dwellerofthedeep

I seem to have a problem with my writing. I've been told I change perspective too much a lot by my readers. I like to switch things up to keep the story flowing, rather than limiting myself to staying around one character but I've decided to cut back to having perspective changes only at chapter breaks (About every 20 pages or so). How do you think this will work for making things less "jumpy"?

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Foxee

Hiya, dweller... I haven't read any of your writings yet but what you're describing sounds like it should help. I'm trying to think of what else you can do to "switch things up" without sacrificing clarity. I think I need to read your work first, though...will try to get to it.

Mike C

Either at chapter breaks, or section breaks within a chapter- as long as the transition is smooth, and doesn't confuse the reader, there should be no problem.

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aspiring

Your new plan is a good one. Another forum I frequent calls it 'head-hopping' which I think is a great description, because it captures the problem of bouncing from one character's perspective to the other. I think head-hopping happens when you aren't confident enough in your main character. You feel that they're not interesting enough, so you bung in other people's thoughts and feelings too. But this creates a problem for your reader as he/she is never quite sure who is the main character at the time! It sounds like you are trying to write in 'third person omniscient' which is where the author is totally neutral and simply reports on everyone's perceptions rather than doing it from 'third person limited' where we only see one person's viewpoint.

The best way to achieve what you're trying to do is to change perspective less often. That way you can really get into your characters' heads (remember the way they see things will reveal something about their own personality too) and your reader won't be frustrated.

Dawnstorm

When people complain about "too many perspective changes", it can mean a variety of things:

1. Your transitions stand out. (If a transition is well done, many readers don't even notice a perspective change.)

2. They want to identify with their hero, and you don't focus enough on him/her.

3. They are unsure whose perspective they are in.

And so on.

My current novel-project has a lot more perspective changes than one every 20 pages. It's strict 3rd limited (so far) with very short scenes. It's not the kind of story where you pick your hero and root for him/her. The technique discourages that. If that's what you want, my text won't be for you.

You need to know what you want to do with your text, and then you need to assess how many perspective changes you need. In my WIP, the rapid fire perspective changes - about 8 - 12 recurring characters and the occasional guest - are integral to the story. I won't cut down on perspectives. I'll try to make it work better, or I'll trash it and write something else.

Dawnstorm

But the point-of-view character isn't necessarily the same as the main character. (Often obvious in first person narration: Sherlock Holmes, Moby Dick...)

Actually, head-hopping is a feature of omniscient narration. What's limited in "third limited" is the narrator's omniscience. Objective narration, within omniscient narration, functions a lot like the various character perspectives.

Head-hopping properly is a necessary skill for good omniscient narration. A sentence from Charles Stross's blog (he's describing himself while talking about point of view): "he pauses to think about his next sentence carefully, while across the drawing room his wife wonders why he has stopped talking." Typical omniscient head-hopping.

Limiting yourself to objective narration has its own bunch of names: Camera eye view narration, objective narration...

dwellerofthedeep

Thanks a lot guys (Especially Dawnstorm), I'm glad I wasn't far off on identifying my issues.

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mashowasho

While I usually prefer if there aren't persp. changes, I'm usually quite content if it happens every chapter or so, either alternating char. 1, char. 2, etc - or if there's more than 2, so long as it's very clear, for example naming the chapter with the name of whoever's perspective we're looking from.

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bob rulz

I think an entire 20-page chapter is usually too long to dwell on a single character. I like perspective changes to usually be relatively frequent and brisk; otherwise it's easy to get bored of what the character is doing and I get anxious wondering what's going on with the rest of the characters. If I look ahead and find out that there's a long time until the next perspective change, I usually groan. I usually like it best with at least 1 perspective change per chapter, preferrably more.

Aqua

I'm more of a story writer than a novel writer, but when I head-hop, I tend to do it mildly. In a third-person story, if there are two characters - two main characters...say a relationship story, for example - then I'll typically have the camera much closer to one person than to the other, so much of the story/more of the story will be told from that person's perspective.

bob rulz

Wait, novels aren't stories now?

Aqua

Short stories, not long stories. :^)

bob rulz

Ah. Well, you didn't specify.

Dr Strangelove