some of the books that didn't appear near the top - the Twilight and Hunger Games stories for example, plus some of the 'trending' authors who sometimes get lauded.

AJ

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫

@awnlee jawking

metric tons of salt

Shouldn't that be 'metric tonnes'? ;)

Depends on if he's trying to land it on mars...

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Remus2

Depends on if he's trying to land it on mars...

Why would he want to land salt on Mars? Doesn't it have enough of its own from when Mars had oceans?

AJ

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Ton is measured in pounds, tonne is measured in kilograms. Standard verses metric.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/mars-climate-orbiter/in-depth/

Screwing up the standard verses metric is what killed the Mars climate orbiter.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Remus2

Screwing up the standard verses metric is what killed the Mars climate orbiter.

Worldwide, metric is the standard.

https://readerinfo.net/calculators.html#Tons:
1 tonne = 1 metric ton = 1000 kg ≈ 2204.6 lbs
1 ton (US) = 1 short ton (US) = 2000 lbs ≈ 907.2 kg
1 long ton (UK) = 2240 lbs ≈ 1016.1 kg

When to use ton or tonne in writing:
ton: if used in a descriptive sense: "I have a ton of work to do" or "I have to move a ton of dirt".
tonne: if used as a specific, exact measure of weight.
US-English writing: always ton. If the metric version is needed it's called a metric ton

Replies: Remus2 awnlee jawking

Remus2 🚫

@Keet

https://grammarist.com/spelling/ton-tonne/

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Remus2

And the difference is?

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫
Updated:

@Keet

The point of the orginal post was meant to be a joke regarding the mixing of standard and metric systems of measurements. A joke that obviously fell flat. Of course, I suspect most knew that already and have simply taken the opportunity to give me a ration of shit about it. That's okay, but it is wearing a bit thin don't you think?

Replies: Dominions Son Keet

Dominions Son 🚫

@Remus2

That's okay, but it is wearing a bit thin don't you think?

No, not yet.

Keet 🚫

@Remus2

The point of the orginal post was meant to be a joke regarding the mixing of standard and metric systems of measurements. A joke that obviously fell flat. Of course, I suspect most knew that already and have simply taken the opportunity to give me a ration of shit about it. That's okay, but it is wearing a bit thin don't you think?

Ah, I obviously didn't get the joke. I guess we both thought of a different thing that is wearing thin :D

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Keet

When to use ton or tonne in writing:

Also 'ton' is colloquial for 100.

'He was doing a ton on the motorway' - 100 mph.

'She scored a ton against Australia' - 100 runs.

AJ

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Reluctant_Sir

Just my opinion, of course, but I find present tense stories annoying.

I've encountered quite a few stories where the present tense was inappropriate because the POV character was narrating a historic event - quite often the author slips up and sticks some past participles in because that's the natural way to tell it.

AJ

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Mushroom

One other thing I have done other than playing with POV is also to play with tense.

Now most stories are in past tense, something that already happened and is being narrated.

Stories with narration by an established character recalling the details in the future, even if they're never identified, is a handy tool to account for their Omniscient perspective (i.e. "I didn't know it at the time, but I later learned that …"). It's popular because it opens so many otherwise locked doors concerning narrator POV. First person, at least nowadays, is much more popular (among authors), but this type of 3rd person gives authors more leeway over the overly restrictive 1st-person narrator.

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