POV, that hateful bitch

[lunabee34]

One aspect of my writing that I continue to struggle with is POV. I have trouble remaining consistent with the POV I choose and have to proofread carefully for that mistake. Once I’ve chosen a POV, I have difficulty deciding how to include necessary information that the character from whose perspective I’ve chosen to write wouldn’t know. And then there’s the whole thing where I can’t seem to successfully manage any POV except third person limited.



My least favorite POV to read in fanfic is first person. First person feels too intimate for fanfic. As most of you know, fanfic for me is all about the self-insertion. I put myself in the place of one or more of the characters and so enjoy reading on two levels—one in which I am a voyeur/participant in a character’s body and the other more detached level on which I am appreciating plot and language and character insight, etc. When the fic is in first person, I feel like what I’m inhabiting is the author’s version of that character instead of the character. Which I know is an incredibly inarticulate way to say what I mean as of course all characters in fanfic are the products of their authors’ versions, regardless of POV. But first person feels too intimate, too close to me. I need the extra layer of distance that third person affords.

I usually don’t enjoy second person, mostly because I find it annoying and highly alienating to the reader. I also haven’t come across much fic written from this POV. However, I have read a handful of second person fics that I think work really well. For example: You Never Had it So by mandysbitch: You don’t ask Sam why he’s remembering Reno in Texas. Ten minutes ago he asked if you remembered the time he caught you getting a blowjob from a waitress behind a diner in Arkansas. You told him ‘no’ because there are some parts of your shared history that do not warrant nostalgia. Sam finds it amusing now, but at the time you were both horrified. He was thirteen and he still looked up to you. You liked to think you sheltered him.

I generally write from third person limited, and find myself worrying to an extraordinary degree (like scary out of proportion degree) that I remain consistently within the POV I’ve chosen. For example, the last SPN fic I wrote was from Dean’s perspective and included this line originally: Sam notices the clench of Dean’s jaw and relents. “You just had a twenty-four hour bug. Your fever was pretty high, and that’s probably why you don’t remember anything.” On proofreading, I changed the line to read: Sam finally remembers his survival instincts, or else notices the Very Serious clench of Dean’s jaw, and relents. “You just had a twenty-four hour bug. Your fever was pretty high, and that’s probably why you don’t remember anything.” I’ve never back-buttoned a fic because of a lapse in POV, or really even noticed that being much of an issue in fic that I read period, but apparently I am terrified that there’s some flame wielding contingent of fic readers who will immolate me if I’m not slavishly consistent to POV.

I think the second-most difficult POV to write from is third person omniscient. It seems like that should be the easiest POV to write. I certainly enjoy reading it. There I am inside everyone’s heads equally and nobody can keep any secrets from me, no sirree. But when I attempt to write from that POV, I invariably default to third person limited without even realizing it. I find it really difficult to stay inside the heads of an entire cast of characters when I’m writing.

Close third person is my absolute favorite and, I believe, the most difficult POV to write from. This is the third person limited POV in which both the narrative, expositiony bits and the dialogue are all written in the POV character’s voice. ana_grrl is the queen of this POV for me. (From The End that Crowns Us: "I'll haunt your gorram ass, don't think otherwise," he says, giving Jayne his best hard look. And Jayne, he's never believed in ghosts, but he figures that Mal would do something like that. Just to be difficult. Once he's dead, once the oxygen wears out, once his body's blue and frozen and drifting along in Serenity. But Jayne still ain't going to promise not to mess with Inara, once they're off in the shuttle. Hell, he knows better than her what needs to be done. He should be in charge. So he ain't making promises to a man what's going to be dead soon enough.) I’d never been able to get this POV to work for me until recently when I started writing in SPN. I tried with Firefly fic but bombed, mostly because I could get Jayne’s dialogue right, but couldn’t stop the narrative bits from waxing poetic in words the big lug would never dream of using.



All of which leaves me with the following questions:

*What are your issues with POV?
*What about the occasional and subtle lapse of POV in fic? Eyeball bleeding deal breaker? Doesn’t even register? Somewhere in between?
*What are your favorite and least favorite POVs to write from? To read? Why?
*What are your reasons for choosing to write in a certain POV? Do your POV choices change depending on the fandom, the character you’re highlighting, the plot of the fic, or something else?

Comments

Re: from metafandom

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

When you're reading second or first person pov you really need to get onboard with the writer's view of any given character and the slightest thing can knock you out of it so there isn't a lot of room for error.

