: Re: POV - 3rd Person Rules and Exceptions? I'm stuck on a POV question in a short story I'm writing. The entire story is written in 3rd Person, but not omniscient - I guess it's either "distant

@Jamie945

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Your first example is not a straight-forward, out of the book example of breaking a POV. Your character may as well suspect that other people have a bad opinion on him. He might have overheard something, he might have deducted it from how people behave around him.

Of course, if it's an important plot point, it would be better to show people treating him like a jerk.

Jenn had the habit to slightly sneer each time he talked to her.

He entered the breakroom, joining a small group of colleagues. As he approached them, their voices lowered down and vanished. "What's up?" he said. An uneasy silence fell on the group, as they struggled to aknowledge his presence.

The same could be done if you need to convey the idea that other people think the POV character is stupid. You could have secondary characters treating him mockingly, joking about it and so on.

The second example is indeed a breach of a POV. If the viewpoint character can't possibly hear what the people in the truck are saying, the narrator shouldn't hear them too.

So, in my opinion, the real question is: why would you want to break consistency without a really good reason?

You can play with the PoV and add be unconsistent, but as a general rule is better to avoid that. Short PoV-breaking sentences are to be avoided, unless they are clearly separated from the main text.
For example you could have short intros to each chapter written in another PoV. Or you could write entire chapters in another PoV and style, showing events that the "main" narrator wouldn't possibly know.

But whatever device you choose to use, make sure it's justified. Pov switches are tricky and shouldn't be used as shorthands. Consider improving your existing narrator before switching to a new one.

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