Comments on: Point of View – Subjective, Objective or Omniscient http://www.learntowritefiction.com/point-of-view-subjective-objective-or-omniscient/ tools, systems and strategies to help you write your novel Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:41:53 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Tweets that mention Point of View – Subjective, Objective or Omniscient :Learn to Write Fiction -- Topsy.com http://www.learntowritefiction.com/point-of-view-subjective-objective-or-omniscient/comment-page-1/#comment-3692 Tweets that mention Point of View – Subjective, Objective or Omniscient :Learn to Write Fiction -- Topsy.com Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:58:01 +0000 http://www.learntowritefiction.com/?p=777#comment-3692 [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Cheryl_LtWF and Jason Black, Ezzy G. Languzzi. Ezzy G. Languzzi said: "Point of View - Subjective, Objective or Omniscient" | Learn to Write Fiction | http://bit.ly/aCFX58 (via @cheryl_LtWF) #writetip [...] [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Cheryl_LtWF and Jason Black, Ezzy G. Languzzi. Ezzy G. Languzzi said: "Point of View – Subjective, Objective or Omniscient" | Learn to Write Fiction | http://bit.ly/aCFX58 (via @cheryl_LtWF) #writetip [...]

]]> By: @joechummer http://www.learntowritefiction.com/point-of-view-subjective-objective-or-omniscient/comment-page-1/#comment-3689 @joechummer Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:26:01 +0000 http://www.learntowritefiction.com/?p=777#comment-3689 I've always found Omniscient POVs to be very distracting and really hard to follow: Whose head are we in NOW, and is there a REASON we're there other than to fill space on a page? A trap beginning writers often fall into is believing that every character's viewpoint in a scene is essential for the reader to know and understand. In actuality, the most important POV in any given scene is from the character who is either A) the most affected by the change in the scene or B) the one who is enacting the biggest change in the scene (and remember: "change" is the most important thing that denotes a scene. If something doesn't change by the end of the scene, the scene is unnecessary). With 1st person or 3rd person Limited/Subjective POVs, the reader has a singular anchor to the scene: the narrator in 1st, the POV character in 3rd. You get to understand this character and can see their frame of reference. This character may not necessarily be the protagonist in the given scene, but their viewpoint is currently the most important one. With Omniscient POV, the relentless head hopping may provide for some measure of dramatic irony (although there are much more effective ways of doing so), but you lose your anchor to the scene (or even the whole story), as suddenly you're in a crowd of competing voices with completely different (or even contradicting) frames of reference. Learning what everyone is thinking at any given moment not only kills some of the suspense (in the above example, we know Granny is actually the wolf), but it is ultimately confusing and time consuming. If you write a scene in a limited 3rd person POV, you get a lot of narrative about the character's thought processes, and depending on the detail involved, that can lead to a lot of page real estate. If you then dip into everyone's head, then multiply how much you would have written for just ONE 3rd person character and apply that the the character in your scene. Case in point: the Omniscient example in the article above is the longest of the three. I've always found Omniscient POVs to be very distracting and really hard to follow: Whose head are we in NOW, and is there a REASON we're there other than to fill space on a page? A trap beginning writers often fall into is believing that every character's viewpoint in a scene is essential for the reader to know and understand. In actuality, the most important POV in any given scene is from the character who is either A) the most affected by the change in the scene or B) the one who is enacting the biggest change in the scene (and remember: "change" is the most important thing that denotes a scene. If something doesn't change by the end of the scene, the scene is unnecessary).

With 1st person or 3rd person Limited/Subjective POVs, the reader has a singular anchor to the scene: the narrator in 1st, the POV character in 3rd. You get to understand this character and can see their frame of reference. This character may not necessarily be the protagonist in the given scene, but their viewpoint is currently the most important one.

With Omniscient POV, the relentless head hopping may provide for some measure of dramatic irony (although there are much more effective ways of doing so), but you lose your anchor to the scene (or even the whole story), as suddenly you're in a crowd of competing voices with completely different (or even contradicting) frames of reference. Learning what everyone is thinking at any given moment not only kills some of the suspense (in the above example, we know Granny is actually the wolf), but it is ultimately confusing and time consuming.

If you write a scene in a limited 3rd person POV, you get a lot of narrative about the character's thought processes, and depending on the detail involved, that can lead to a lot of page real estate. If you then dip into everyone's head, then multiply how much you would have written for just ONE 3rd person character and apply that the the character in your scene. Case in point: the Omniscient example in the article above is the longest of the three.

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