semi omniscient POV

there is no intrinsic connection between these genres and single-focalizer third-person POV
Indeed, one could argue that SFF is the genre least suited to very close third person (and, let us not forget, first person) narratives, as an SFF story is more likely to be set in an environment that is, at least to some extent, alien to us as readers but is not at all alien to the PoV characters.

This means extra effort may** be needed to highlight those things that we might find odd bit the PoV characters may find normal to the point of not really bothering to think about what they look like or even do.


** - One classic way books in any genre can get around describing what ought to be banal to the characters is to have a PoV character who is, to some extent, a fish out of water (e.g. a new employee/recruit, a detective, or someone new to an area that is significantly different to what they're used to).
 
And one way of achieving this is to know the rules, and how to apply them, and then work out how to break them in ways that no-one notices.

This is probably a safer path to take than hoping (not hopping) that, without knowing the rules and how to apply them without breaking them, one might, simply by chance, come across the best way(s) to break them.

Of course, hence the rest of my post.
 
I’d echo some of the sentiments above. You can use whatever viewpoint you like, it really doesn’t matter; however, every single tool has its pros and cons and if you don’t know the pitfalls you’re taking on board, it’s going to be very easy to slip into them.

As one quick example out of many: Omniscient viewpoint invariably creates distance between the reader and the story. You are reminded you’re reading a book when the narration does things you can’t do in real life. Does that matter? Not if the author is aware of the potential distance issue and has taken the necessary steps to keep the reader immersed.

Every example you could name of well done omniscient sits on your list precisely because the author handled issues like that one with some measure of deliberation.

The guidelines are really just like bumpers in a bowling alley. They keep you away from the traps when you’re too inexperienced to know what to watch out for. Once you pass that point, and you understand the traps, pull the bumpers and make your own decisions.
 
Having had a quick flick through my kindle collection - Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, Fonda Lee's Jade City and Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Djinni all have elements of mid-scene PoV changes (some might argue that it's all omniscient narrator, I would argue that it is switching from narrator to PoV and back again); two are recent debuts, Jade City was Lee's first book for adults. The pendulum is swinging back a little.

One SFF author I know who deftly uses a mix of omniscient, third-person, and first-person in their books is Jonathan Maberry who writes the cracking good Weird SF/Horror/Adventure novels of the JOE LEDGER series. He does, however, restrict it to one type of POV per chapter.

Someone further up-thread also mentioned how other genres beyond SFF aren't as strict about POV as SFF. Well, Romance is pretty strict - most of the recent ones alternate between the Heroine's first-person POV and the Hero's first-person POV; or they alternate between the Heroine's third-person POV and the Hero's third-person POV - probably so readers can see how each character's feelings are unfolding as the relationship progresses.
 
I hate this arbitrary 'rule.' How can anything remotely epic even be written if nothing outside one character's field of view can ever be shown? I had to cut my POV characters down to 4, and even then I felt a lot was lost. A good strategy might be to carefully pick the POV characters at the beginning and stick to them throughout so at least you're following some structure.
 
How can anything remotely epic even be written if nothing outside one character's field of view can ever be shown?
As it happens, some authors -- GRRM in ASoIaF, for instance -- make very good use of this, by not allowing readers to read the minds, or see the activities, of important characters, such as Varys and Littlefinger.

Sometimes novels have to keep secrets and it is easier to do this (and get away with it) with events that PoV characters do not see and knowledege that PoV characters do not have, than having an unreliable narrator (or deliberately missing out information, just for the convenience of the story and author, that would naturally be in a PoV character's mind).
 
