Sorry to raise this old debate again, but I am struggling.

As someone who was 'taught' how to write at various courses, one of the main rules I have had drive into me by everyone is Point of View, which states very clearly that you cannot alternate perspectives in any single chapter. And that was how I wrote my first novel - very neat, each chapter a different voice, each voice distinct, etc.

However, I now wish to bend this rule. I want to alternate perspectives all over the place. I know most people here are going to tell me I can't do this, but I don't believe this can be true.

What do people think are the main problems with switching POV? I have often thought it's because it confuses the question of who the protagonist is - ie whose story it is. But those questions are equaly raised when the narrative switches chapter by chapter.

Can anyone think of a modern novelist who changes pov all over the place?

Maybe I should say - for those lucky enough to have escaped me yakking on about this on other threads - that the book is set in the nineteenth century.



<Added>

Can I just say? . . . They are typos, not spelling errors

one of the main rules I have had drive into me by everyone is Point of View, which states very clearly that you cannot alternate perspectives in any single chapter.

I think this is doctrinaire nonsense, and anyone who peddles it ought to be ashamed of themselves. Changing PoV is harder to get right than sticking to one, which is why it's no bad prescription for neophyte writers. And sticking to one is very good training for anyone, because you need to know how to tell a story while sticking to one PoV. Once you do know how, then you can be much more flexible about it.

I would say that for successful multi-PoV writing:

You need to be able to control how far you are inside a character's head at any one time. And you need to know the difference between that and a neutral voice, which isn't inside anyone's head, but can shift into anyone at will (I think 'omniscient' is a dangerous term here, though technically it's the right one, because it suggests the bossy telling-you-things 19th cent. type narrator).

You need to make sure that when you shift, you take the reader with you. For me, this is best done via a 'neutral-PoV sentence or two. It's not changing PoV that doesn't work and makes people say you shouldn't do it, it's the awful lurches that you get when it's badly done. And with each lurch you sacrifice more and more of the reader's involvement. But the key is not to lurch, rather than not to shift at all.

Trying to think of modern fiction which does (can only think of Heyer, who does it beautifully, but you might not call modern), but meanwhile, the story I have in the archive started life as an exercise in shifting PoV between two characters. The shifts get more and more frequent as the story goes on.

Emma

Thank you, Emma.

I think I've sorted it now. It just needed the insertion of two words at point of shift to make it clearer.

That sounds just about all one usually needs!

Emma

I've heard that Larry McMurtry is a typical example of changing POV several times even within the same paragraph. 'Lonesome Dove' was recommended to me but I haven't read it so I can't say anything about it.

UUUURRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!

I have just read my week's work - which will be smaller than anyone else's week's work cos I am slow - and it still isn't right.

I'm not someone who can move on with a piece unless it's perfect, so I will now be floundering among my opening pages for another three days while I try and get the voice right. It's too old-fashioned and Victorian at the moment.

I have heard that Julian Barnes (is this his name?) is old-sounding in his novel Arthur and George. Can anyone tell me if this is true?

I don't know if this helps at all, but here goes. I've 3 POV so we've had this discussion in my group several times. Usually a chapter is shared between two, which is pretty normal for romance today. Now and then the three come together. My rule of thumb is it is similar to normal conversation, as long as you know who it is that's fine. Never in the same paragraph, and I use speech and names if there is any likely confusion.
Kat

I haven't read Arthur and George but I heard him read it, and I wouldn't say he was old-sounding in the sense of trying to sound period. He actually said that he didn't want to write a novel that might seem 19th century, but to write a modern novel about 19th century people. The narration is, I'd say, a neutral third person, very disengaged and cool. But then, so is his reading style. Can't say I warmed to the book much, though I probably should, with my hist fic hat on.

Emma

I mentioned on a similar thread a couple of weeks back Ben Elton's latest effort, "Chart Throb" which has Point of View ping-pong. It isn't a good example, not from my POV (ha - geddit?) but it is a modern novel with shit, I mean, badly controlled POV.

Colin M

I dunno, on the one hand bad CW teachers and doctrinaire editors dish out this 'don't change PoV more than once per chapter' nonsense, and on the other hand there's B. Elton obviously making a right hash of multi-PoV, and presumably his editor hasn't said a word.

No wonder aspiring writers, imitating writers they think they should be admiring (or perhaps legitimately do admire for other, non-technical reasons), then get told they shouldn't do multi-PoV, when actually what they should be told is to bugger off and learn their trade, and whatever else, not to copy Our Ben.

Emma

I read recently a generalisation that prose has to be close up - you can't have a long shot like in film.

In dreaded first novel I deliberately wrote a 'long shot' opening that then moves into close up - probably a classic beginner's mistake - and was recently told to begin with the close up.

Advice I'd be happy to take if it didn't affect the whole structure of the book - but can't expect anyone reading the first twenty pages to realise how important that long shot turns out to be much later on.

And yes, I have tried any number of variations like shifting to present tense and rewriting from POV of main character - which was interesting and fun to do but does not work.

So sympathy - but I'm sure you'll sort it, Sapph!

Sarah

I've just read 'Leaf Storm', Gabriel Garcia Marquez's forst novel.

It's told from the points of view of three narrators, a boy, a woman, a man.

There's no indication of change of POV other than the voices... and the changes happen every few pages. Sometimes ther's a shift on the same page... just after what loks like a paragraph break.

Worth a read. I was impressed with the shifts... even though once or twice, especially at the beginning, before I'd 'got into' the characters, I admit I was confused and had to go back!

vanessa

I've not read it, but I've been told that Ken Kesey's "Sometimes A Great Notion" screws around with PoV.

For me, the down side of multiple POV is that it can feel very narrative, which gives it a quirky, olde worlde style because the author is telling you what is happening in other people's minds, rather than you having to put the pieces together for yourself. It sometimes feels like the author is holding your hand or talking down to you. Good multiple POVs shouldn't feel like that, and I'd say were perfectly suited to complex action scenes when you need the panoramic image of what it going on - say over a battlefield - plus the human factor of what the participants are experiencing. Where it isn't so powerful is in a conversation scene, or emotional confrontation, where the reader should be able to work out any confusion through descriptive actions of the other character - so you're in the head of one person, knowing their thoughts, but you can guess the other's thoughts, rather than the author spelling them out.

cos that wot I reckon.

Colin, I know exactly the kind of narrative you mean, but I agree, that is how it is when it's badly done. But it doesn't have to be like that. Just because a narrator's inside more than one head doesn't mean they can't be fully inside them. The narrator of multiple PoV doesn't have to have a 'telling' presence at all, and when they do is when you as a reader can feel a bit 'told', and that, I think, is the source of the old-fashioned feeling.

But watch this space, and I may yet eat all my words. If I can resist the allure of 1st person, the novel after the one I'm working on now is - I think - going to be 3rd person, with multiple PoVs in some form, and the proof of the pudding's in the eating...

Emma