: Can you switch point of view very often? I'm trying out a style where I switch POV very often. It's written in third person, but everything described is things that are visible to the POV
I'm trying out a style where I switch POV very often. It's written in third person, but everything described is things that are visible to the POV character, and you can hear their thoughts.
Now, because the characters are in a group of five, I thought that it could be interesting to keep switching between them. Sometimes I stay with one character for one-and-a-half pages, sometimes for only half a page. Once I described a character waking up, sluggishly interpreting what had passed in the night, and going back to sleep - only to then switch to the character trying to wake the first one up.
Obvious things are taken care of: I mark the transitions with some centred asterisks, and start off the next section with the first sentence revealing whose perspective this part has. I switch at logical pauses in the conversation, or when character A has decided to do something - so I can switch to character B reacting to that action. The question is if this technique can be considered inherently annoying to some or many readers.
And some objective questions, just to prevent this question from being closed as opinion-based: Do any professional authors use something like this? Do any style or guideline books warn against it?
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@Turnbaugh521
You certainly can do this. A better question is whether or not you should. Does your story actually need multiple POVs? Especially if the characters are all together, I question whether it is worth the cost in decreasing your attachment to any one character.
There are cases like a romance or morally grey conflict in which the second perspectives add something, but so much of the time it makes the story harder to follow and draws you out of the action just when it is getting good. A notable example of I can think of this comes from Leviathan Wakes, in which we cut away from Holden's story in the middle of a space battle.
If the character's aren't all together, a worse problem is that you often wind up with characters who are solving different problems and thus aren't really part of the same story. There needs to be a reason for more than one perspective in a story. While I previously criticized Leviathan Wakes for the POV shift, it is an example where it is justified, as it is established from the beginning that Holden and Miller are following different parts of the same underlying investigation. The TV series even adds a third POV without it feeling redundant because it is a different bigger picture perspective on the same events(and because Avesarala is awesome). The Martian is another case in which it is justified by the nature of the story, because if we didn't know what NASA was doing it would make less sense.
Multiple POVs can be extremely effective, but they are also hard to get right. It is vastly easier to tell a good story with only a single POV than with multiple ones. It is far too easy for writers to add redundant and unnecessary characters, so if you do use this, be very careful with it.
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@Bethany377
You can switch POV as often as you wish. Talented writers can pull off virtually anything. However, without knowing your skill or experience, I'd probably advise against it. And, if it were me, I certainly wouldn't attempt to write the piece the way you propose.
Reader can follow and adapt to logical patterns.
Consider the action tag, the association between action and speech: the dialogue belongs to the person performing the action.
Bobby kissed Katy of the forehead. "Goodnight, my love."
Katy smiled. "Goodnight, sweetheart."
To smoothly switch POV's simply follow the same logic.
Bobby kissed Katy of the forehead. Goodnight, my love. In the morning you'll be served a champagne breakfast, after which, I shall, on bended knee, ask you to be my wife.
Katy smiled before closing her eyes. Bobby was sweet, a gentleman, but her heart and real passion was for Daisy, Bobby's sister. She slowed her breathing and pretended to sleep. Please, just leave - this is killing me.
Bobby stood up straight. How angelic she looks as she sleeps.
That seemed easily followable to me.
For the record: almost every style and guideline article will frown upon your proposal. Head-hopping is a greater sin than masturbation.
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