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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Oct 13, 2018 23:00:50 GMT
As I'm going through and organizing TUOK I noticed one story where I appeared to be writing in third-person-narrator. I would close in on one character, show how they were thinking and feeling, then skip to another character and just keep skipping back and forth, like how a camera spins on a filmset. And I kinda liked it. That probably has a real name but I couldn't remember it, so made up one.
I have written in every POV I know of, including second for nonfiction. First is maybe easiest, but it's also really limiting. I mostly write in normal third person though. Meaning that I write in third and tend to stick to one character's viewpoint throughout a scene, although it depends on what's happening in the scene and how many characters there are.
Does anyone else tend to lose viewpoint when writing group dialogue?
It's possible I may be a closet head-hopper! o/O
What about you?
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Post by polydactylcat on Nov 6, 2018 4:22:55 GMT
Third person omniscient is a perfectly valid point of view, and "head hopping" was once a perfectly normal way of telling a story.
Quite honestly, unless it's handled poorly and is thus confusing, I think it's one of those things that doesn't bother any reader who hasn't been told it's wrong.
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Post by robertlcollins on Nov 6, 2018 15:07:54 GMT
I agree. Nothing wrong with head-hopping, if it's done well and tells the story.
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Post by davidvandyke on Nov 6, 2018 19:51:09 GMT
It's out of vogue, and it's risky. So, I'd suggest it be beta-read to death for confusing parts. The key is to make the reader never even notice.
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Post by polydactylcat on Nov 7, 2018 1:33:45 GMT
Though, some people will notice simply because they've been told it's against the "rules".
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Nov 7, 2018 1:48:09 GMT
I grew up reading a lot of older books so I became accustomed to that style. It wasn’t until I started reading writing books that I learned it was wrong. But I still like it. Having the story beta read by non-writer-readers would be the best route, I think.  |
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Post by dormouse on Nov 10, 2018 19:59:12 GMT
There have always been writing 'rules'. But they've not always been the same rules. Proving they're just fashions and not rules. And there have been great books that break all the rules going.
Easy comfort readers (all of us on occasion) will always struggle more with books that don't fit their expectations; they don't want to struggle so they'll stop unless something has really taken their interest.
Depends who you are writing for.
Knowing 'rules' is good; automatically following them less so. Should be an active choice, and POV is always something that bears thinking about.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Nov 10, 2018 22:34:32 GMT
Writers can choose to ignore rules that came about from years of people who could sell lots of books, or not. From what I'm seeing, many readers can't tell a well-written story from a badly written one. I've seen people gush all over work that's barely literate, and it's always a head-scratcher. But, I worked at an institute of higher learning, and seeing how poorly educated most people are these days, it shouldn't be a shocker.
My rule is, if I'm confused, it needs to be rewritten. And I hate rewriting anything, so that's saying something. I write more of an omniscient third person, and I catch myself headhopping sometimes. I reword the section so when/if it switches to another character it's at least a new paragraph and clear what is happening.
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