I've seen reference on here to 'close third person' and other variations of point of view which I haven't heard of before and don't understand. Could someone list the various types of POV for me, perhaps with brief explanatory snippets? Thanks

I guess the following must fit in somewhere, but I'm not sure and I certainly don't know what each would be called:

She looked at him.

She looked at him and thought he seemed worried.

She looked at him and thought he might be worried about the business.

She looked at him and noticed he was studying the accounts with a worried expression.

She looked at him and noticed he was studying the accounts with a worried expression - had he noticed the changes she'd made?

Is it just a matter of degree?

Thanks.

The terminology does vary: this is how I use/understand it

Roughly speaking, third person close means third person, but never deviating from one character's point of view in both the physical and the mental sense. The narrative might also take on some of the flavour of their voice, too. One quick test is, could you re-write it in first person, without having to change anything much except the verbs? If you could, then it's third person close. Third person limited is another term for pretty much the same thing.

Then there's third person multiple - a series of close/limited PoVs, of different characters. The reader would always know - if they asked themselves - through which character's eyes the story is being told at the moment.

And an omnisicient narrator is free to move between different characters' PoVs at will, and also to see things and know things and tell us things which no character sees or knows or could tell us. Such a narrator can also allow different character's voices to flavour the narrative, in which case it's called free indirect style - Jane Austen invented it. It's as if the narrator is a separate character, who you might call The Storyteller. Take that to extremes and you get what James Woods calls the essayist narrator, who definitely states opinions about things.

These might help:

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/search/label/point%20of%20view%20%2F%20POV

But scroll down to read the lower-down post first, as it's part One.

And psychic distance is relevant, too:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/psychic-distance-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it.html

Emma

Emma, thank you so much. I couldn't make your first link work but the link to your blog is invaluable, thank you, I understand much better now.

Perhaps it's a bit like opening up the aperture on a camera? You can vary just how much is in focus?

Yes, it's a bit like the aperture of a camera, but it's also about how pulled-back the whole camera is from the scene. And of course you have to imagine it's a futuristic camera which can burrow into people's heads and show us what they're thinking.

Sorry that link didn't work. Try this:

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/2010/01/points-of-view.html

followed by this:

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-points-of-view-says-who-says-i.html

Emma

Thanks again, Emma, two more pages bookmarked.

I think I get confused about (among other things to do with POV) the difference between POV and third/first person etc.

Also, I'm confused about Nicola Morgan's statement:

'The secret is this: the narrator is actually a character itself. Every novel has a narrator, even if invisible, and it’s the voice, personality and mindset of that character which must sing out clearly in every sentence. It's like an actor getting into character, into the right voice. That's what you have to do. Put on the clothes of your narrator and feel what it is like to be him, her or it. Then speak.'

Does that refer to the style of the author? Rather than the POV character or MC?

Yes. The narrator might be almost exactly you - sound exactly as you, personally, might sound if you sat down with a friend and started to tell a story. Or the narrator might not be like that at all: you might naturally have a very engaged, empathetic way of seeing and telling a story. But you might decide that your current novel, about a country house party which went absurdly wrong, wanted a light, amused tone to the narrative, when the previous novel, about a middle-aged woman going home to clear her parents' house, was more thoughtful and elegiac.

And, in that way, it can be helpful to think of the narrator as a person, even if it's not a character in the novel: what is the narrator's take on these things? How does it see the characters and situations? How does it tell the story? Of course, the tone of the narrative would then tend to be influenced by the tone of a character, as you slide into their PoV - the more strongly you do that, the more you're going towards free indirect style.

You could try picking a few of your favourite different authors off the shelf, and do some dipping, trying to 'hear' what the voice/character of the narrator is. Not to imitate, but to understand the relationship of what they're saying, and how they're saying it, versus how some other narrator might have seen and said the same stuff.

Do you have access to Private Members? If so, this thread, about voice might be useful:

http://www.writewords.org.uk/forum/112_332893.asp

Emma

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First/third person.

Simply: first person is I/me/my/mine. the narrator is a character telling their story, and says 'I did this, I did that, she did the other, he said to them'.

In third, the narrator is external, and is telling the story for the characters, using one or more of the characters' PoVs, but with the possibility (if you chose to do it this way) of telling things none of them can know.: he/him/his and she/her/hers and they/them/their/theirs. 'He did this, she said to them'.

Thanks, Emma. I don't have access to that thread but still a very useful post once more.

It's difficult to get my head around, but it's getting clearer. However, I suspect I think about it too much which doesn't really help!

May I prevail upon your knowledge and goodwill once more? Nicola Morgan's thing about 'Says who?' seems like a brilliant discipline to keep your narrative on track. But - and here I suspect I'm thinking about it too much again - if you applied that to every single observation, you would remove any possibility of the narrator having a voice at all, wouldn't you? If every opinion, e.g. whether it was indeed a dark and stormy night, has to be the POV character's opinion? Or am I missing the point?

Thanks.

Hi there.

