Comments | musesfool: i'm in some hellish hold world of holding

musesfool

i'm in some hellish hold world of holding

Jan 05, 2007 16:22

OMG logistics of community management on LJ! Who knew it was so complex!? I've been reduced to using the interrobang to communicate my feelings of utter WTF, LJ?! Why you gotta make things so hard!? at learning all sorts of things I've learned this afternoon ( Read more... )

writing: neuroses, writing: pov

Comments 7

erastes January 5 2007, 21:26:31 UTC

It's a problem I've been having too. I didn't even know that POV switching was bad when I started writing, and I did it all the time, sometime in mid sentence. Ick. I'm better now but I don't believe that it's the crime everyone says it is, my editor certainly didn't complain about it, except if I did it in the same paragraph. HOwever on editing Transgressions I've changed a lot and find that most of the book is actually in Jon's POV, whereas the book was supposed to be from David's. Strange.

I'm over-thinking far too much, I find that the more I know, the less I'm able to write. I re-read some fanfic this morning and thought OMG I wrote this? I used to be good!

writingpathways January 5 2007, 21:34:53 UTC

You are overthinking. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here to be selfish and shameless.... posted SPN fic Quietly and Clear Dean focused Gen.

_tallian_ January 5 2007, 22:13:15 UTC

I find that POV switching doesn't bother me, but with the obvious caveat of "when done well".

I'd say as long as you make the delineations clear, you are set.

soundingsea January 5 2007, 23:01:51 UTC

Your gut is right. A few lines in a completely different POV would throw me, as a reader, right out of the story.

If you really love the lines, at least change the structure so, say, you have lines like that between sections of the main POV.

iamstealthyone January 5 2007, 23:12:16 UTC

Ahh, POVs. An interesting subject, methinks.

When I re-entered fanfic writing a year ago, the majority of my pieces involved two POVs. I felt like I needed two POVs in order to properly express everything. But these days, I usually stick to one per story, and find that it works just fine for conveying what I want to communicate. (Unless I'm doing a five-times piece. In those stories, I'll often have one section from one person's POV, then another section from another character's POV.)

Anyway, ITA on this:

I believe I've mentioned before about how I am really attached to single-POV stories these days, that I feel they hold the reader closer and allow a much tighter emotional focus.I also wanted to add that I think sticking to one POV can push a writer, in a good way, to do more show vs. tell. If you switch back and forth, then there's a greater temptation, I think, to just say point blank what a character's thinking, rather than use description or action or limited dialogue or silence to communicate what's going through a character ( ... )