Lots Interesting comments to chew on (y)

As for 'experienced writers can do it and novices should stay away', as an explanation, it doesn't sit right with me. Even if true, it's only a surface observation. To the heart of it: what is it about their work that makes it work better than an unknown author? There must be some defining characteristic of when the shifts are working and when they fail. The name on the cover can't be the only thing.
Also,
I do understand why head hoping can be a bad thing. I am more interested in what I might call the camera pulling back (maybe I'm thinking too much like a screenplay). Not hopping into another characters head but let's say for example a character were to close their eyes but the reader is still shown what is happening around them. Maybe semi-omniscient isn't the right term (limited-omniscient ?)
I feel that there is a lot of good advice out there being repeated by people who don't fully understand it. So when one sees a POV shift they immediately call it out, but can't really pinpoint why it's not working in a particular scene. Eliminating the shift may fix the problem but I feel like a haven't learned anything. :rolleyes:
 
Well, there is fashion and there is evolution. For example, novels have evolved quite a bit since the days of Fielding and Richardson. It's unlikely the direction that novels have moved since then is going to reverse. The current strictures on POV are newer, and their durability is less certain. Fashion is fickle, but it can be a losing proposition to get on the wrong side of evolution. Problem is, it can be hard to figure out which is which when you are in the middle of whatever is happening.

Leaving aside that I think we should always be ready to take on potentially losing propositions as writers, and that in a field where evolution is decided by who's writing the best stories which means we have a chance to affect evolution if we wish, I think this one is reasonably safe to call as fashion because I think we've already seen the height of "No narrative voice closeness to characters is all" fiction as a trend in the field, and I think a lot of the voices just starting writing grew up influenced by a time when the narrative voice and omniscient PoV was a big thing. Not to mention most fantasy readers will have read those books too.

Incidentally, I think the use of 1st PoV is growing because it allows people to unify the traditional big storytelling voice with the desire to get super close to characters. Obviously there's a sacrifice involved there as well but for non huge sprawl books, it can be well worth it.
 

This is all a bit of silliness, isn't it? Not what I meant when I said that. And besides, that was a contract write. The agent who came up with the idea hired an author to write it, so it doesn't really count, and isn't what I meant at all. Sense and Sensibility opens with a massive info-dump, and it practically is written like one big info-dump, which isn't what people want now. If any of our manuscripts did the same, it would be very hard pushed to pass muster here on the critiques forum, let alone at a publisher.

I think Teresa said what I meant more eloquently than I can. ;)


Incidentally, I think the use of 1st PoV is growing because it allows people to unify the traditional big storytelling voice with the desire to get super close to characters. Obviously there's a sacrifice involved there as well but for non huge sprawl books, it can be well worth it.

You know, I feel this. I actually used to hate reading 1st PoV. I think that came from me starting off reading 3rd PoV. By the time I encountered my first 1st PoV novel, I was so used to 3rd, that 1st felt weird to me. It wasn't until I tried writing in 1st that I started to appreciate it more, and now I don't have any problem with reading it and someways prefer writing in it.
 
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I do understand why head hoping can be a bad thing. I am more interested in what I might call the camera pulling back (maybe I'm thinking too much like a screenplay). Not hopping into another characters head but let's say for example a character were to close their eyes but the reader is still shown what is happening around them. Maybe semi-omniscient isn't the right term (limited-omniscient ?)

That's Narrative Distance, and kind of an altogether separate issue from the PoV perspective. Some situations call for distancing yourself from the character, and I don't really consider that to be a bad thing. It's still the character's PoV, you're just stepping outside of their head for a moment. It is quite common in 3rd PoV.

I feel that there is a lot of good advice out there being repeated by people who don't fully understand it. So when one sees a POV shift they immediately call it out, but can't really pinpoint why it's not working in a particular scene. Eliminating the shift may fix the problem but I feel like a haven't learned anything. :rolleyes:

I think you are rather correct with this statement. In my experience -- not necessarily here on Chronicles, but elsewhere -- when it comes to critiques, especially when the person is new to critiquing, I think they are looking for something to contribute towards the critique and jump on any little thing that could possibly be wrong with what you have written. That's why it is best to get a wide range of critiques. If that one person was the only one who had a problem with it, then it might not necessarily be a problem. And yes, typically they are pointing it out because they themselves have had it pointed out to them.
 
