by Chris McMahon
One of the things that gets drummed into writers very early (usually through critique groups) is the need to keep point of view (PoV) tightly controlled. This helps to build the link between the writer and the reader and allows the reader to get ‘into the skin’ of the characters.
I am a big advocate of this. However after years of mercilessly going through my manuscripts looking for PoV quibbles, it is interesting to see how very experienced writers sometimes break the rules with PoV.
There is a real temptation to do this. It is certainly a lot easier to simply write from a character’s PoV then to stylishly convey the same thoughts or reactions from another characters PoV.
There is also the issue of economy. Sometimes breaking PoV – in a brief aside – helps to keep the pace and maintain the flow. The trick is flagging to the reader that this is coming so they do not get ‘jolted’. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply insert a break between the paragraphs with a ‘#’ or something similar so that the reader knows that this is a new scene. The other thing that I have seen work very effectively is to switch the PoV at natural points in the narrative where the pace changes – for example at the end of the chapter. The main PoV character may leave the scene before the end of the action, so the last few paragraphs can be from another character’s PoV.
There still needs to be some sort of signal. If not after a deliberate break, then the first line should clearly signal the change i.e. ‘Darius watched Kelly walk away, his eyes narrowing. The cut on his forearm burned as though he had been splashed with acid.’
I have noticed that many of the older genre classics almost tend toward omniscient, describing the action as though from a distance and only dropping the occasional paragraph that is clearly from one characters PoV. Last year I read ‘Duke Elric’ by Moorcock. It was hard to say at any given time whose PoV I was really in. I was clearly following Elric’s actions, but it was almost as though I was listening through a intermediate narrator (no problems drawing me through the story though:)).
Do you ever break the PoV ‘rule’? If so when?
Mad Genius Club 
20 responses to “Breaking PoV Rules”
I tend not to break POV, precisely because of the reason you stated above: that it is a lazy shortcut. I prefer deep POV fiction. I don’t care what the character looks like, but I want to know what goes on in the character’s head. One of the constraining facts of knowing what is in a character’s head is that the character can’t know what is in another character’s head, and that stating what the other character knows can substantially reduce tension.
Hi, Patty. I am certainly with you there. I like to keep PoV pretty tight. It’s amazing that some early novels where PoV was not so strictly controlled still managed to hook you into the story (like Fred Saberhagen) – I can’t help think how they would have been if written differently. Blurring the PoV boundary does decrease some of the tension between characters in that ‘moment’. I guess those stories relied on the overall mystery or storyline to propel the reader.
Saberhagen succeeds even when breaking the rules because he’s just that damn good.
I loved Empire of the East.
Not sure if i read that, but I really liked the modernish vampire books he did that predate the urban fantasy wave.
I sometimes break the PoV rules when talking to myself.
So is that omniscient?:)
Often third person.
I think that the real rule is to never do anything by accident, isn’t it?
Or maybe, “don’t be confusing.”
When someone is starting out writing they might slide about between one viewpoint and another or even one tense and another… sort of a literary shaky-cam effect. So it’s useful, or even necessary, to break it all down into nice, consistent, categories that can be adhered to by following rules.
So you say… I am writing, past tense, in an intimate or “close” 3rd person, with three rotating view-point characters… and that helps keep you on track.
But I think that once you’re at a point where large accidents are unlikely to happen, that it’s all tools to use to manipulate the reader.
Hi, Synova. I like that – “Never do Anything By Accident”. It encapsulates the whole idea of first mastering a device and then using it deliberately. Nice one.
Well, since I did not know that there was a PoV rule, apparently I’ve broken it all over the place. 🙂
It usually happens when I am trying to show how someone from a different culture views events and individuals. For example, I have a story told partly from the perspective of an abused, juvenile reptile and partly from my adult, mammalian MC’s view. The reptile’s PoV gave a better sense of what everyone else (the Azdhagi) thought about the MC returning after 25 years, while the MC’s research into law codes and the youngster’s family provided cultural information. There was only one PoV per scene, and changes were usually shown by physical separation – the Azdhag leaves the room and the MC’s PoV takes over, for example.
Don’t see anything wrong with that. The idea behind controllig PoV is so that the reader gets a smooth ride & is not ‘jolted’ out of the story – i.e. they are cruising along nicely in one central characters point-of-view then suddenly find they are in another head and go ‘What the?’ , within the same scene.
If you delineate the breaks clearly then there’s no problem. Then it’s just down to reader preference – some people like a single PoV for the whole story, others like a few. For a novel maybe two or three seems to be the norm.
You can find “rules” about POV all over the internet and in books devoted to writing the next best novel. I particularly love the one that you should never write in first person. Of course, the fact that I had a book rejected because it wasn’t written in first person might be why that particular rule leaves me shaking my head.
The key is not to confuse the reader and not to make the reader feel like he’s at a tennis match. I don’t mind multiple POVs. However, very few writers have the craft to be able to show multiple POVs in a single scene. That’s where the rule of one POV per scene or chapter came from.
Omniscient POV isn’t as prevalent as it once was. I think it’s because more readers want to identify or connect with characters. Or at least that’s what legacy publishers thought they wanted.
My preference as an editor is that the POV and any changes have to make sense. They can’t jar a reader out of the story and they shouldn’t happen too often. In other words, they need to propel the plot just as actual plot points do. That’s basically what I try to do as a writer as well.
Hi, Amanda. I don’t understand all the fuss about first person. Surely it only increases the connection with the central character, which is a good thing right? What about the Twilight books, aren’t they first person?
I wonder where that publisher aversion to first person is coming from?
I can see one big reason and that’s because it is much harder to write in first person than most people think. After reading slush, I can see someone finally throwing their hands up in the air and saying, “Enough! No more first person!”
I’m more confused about why publishers think certain genres or subgenres should always been in first person and will reject a book they have already said is a good book simply because it isn’t in first person.
My guess would be that publishers saw that a book in first person sold well, and decided that, “ah! The only readers can really connect with this type of story,” child abuse for example, “is through a first person PoV. So shall it be.” I have a friend who did a brief stint in the fiction editing world 20 years or so ago, before moving sideways into tech editing. She says that her boss thought that first person was “edgier,” whatever that means these days.
Minimalism.
May I direct you to the short story by Ernest Hemingway, “The Killers” in which Hemingway casts Nick Adams as the POV character. At one point in the story he’s tied up and can’t participate in part of the action in another room.
Hemingway apparently breaks POV in the narrative. Frickin’ Hemingway broke POV! But then I read a few paragraphs more. No, he didn’t.
Adams explains that he had heard that part from the cook. The narrative seamlessly includes hearsay evidence of what the cook witnessed. Could Hemingway get away with this today? Or better, can WE get away with it? Idunno.
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