Absolutely.

I'm very interested in reading more unconvetional texts in and out of fandom

*nods*

I find that I enjoy fics that play with narrative structure more than fics that play around with POV.

Fascinating anwers; thanks.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

And you get a big ole thanks for expanding my vocabulary with with "close 3rd person.) :)

usually its only purpose is so that the author can blather on for paragraphs about the scenery or the drapes, which bores me to hell to begin with; description of the surroundings is not for me

I agree. With some exceptions, I don't come to fanfic for description. I have to read enough Dickens in real life without getting it in fandom. LOL I generally prefer fic that concentrates on dialogue and action rather than setting.

The books themselves were written in first person

That makes sense to me. If the source material is already in first person, I don't think I would be alienated by fanfic in first person. It wouldn't be so much the ficcer's "I" as the canonical "I."

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Also, everybody's been too classy to mention it (which is why you need me!) but Present Tense, like The Internet, is for Porn. You (or at least three of your fingers!) Are There!

Re: here via METAFANDOM [Part One]

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I am very much on board with what you're saying about the third person limited narrator as an unreliable one. I think that a flawed narrator and one who doesn't have all the information (and so perhaps misunderstand or misinterprets what's going on around him/her) is probably the narrator that interests me most.

I wish I found omniscient as easy to write as you and others that have commented. I don't know why it trips me up so--I think it's just really difficult for me to keep a cast of voices separate in my head or something.

Re: here via METAFANDOM [Part Two]

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Thanks for answering in such detail. It's really fascinating to see how everyone's preferences differ and where many of us seem to feel the same.

Regarding second person, I think it can be a successful method of storytelling, but for me it's very alienating to the reader. I think it creates a sense of distance between the story and the reader. For some stories that sense of alienation works really well. I think it would work less well for say, something porny.

Re: here via METAFANDOM [Part One]

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I love knowing exactly what's going on in the story, and what all othe characters think and stuff, but only writing from this one character who has no idea. It's probably my favorite POV.

As for Omniscient, well, I guess it's all about the story writing process. For me, I usually start with the idea, the facts, what happens , to whom, when, where, etc... and from there I have two choices: do I wanna tell the story from one character's POV? Or do I wanna tell the whole story? Because you just know that if you choose the one character, you're gonna be leaving out some stuff, because this character ha s a uniqur world view, right?

I don't think I've done this in any of my BtVS fics, maybe in EWR or Alias, I'm pretty sure I have done it before in fanfic though, but for an omniscient narrator, I kinda treat the story as a recap. I "see" the stopry in my head, the movements, the facial expressions of the characters [yeah, I'm weird like that] and then I write it down, writing what I know made each and every character react different to the same situation. I call this Recap Writing. I think it's kinda cold though, caus eI find it way easier to empathize with one character.

Have you noticed how limited or close third person is the most usual form of fic?

Re: here via METAFANDOM [Part Two]

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

I think it's all about the how. Some people can pull it off, though I agree with you in that it could get strange when it comes to smut. Alienation, I think it works sometimes, in fact it is kinda great sometimes. And by the way, the passage I paraphrased above was from a book called The Incredible Tale of How I Met My End, or something. It was in Spannish so I don't know the exact translation of the title.

And it was my pleasure, really, answering these questions. Like I said, it was fun!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that present tense creates the kind of immediacy that's perfect for porn.

On a related note, I think second person usually works very poorly for porn. I think musesfool somewhere below compares second person fic to a "Choose Your Own Adventure," which is very apt and not what I want from porn. (An exception being the sex scene in the fic I linked to in this post. But the sex there is confusing and disturbing and a bit alienating, so second person works there for me)

Re: here via METAFANDOM [Part One]

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Have you noticed how limited or close third person is the most usual form of fic?

*nods*

That's my unscientific estimation. That's what I predominantly run across.

Re: here via METAFANDOM [Part Two]

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

The second person story I link to in this post has a sex scene that I think works really well simply because the sex is confusing and somewhat disturbing and alienating to the characters who are experiencing it.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Enclosed please find two adventures I'd choose any day of the week.

Actually this ties in with the metafandom thread about the extent to which fanfic represents the writer's fantasies.

You kick your shoes into the corner of the room and sit down on the bed. "Now ain't you a treat to look at," Jayne says. You slide your hand under his t-shirt. "Tickles!" he says happily. "Frakk off, Exec," you say. "I'm busy!"

