snorrie

Good God, it's like a lightbulb went off. If you read this, Maia, please accept my apologies for being so ignorrant about POV. For everyone else, and I know there must be others out there, I didn't think once about POV when writing a six hundred page manuscript. Now I've got a six hundred page mess on my hands. Anyway, if anyone is patient enough, please list and briefly explain every writing point of view for me. I feel like I'm in first grade all over again, and believe me, that was more than three decades ago. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

mammamaia

all is forgiven, snorriekins... come home!

seriously, [and sadly] you've lots of company... much of what's sent to me has similar probs...

don't wait for folks here to spend hours writing you a primer on pov... go googling for it... 'first person definition' in the google browser turned up 119 million hits!... the good news is you'll find most of what you need to know in the hits on the first page of too many to count...

you are eminently learnable, my friend... count your blessings...

love and hugs, m

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Phouka

This is what I have in my notebook on POV. It's culled from a few different books and sites (although I unfortunately didn't note which ones).

First Person POV
The reader is in the character's shoes. What is happening to me, I, my.

• The author cannot include anything that is not witnessed by the character. This limites the readers understanding of some events.
• A single pov can cloud reality, since you only see/hear/feel what one character feels. They may be deluded, or overly critical.
• Heavily opinionated, since it's a character's story. Everything is understood in reference to that one character.
• Not particularly popular nowadays
• Usually the protagonist, but not always
• very intimate
• limited by the intelligence, vocabulary, outlook of the narrator.

First Person Unlimited

• Also called First Person : Mutlple View
• Using first person point of view for multiple characters rather than a single lead. Events can be seen from more than one perspective and the reader attains a more real view of your story.
• usually used to convey relationships
• Must make sure that the characters are very very different, so that the reader can easily see between the two. Some authors put the name of the character in the heading of each chapter and write in that voice the whole time.
• Occasionally can see first person plural (we) as if one person is speaking for two.
• Strenghts include involvement of th reader is comparing the stories, they must piece things together .

First Person Peripheral

• The narrator is someone other than the protagonist
• Useful if the protagonist is someone who is blind to his or her actions and when that blindness is significant enough to affect an outsider.
• Must report on the protagonist while stuck in the body of a bystander -- who has to go home and will miss parts of the protagonists life

First Person Unreliable

• All first person narrators are somewhat unreliable -- they tend to exaggerate, lie, or make themselves look good.
• A truly unreliable narrator -- someone with autism, a young child, a psychopath, a cat -- has extraordinary limitations and their narration is not to be trusted.
• Using an unreliable narrator forces the writer to create two version sof the truth.

Second Person

• One person telling the story of another person.
• Pronouns :you, your, their
• Narrator can be reliable, unreliable, truthful, or deceitful.
• Very, very few novels are written in this POV, although occassionally erotica.

Third Person Single Vision

• by the side of only one person
• can only relate the thoughts and observations of that one character.
• Most prevalent form of third person
• excellent if the character is limited in some way

Third Person Omniscient POV

• least intimate, opposite of first person, but lends itself to excellent understanding. It's description from the outside, like watching through a camera lens.
• You can see the voices and the actions, but not read thoughts. Cannot write, "Geoff was thinking the same thing" in this POV (must use 3rd)

• There is no lead character
• Way to the left field of common writing styles
• God-like, although the writer may dip into a single character's head

Third Person Limited POV(multiple vision)

• About 90% of all speculative fiction (scifi, etc)
• Compromise between intimacy and perspective, the "safe" pov. Most novels are written in third person.
• The narrator can only listen in to one person's thoughts at a time
• The reader walks around in a single character's shoes, but does know things that the character may not. The reader gets to know the character better, but still has a clear view of things.
• Authors have trouble using third person unlimited, they have a hard time keeping the leads constant within a scene. One scene, One POV. It is not essential, however.
• Constantly changing the POV lowers the level of intimacy.
• Usually a gap left between scenes if the POV changes.

Third Person Dramatic POV (Objective)

• the narrator is an audience at a play, and can't hear anyone's thoughts.
• the writer must reveal everything about the story through dialog and action
• much like a journalists view of the facts
• offers integrity and impartiality, but is vaguely unsatisfying - readers expect to know things and do not like the limited aspect of this pov.