pondering point-of-view

[marycatelli]

Read a writing exercise about what you like and dislike in fiction.  Was thinking about what I like and dislike in points of view.


I like following a likeable character through a story, which limited POV helps.  Keeps the story focused.  And once you have a POV I like, it helps not to risk it by introducing characters I don't like as new POVs.  I once gave up a series because it was not fun, wading through the two plots I didn't like to get to the one I did.

Which lead me to blink and think that no, actually, I do like a lot of vast, multi-POV stories.  It helps with the world, making it look large and expansive and, most of all, well-populated.  And the plot can get a lot more twisty.

It's one of those things where the story gets the main say.

Comments

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking that in one set of stories I use a first person POV, which has been noted as a barbaric way of writing. It is; I wouldn't advise it for many other sorts of stories. I think works in that case as the character is a barbarian, tightly physical, and doesn't take other people's word for things. It's a little hard to find him even paying much attention to what other people try to tell him. This is not typical of tribal persons, who value the stories and general impressions that their trusted associates give them--more like the gossip that runs in small towns, for example--but he's been around too many liars and thieves, and that makes him far more like the urban sorts a lot of us readers are.
I guess I must stop now, 20-pound cat has draped himself across my wrists and tucked in his head to sleep. No more writins tonight, thankyou!

[marycatelli]

Oh, yeah. There are stories that demand the oddest POVs.