Man i've seen POV's switch like sixty times in the Animorphs stories but it was by chapters and a little picture showing which character was speaking on the new chapter page. Thats pretty difficult though An easier way is the scene change stars. Use "* * * * *" spaced to show a new scene or character POV. I'm no expert on the subject but i've used it in my fanfic I posted and it didn't seem to cause any problems.
Yes I was thinking to put a blank line when changing POV so each of the women would have her own block. But I don't know if that's enough.
Ok, that's fine to distinguish whose POV it is. But my doubt is subtler. I'll try to illustrate it. Block 1 Pat Chapter starts with Pat, sitting in the emergency waiting room. Her thoughts go back to when she found Tommy lying on the floor of his apartment. Blank line Block 2 Lydia Lydia is in a taxi and she's going to the hospital. She thinks about her son dying. She reaches the hospital and enters the waiting room. She asks if her son is there, and does not notice Pat at first. Blank line Block 3 Pat Here comes my doubt. Pat hears Tommy's name, she turns her head and recognizes Lydia. As it's told through her POV I won't say something like “Pat stared at Lydia who just entered”, but “Pat stared at the woman who just entered”, or “Pat stared at Tommy's mother”. (I'm simplifying). And so on, going back to Lydia, who would see "that woman who she met years back and she never liked". If the POV was the omniscent narrator's I could say “Pat stared at Lydia”, or "Lydia recognized Pat" but I chose to have closer POV here. My question is “does it sound weird”?
A blank line won't work any magic in signalling a POV change. The writing itself is where you need to show the transitions. Also, with multiple POVs, it becomes more important to establish a narrative voice for each POV, a voice that echoes the character's background and way of thinking.
Sorry, but no. You will have to use the Review Room forums for that, after meeting the reviewing requirements.
I write from first person perspective, and although my method for switching POV is diffrent from what you mentioned, I think it might work. I'd of course follow Cogito's advice for making sure the "voice" of the characters sounds diffrent. If you'd like to PM or email me a section of it, I'd be happy to look over it myself for you and give you my thoughts. (I'm allowed to do that, right?)
In Swan's Song McCammon does a lot of switching POV's. He breaks each POV into a chapter. Each chapter is a short scene, usually only a few pages. Once the MCs meet up and are in the same town, if I recall right, he does scene changes in a chapter if he wants to us more than one POV. The most important thing, regardless if it is a scene break or a new chapter, is the transitions. Books that do this well in my opinion are, Swan's Song, Dune, and The Shinning. Well worth your while to study a few chapters from each.
I came across a review of Licia Troisi's blockbuster “The emerged world”. Maybe some of you don't have a clue on who this writer is, but since it's not the point, it doesn't matter. At some point, I read the following: Actually, Troisi's point of view is a tangle. In some sections it's third person limited on Nihal or on the main character of a scene. In other sections it's omniscient. In some cases it's “schizoid”, going from one character's mind to another's in the space of a paragraph. This is nothing but amateur writing. Especially the last statement made me lift an eyebrow... is this person saying that a writer should choose ONE point of view and stick to it throughout the whole story? In my book I chose to use different POV's depending on what I want to achieve in the reader's understanding, on how deep I want to go into the character's mind. Sometimes I'm omniscient, sometimes I know less than what the characters know. Is this amateur writing?
Not necessarily. If you write it well, then I don't see a problem. The only way I can see that it'd be bad, is if you flit so erratically from POV to POV, that the reader can't follow whose thoughts they're reading.
Hmm, don't know about that. I'd have to see the writing for myself. As far as anything related to POV I know that the one thing I can't stand is writing done in the present tense. I'm not sure if that really relates to POV but I think it sort of does.
There aren't any rules regarding this but I think that publishers frown on POV jumping, so unless you're very talented it's not something you should engage in.
Changes of POV should be planned, not occurring haphazardly. Many complete novels are written from a single point of view. Others switch among a small number of POVs on chapter or scene boundaries. Some are successgful at switching POV on smaller boundaries, but you incerease the risk of leaving the reader confused or feeling detached from the action. Here is a blog entry I wrote not long ago: What's Your Point (of View)?
Cognito's right...it normally happens in chapters for various scenes, sometimes its the same scene, seen through different eyes...etc etc. For example, I have one chapter where my MC walks into a bar/strip club on a planet to meet a smuggler/intelligence agent. The scene starts with him watching her enter the room, how she moves, etc etc and his POV ends with her seating down across from him. From there on, the POV switches back to here and stays there. One case where the POV switched back and forth was in the battle scene at the end of the novel. I would do to a point with the MC, like ordering her ship to "Fire," then would switch to the other character, a Admiral in charge of the opposing forces through the impact on his ship. Then I'd switch back to the MC and her reaction and any strikes to her ship in return... those kinds of POV switches are normal writing, but ones that are all in one scene without any structured break are amatuerish
I personally, enjoy a shifting point of view. If you want an example of how to do it right, read a Dan Brown book. He break a single scene into numerous chapters and each chapter can have a different point of view. That way you create a sustained tension that would be difficult to do if you're saddled with just one characters thoughts and perceptions. In general, if you're going to do this, write at least a page before switching, some authors who do the whole 2 paragraph thing can be quite grating, and make a point about the switch ie. don't just switch because you think its cool; your character that you're shifting to needs to have a significant and novel take on whats happening in the scene, different to what already been written. Oh, and it also allows you to better implement plot twists, since by changing view you can conceal your characters thoughts from the reader. The Da Vinci Code- Case and Point.
Thanks everyone! Thanks Cogito for your useful blog. I must say I feel reassured after reading your replies, because I'm sure I never did anything without a reason behind it (then if it's a good or a bad reason I can't say... ).
It's not shifting POV that's amateurish. It's the idea of "headhopping," not being able to be consistent with POV. There's nothing wrong with using more than one POV (I actually prefer this), or with using omniscient, or with shifting to a different one. But the last thing mentioned in the original post, jumping from POV to POV within a single paragraph, strikes me as amateurish. I used to write like that, and now I loathe when I read it, even in published/highly acclaimed works. Not all but many readers hate it as well as it's too confusing. If one is going to shift POV, they can switch to a new scene or chapter. If they can't do that, they can at least switch to a new paragraph and ease the reader into the other character's head.
Yeah, I should have been more precise with my previous comment. I was referring to POV shifts within a chapter, writing a chapter from one POV then shifting for the next is very common and an accepted thing, but jumping within a chapter can be confusing unless you're very careful about how you do it.
I do POV jumps in a chapter quite a bit..so does established writers like David Weber What you have to do is establish scene breaks. You can sit there and mark them traditionally as in ### or space them apart accordingly to let the reader/editor know you're switching POV's. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with switching POV's during a chapter...
...First person POV where the main character is mainly alone and talks to themself a lot? This is what I write usually, usually broken up by something happening or dialogue with another character.
It sounds like YA realistic fiction, although the narrator is usually dead, which is why they're mainly alone. Examples: A Certain Slant of Light; The Lovely Bones.