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This is all a bit of silliness, isn't it? Not what I meant when I said that. And besides, that was a contract write. The agent who came up with the idea hired an author to write it, so it doesn't really count, and isn't what I meant at all. Sense and Sensibility opens with a massive info-dump, and it practically is written like one big info-dump, which isn't what people want now. If any of our manuscripts did the same, it would be very hard pushed to pass muster here on the critiques forum, let alone at a publisher.

I think Teresa said what I meant more eloquently than I can. ;)

I'm sat here watching Good Omens and stone me if the first three to four minutes isn't just one big info dump with a few giggles.

Sure, TV is different, and it's a big name property, but info dumps are info dumps innit?

Plus Sense and Sensibility remains rather popular hence the contract write and the various other works aping the style, and I've always been rather quizzical as to what the first ten pages or so of the first Harry Potter are if not an info dump (and there's a prologue in disguise there too), and I'm loving it but the naked info dumping voiceover in Good Omens is just that, and etc.etc. and I can't help but wonder if things have really advanced all that much.
 
I'm sat here watching Good Omens and stone me if the first three to four minutes isn't just one big info dump with a few giggles.

Sure, TV is different, and it's a big name property, but info dumps are info dumps innit?

Plus Sense and Sensibility remains rather popular hence the contract write and the various other works aping the style, and I've always been rather quizzical as to what the first ten pages or so of the first Harry Potter are if not an info dump (and there's a prologue in disguise there too), and I'm loving it but the naked info dumping voiceover in Good Omens is just that, and etc.etc. and I can't help but wonder if things have really advanced all that much.

I seem to remember reading somewhere how a lot of agents turned down J. K. Rowling one finally gave her a chance. But as the whole poont of this thread, there are always exceptions to the rule.

Good omens does the omniscient narrator very well which is why it works. But i have to admit that i was starting to get a little bored with the opening after awhile.

Doom Patrol also has a fantastic narrator.
 
I feel like a haven't learned anything.

I often recommend Jeff Vandermeer's Wonderbook which comprehensively covers the technicalities of writing in an entertaining manner. Additionally/alternatively, there are a slew of writing lectures by Brandon Sanderson on Youtube. :)
 
I started publishing poetry about 10 years ago. It is easy to write poetry because there are absolutely no rules about what it should look like. There are rules which are designed to make a highly polished literary statement but it takes a lot of work. People who like the classical poetry, where it rhymes, has structured stanzas are split on how to accept the new wave of poetry. Some like it, some don't. Turns out not using the rules carries the infamous price tag of careful what you wish for. Everything's connected.

Wanted to write a story so checked out books on writing, but didn't get enough out of them. Went to reading the internet and found plenty of ideas of what makes a successful story. I interacted with several indie editors and soon discovered that their style of editing and advice was based on how they personally wrote. That's how the internet works. A lot of it is personal opinion, and some of that is based on what people found that worked for them. The internet allows everyone to promote their work in their own style. You used to need an audience to have a platform. No audience, no platform, no performance. The internet changed all that, now one can perform to an empty house every night, a ready built platform where there are very few rules, and they only pertain to technical issues, almost all of which are already in place before one starts to do anything. Without a lot of research it is hard to know what is personal and what is based on age old tradition, unless one has had a real education in whatever it is one is trying to learn.

I think the short story on head hopping is that if done well, it works like any other style. It takes effort to do properly. One needs to be a good writer right out of the box or has to has to get in a lot of practice. Another old adage, if one doesn't succeed at first, try, try again, So why does head hopping get so much attention. When it isn't done well, it is too hard to follow, translate that into unreadable. It ranges from unreadable to best seller. I have the feeling that no matter how good it is written, some people can't read it. Two very good reason why it is rejected as style. First, it doesn't rhyme, no strike that, that's another story. First, if someone doesn't like it, it's probably going to interfere with the entertainment value. A lot of reading is done for the entertainment it provides. Besides not liking head hopping, there is the problem of how it can filter out readers from reading it. There is a very simple rule for less well written head hopping, the less there is of it, the bigger the potential audience without anyone ever reading it first.

