Help! POV

[Rachel Caldecott]

Thanks @AgentPete for the insights into Rosendale. Learning about changing POV is now my task for the day. I never studied creative writing (or anything similar),and as I said on the Discord chat, this is my first attempt at writing fiction, so I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Does anyone here have any hints about how to 'get the camera closer into the protagonist's head' other than using the 1st person? i.e on line tutorials, etc. I don't want to rewrite the whole damn book, but I do want to learn. Thank you in advance!

 

[Rachel Caldecott]

Ok, I think I've found out what @AgentPete was talking about!!! How to Use Close Third-Person To Get Closer to Your Characters - The Write Practice

so now all I need to do is practise and then, as our Supreme Leader says, 'there'll be no stopping' me

 

[Kitty]

A couple of things you could try that might help - both involve an element of role play -

‘Hot-seat’ you character - pretend that you are your character and get some friends to ask you questions. Answer as you character.

Act out a scene - but be careful - if your neighbours spot you creeping round your house brandishing a kitchen knife they might call the police !!!

 

[MrDisco88]

Hi Rachel,

I was listening yesterday and thought you had constructed a really interesting and engaging world! With regards to POV, one thought I had was that you have an immediate, and really quite different, route into Flo's head, namely her telepathic connection with Lonce. Perhaps making more of that, even opening the chapter with the connection could be a shortcut into making us really empathise with Flo. Just a thought!

 

[Deleted member 604]

@Rachel Caldecott-Thornton,

This happened to me when Pete read my work for the first time eek I was a nervous wreck lol and it was noticed. @AgentPete recommended first POV for a more powerful concoction in combination with what my Synopsis had told him. He liked it, it was original and a big idea and he encourages that but he said my 'grasp was bigger than my grip' something along those lines. But, I was like I really don't want to rewrite my whole manuscript either and my story is shared between two protagonists and several others to instigate the climax and form the bigger picture over the course of the series as A SHARD OF ICE is the first of four written books so far and I'm currently writing the fifth.
I was like how is 1st POV going to work? Without head-hopping and heaven forbid if the father and daughter have any scenes together what then? I can't write them both in 1st POV, that would be very confusing and would only complicate matters and the concept most of all.
After some serious consideration, I decided to stick with 3rd POV with moments of 1st POV allowing the camera to go into my characters heads but sparingly and only at certain moments for pivotal effect. I can send you a sample from my manuscript if you like
Alix

 

[Deleted member 604]

I feel for you @Rachel Caldecott-Thornton.
Sticking to 3rd POV and use 1st POV at certain moments for pivotal effect during your opening and action scenes. Especially when Flo is frantically searching for Lonce from the expository we know she is looking for him and she is clearly worried but we need those cookies = the emotional connection, isn't that right @AgentPete? And using 1st POV if only sparingly would make a great difference.
Shall I send you a snippet of what I mean

 

[Deleted member 604]

@Rachel Caldecott-Thornton, check your inbox

 

[Kitty]

As mentioned above inner monologue can be a useful tool.

I’m afraid I missed the pop ups but if you want some feedback in the writing groups I would be happy to take a look

 

[Amber]

This book used to be .99 on Amazon. Not anymore. It's also sold in the US and so I don't know if this helps you. But it's a very succinct book on how to write third person deep point of view.

Deep POV

I don't think pov is as straightforward as it sometimes seems. For example, I didn't think that there was first person omniscient. What would be the point of telling a story in first person if the character knows everything? But it seems they don't mean EVERYTHING by everything. By everything when talking about first person omniscient they mean most things, or some things? It's very confusing.

The Great Gatsby is supposed to be first person omniscient. But the narrator doesn't know everything at all. Yet, it's categorized that way. Thinking about it makes my head hurt.

You might be better off going with general guidelines. Tell us what your protagonist thinks and avoid writing 'She thought....' or 'She left....' or any pronoun verb type of construction. Sometimes you won't be able to avoid it but a lot of the time, you can cut out the middle man -- so to speak -- and write a sentence that seems to come directly from the protagonist rather than an invisible narrator we never get to know.

At first, it might feel like you're breaking some rules. It might feel like you're assuming some knowledge you don't have because you're not in the head of your protagonist. I believe that's what keeps people from writing in deep third person POV and you might be correct. What you're writing might not be strictly speaking, grammatically correct. But break the rule anyway. Readers want to feel as though they know the main character intimately.

And last in what appears to have become a barrage of advice, look at good examples of third person POV. The mistress of POV is Nora Roberts. I could be wrong but I don't think she writes in anything but third person POV. But you could get out a stack of novels, read some passages, see if you can pinpoint the POV. If it's 3rd person, ask yourself if it's deep 3rd person. If so, what about it makes it deep POV? How would it not be deep -- see if you can reverse engineer it. Take sentences in deep 3rd person POV and write them in 3rd person POV.

I know it sounds like a lot of trouble. But they're only ideas and suggestions.

 

[Tim James]

I think I prefer 3rd person deep, (or close, or whatever you call it) both for writing and reading. But I have tried all different types from multi-third omniscient (often called God view) through to second person (you, you, you).
I find third person close (or deep if you prefer) works well for me, it's controllable. All you do is think to yourself "can the VP character sense/experience what I am writing?" If the answer is no then you can't write it, you'll have to include it another way that they can sense.
It helps to give the reader the feeling that they are that character. They only get to hear, see, feel what the character would.
The danger with including actions or descriptions of events that the character could not sense is that the reader may start to think "well who is telling this story?"
Just a personal preference you understand, and some genre fit different POV styles from others.