Whenever I'm thinking about POV, as opposed to voice/style, I consider some deeper than others (I think the proper term as Emma says is 'close'
So in deep POV, I speak exactly as the charcater would. Not just his dialogue but all internal thought and observation. The reader sees the scene exactly as he experiences it, noticing only what he does and describing it in exactly the language the character would use.

Then there's what I think of as POV light. Yes, I tell the scene from the character's POV, but allow myself some interference. The language can be a little richer, the explanations more full. My charcacter might notice things that I think the reader might like/need to see.

In my humble opinion, the first is much more fum to write, but more difficult to pull off, constrained as it is. Thus far, my novels have been a mix of the two.
But I adore books written as the second - The Curious Incident, The Behaviour of Moths, Slam, and would love to give it a go.
HB x

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Lord knows where that wink came from. Though actually I like it. It tips a nod to the fact that Emma is far more knowledgable than I.
HB x

Helen, your 'deep' and 'light' is basically two different stages on the spectrum of what Gardner's calls psychic distance - it might interest you to look at that link.

Nicola Morgan's thing about 'Says who?' seems like a brilliant discipline to keep your narrative on track. But - and here I suspect I'm thinking about it too much again - if you applied that to every single observation, you would remove any possibility of the narrator having a voice at all, wouldn't you? If every opinion, e.g. whether it was indeed a dark and stormy night, has to be the POV character's opinion?

I think Helen's distinction between deep and light is quite a useful way of thinking of it. Basically, we're talking about free indirect style here.

Yes, if you're deep in the PoV character's head, you need to ask yourself, 'Would they notice that it's a dark and stormy night?' But a narrator in a third-person narrative is a sort-of person, who can tell the reader things directly. IF the dark and stormy night is within the character's PoV in the technical sense - it's part of his surroundings and environment. If you're not entirely, deeply in the PoV character's head, there's no reason the narrator shouldn't say,

It was a dark and stormy night but Beowulf hardly noticed, so deep was he in his plans for electrocuting Grendel.

Indeed, if you've got a full-on omniscient narrator, clearly telling us the story, this kind of external-but-still-in-PoV is useful for moving between PoV's you could start deep in Beowulf's head, move out to tell us about his situation, move across to someone else's situation, and then go deep into their head.

Yes! He would do it! He would take his Galvanicaster and go, and do it, and everyone would be saved! It was a dark and stormy night but Beowulf hardly noticed, so deep was he in his plans for electrocuting Grendel. Grendel, on the other hand, noticed, because the roof of his lair leaked, and he was woken by cold drips of water on the back of his head. He sighed, rubbing his bald patch. Time to get that roof mended - it wasn't going to see out another winter, was it.

I think what Nicola Morgan's getting at is to be careful, if you're firmly in a character's PoV, not to jerk us out of it with stuff which is out-of-character for them. Sounds obvious, but believe you me, I see huge amounts of this kind of thing in manuscripts I report on:

Jack tiptoed nervously down the corridor. Would Mrs Brown be furious with her? She hadn't meant to cause any trouble - had only been trying to do her best. Mrs Brown could be a bit scary, but then all bosses were nice people, weren't they? Mrs Brown had the characteristic common to so many women who have to succeed in a male industry, of being at once forceful and, underneath it all, deeply insecure.

Emma

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Argh! Changed a gender and not the pronouns

Jack tiptoed nervously down the corridor. Would Mrs Brown be furious with her? She hadn't meant to cause any trouble - had only been trying to do her best. Mrs Brown could be a bit scary, but then all bosses were nice people, weren't they? Mrs Brown had the characteristic common to so many women who have to succeed in a male industry, of being at once forceful and, underneath it all, deeply insecure.

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Grrr Shouldn't post in a hurry. Try this:

Jack tiptoed nervously down the corridor. Would Mrs Brown be furious with him? He hadn't meant to cause any trouble - had only been trying to do his best. Mrs Brown could be a bit scary, but then all bosses were nice people, weren't they? Mrs Brown had the characteristic common to so many women who have to succeed in a male industry, of being at once forceful and, underneath it all, deeply insecure.

Darn it, Emma, there was me thinking that deep POV was my own invention, only for you to quote some prof at me. Grrrr. Next you'll be telling me that my three-sectioned plot design has already been given a fancy schmancy name by a writerly type.

And while we're on the subject of writerly types, how do you have all these references and books and stuff at your finger tips? Hmmm? Hmmm?

Hb x

Thank you, Helen and Emma, the fog is definitely lifting.

Next you'll be telling me that my three-sectioned plot design has already been given a fancy schmancy name by a writerly type.

Is it called 'Beginning, Middle and End'? Sounds good to me.

Seriously, I'd love to know a bit more about that - I'm fascinated by plotting.

these references and books and stuff

Well, in the road in the yellow wood that I didn't take, I'm an academic historian... And in the road I did take, I've only just surfaced from the PhD, which is where I met Gardner and Psychic Distance, courtesy of my supervisor. It's such a useful way of thinking about it, I still don't understand why every creative writing book in the land doesn't talk about it - which is why I put a piece on it on my blog: I came over all evangelical.

Emma