It's not the genre, it's the audience that sets the rules for what is allowable. The romance industry is big, powerful, well read, makes money, and entertains a lot of people. It stands on its own two legs, writes its own rules, and is very supportive of its writers. The romance industry needs new stories everyday and to get that it reaches out to romance authors, new, young, old, experienced, freely offering support. Being a near future science fiction writer offering no sense of escapism, publishing in an empty performance hall, I look like a beggar waiting for someone to drop a bag of gold coins in my cup, but that's okay, I like well written head hopping or whatever it's called.
 
I seem to remember reading somewhere how a lot of agents turned down J. K. Rowling one finally gave her a chance. But as the whole poont of this thread, there are always exceptions to the rule.

Good omens does the omniscient narrator very well which is why it works. But i have to admit that i was starting to get a little bored with the opening after awhile.

My point is what is the nature of the rule here; is it actually about the unchangeable evolution of fiction and what readers want, or about a set of assumptions about it that might be rather wrong? Are there exceptions because there are incredibly talented people who can flaunt evolution, or are there exceptions because the assumptions are wrong and when something slips through the assumptions, it'll succeed because people are actually a-okay with it.

Or maybe I should look at this another way: Terry Rossio once said that a lot of great art is great precisely because it does break the commonly accepted rules. So if we believe that great fiction will usually contain elements we're told don't work, do we need to rethink the nature of what we're told won't work and why?

I feel that there is a lot of good advice out there being repeated by people who don't fully understand it. So when one sees a POV shift they immediately call it out, but can't really pinpoint why it's not working in a particular scene. Eliminating the shift may fix the problem but I feel like a haven't learned anything. :rolleyes:

Leaving aside the issue of it sometimes being instinctively called out when its not really an issue, I think that the major issues that tend to bedevil PoV shifts are

1) Clarity - obvious one. If it's not clear who's speaking, not good.
2) What Does it Add?

I think that's the big one. Why have we moved PoV? A lot of readers seem to get quite attached to characters and can rebel if asked to spend time less time with the characters they like and with the characters we don't like, which makes every PoV shift a risk. I think between that, and it generally being out of fashion, and the general advice to make the story as lean as possible, people tend to look for it to add something new and if it doesn't they criticise. And they've got a point there, even if I think there's more than one way to skin a cat.

One thing that I think does rather well is it that a good quick use of omniscient can give us a lot of information about a character quickly that would bore the reader if we had to hear them go over and over it in their own PoV. To use the Legend example - the protagonist, Rek, is drunk and angry and we get that from his PoV... but it takes shifting to the innkeeper PoV to establish just how angry he is. He does that in one moment and it establishes the emotional tenor of Rek, allowing him to be grumbly and what not without having to be full on "AAARGH!".
 
If it is done well, it's not really head-hopping. Head-hopping gives you a jolt as it jerks you from being deep in one character's POV to being inside another. Which is why head-hopping and omniscient are not exactly the same thing.

When I sold my first book to a publisher my editor line-edited a few chapters and then said, "This is how you do it. Now you do the rest." And one of the pieces of advice she gave me in the chapters she had edited was, "Try to stick with one point-of-view character per scene." She did not, you will notice, say "Always stick to one point-of-view character per scene." She said, "Try." So that is what I did. I tried to avoid changing POVs in mid-scene, but on the occasions when I felt that I really needed to switch viewpoints I was always careful to do it in a way where the switch-over wouldn't be obvious, without that immediate hop from one mind into another. After a while, I realized that was how writers from a time when omniscient was commonly used went about doing the switch, too. Except they were doing it in every scene, and I was doing it maybe a couple of times a book, because the rest of the time I was sticking to a single POV character per scene. (The reason I say POV character instead of just POV is because I did and do start many scenes in omniscient to set the scene. But once I'm in somebody's mind I usually stay there until the scene break.)

Readers these days, and particularly SFF readers, tend to be accustomed to, and like, the intimacy of a close third person POV. Particularly in a big epic with lots of characters, the way they are able to engage with so many of them, is to have scenes that establish that intimate connection. Younger readers coming in, who are growing up reading a lot of first person POV stories, are going to be more accustomed still to that kind of intimacy with characters. If we don't give them that intimacy, we need to give them something else that will provide that same degree of engagement. (Well, we need to if we want people to buy and read our books.) Sometimes the hook is giving them the kind of material they adore. (If a writer provides enough dragons throughout the story many readers will forgive them anything. Not all readers, but possibly enough to gather a significant following.) Or it could be giving them something they have never seen before, but doing so with such skill they feel like this new something is the sort of thing they have always been longing for without quite knowing it. Ot it can be one of the things that Jane Austen did, which was to provide so many little ironic and/or revealing character moments that generations of readers have been unable to resist reading on page after page to get to the next one. There are actually a lot of ways to hook readers, but that close viewpoint is one of the easiest and most reliable techniques. New SFF writers should be aware that if they don't use it, they're making things harder for themselves and compensate accordingly.

So we come back to what my first editor taught me. (That was back in the mid-eighties but I think it still applies.) Try to stick to one viewpoint per scene.

But if the scene or the entire story calls for something else, then do that instead.

But whatever we do, and however we go about writing our stories, the goal is to pull readers in and keep them pulled in. Every time we do something that jerks them out of the story, no matter how briefly, we give them a chance to decide to stay disengaged and put the book aside, perhaps permanently.

(As for the first pages of Sense and Sensibility, they contain the kind of information that an SFF writer would probably put in a prologue. Those who write use prologues in their own writing might do well to analyze how she managed to make info dumps so entertaining.)
 
(The reason I say POV character instead of just POV is because I did and do start many scenes in omniscient to set the scene. But once I'm in somebody's mind I usually stay there until the scene break.)

I think I'm ok with the head hoping problem, no one has ever accused me of it anyway. But what about pulling back to an omniscient perspective after having been in someone's head? Like the POV character has lost consciousness and the reader still sees what is happening in the room, or we are shown what is on the other side of a door the character is locked behind?
 
I hate this arbitrary 'rule.' How can anything remotely epic even be written if nothing outside one character's field of view can ever be shown? I had to cut my POV characters down to 4, and even then I felt a lot was lost. A good strategy might be to carefully pick the POV characters at the beginning and stick to them throughout so at least you're following some structure.

But no one is saying you can’t have a good number of POV characters - I had 12 in my first book - just that you need to be disciplined how you use them - and depth comes with POV discipline which gives a different feel to breadth
 
But no one is saying you can’t have a good number of POV characters - I had 12 in my first book - just that you need to be disciplined how you use them - and depth comes with POV discipline which gives a different feel to breadth

I completely agree. My first published novel has 26 POV characters and that was the best way for me to tell that particular story. While POV considerations are important - like every other element that goes into a work - they exist to serve the story.
 
I had to force myself into writing first person. Now that I do, I must reluctantly admit I was wrong: It is better than 3rd person narrator.

Concerning POV, all I ask for a story is: GAWD, PLEASE STAY OUT OF SO MANY HEADS!!!

Personally, I have one main character who is the POV whenever he is present. When he's not, I choose another character's head to invade. ;)

What I find I cannot tolerate is a scene in which I have to follow an ever-changing POV, especially when they are all omniscient!!

(@Jo Zebedee , I think there was a battle scene in one of your books that did this - probably my lone complaint; yet, the confusion it might have caused me only felt appropriate, considering the chaos of battle.)
 

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