[ana-grrl.livejournal.com]

Even when the writer's got all the voice quirks and everything down, when the whole thing's in first person, it just throws me.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I can only read first person when it's an original character in a book or something, but even then it's not my favourite.

People see that OC tag and they're not interested. Myself included many times.

I know exactly what you mean! I also tend to skip over fic with original characters (which is weird, because I'll read fic with characters that are so minor that any characterisation in a fic might as well be that of an original character!). But I do read OC fic sometimes, especially if I know and enjoy the writer's other work!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

too often it slips into multiple third limited without any delineation of who is actually telling the story

This is one of the problems I run into when I try to write from that POV.

I've seen it said that it's meant to foster intimacy, putting the reader right there in the character's shoes, but I feel it's a *distancing* technique on the part of the character.

I agree with you there. I've always felt alienated from the piece when it's written in second person. My students will sometimes say of a thing that's written in second person that it's more universal, that the "you" let's the reader put herself in the story. But I just feel left out--"you" feels too big to me most of the time. You who? You everybody? LOL Because there is this ambiguity to "you," I feel much more distant from the character I'm reading about.

It's interesting what you say about the kinds of characters that lend themselves more easily to narration. I think one of the reasons that Xander ends up narrating a lot of Buffyverse fic is that he's rather verbose and not so big on the concealing of his emotions. I like fic very much that manages to get inside one of those characters who is tightly emotionally reined (like Dean) and convincingly show me what that character is thinking--the thought behind the clenched jaw. (And incidentally, man can Jensen Ackles clench a jaw something fierce)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, you brought up something I should've mentioned in my post: epistolary fic. I don't mind first person in those, either. Somehow, when it's interspersed with third person narration, small chunks of first person don't read off to me. (Particularly in a fandom where we've seen the characters write letters to each other or make diary entries; I'm thinking HP here for a good example)

What is it about Xander's character that you think demands a close third person limited POV in your fic? I speculated above to musesfool that one of the reasons that Xander ends up narrating so much of Buffyfic is that he's not as emotionally guarded as, say, Angel, or Lindsay.

[that_mireille]

I think it's more of a failing of mine as a writer--I find Xander's voice very easy to write, and so when I'm in his POV, my natural instinct is to zoom in, and write the whole thing in his voice. I'm too lazy to work against that. *g*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think it's a failing at all. I've read your work before and very much enjoy your Xander!voice.

[poisonavery.livejournal.com]

1) My issues with POV, writing-wise, usually boils down to something :
a) being in 3rd-person limited and then, DAMN, I have this awesome idea/line I could put in, but it'd be from another character's POV, thus destroying that limited thing. So usually, I grin and bear it and file the general idea way, and hopefully it'll pop up in another fic that I go about attempting!
b) this isn't really different POV so much as it is, that, in 3rd person POV, at least for me, sometimes when I write, I end up changing tense each time I sit down to write and don't really realize it. (commas ahoy!, there)

2) I honestly don't think I'm fic-savvy enough to realize lapses between POV! How embarassing. :X


3&4) Personally, I don't like anything in first-person that is anything longer than a drabble. Mostly because it seems so...like you're thrust into it. You don't get this gradual connection with the character.

I think I tend to write, or at least tend to want to write 2nd person if it's a character (or, in my fandom, a player) that is well-known/established. And that probably has a lot to do with my style of writing. 2nd-person has a more informal feel. But I've never written anything longer than a one-shot in 2nd person, so I don't know how well my style + 2nd person would translate into a novella/novel-length fic vs. my style + 3rd person limited, you know?
I do think that 2nd person can be very very effective in a long fic, though, if done right, but that depends on the plot too.
And, I have to say here, my 3rd-person limited is probably more of a 3rd-person limited and the 3rd-person closed that you're talking about. In that, the tone is more tailored to the character, but not exactly the vocabulary?

I sort of...when I get an idea concerning a particular player or pairing, I usually know right away what POV it'll be. For example, say I get an idea about the Florida Marlins. Now, they're a team filled with rookies, guys no one has any idea about. And I want readers to be able to connect with them, which is why when I start writing in my head, I think out scenes using "Dan did this" or "Scott said that" instead of "you"; I don't presume that anybody else knows anything about these guys (because they don't have a very large fanbase anyway), and if someone stumbles along the fic, it's because they're familiar with something else I wrote as opposed to actually looking for fic about the Marlins.
But if it were to be about, say, Derek Jeter & Alex Rodriguez, two very popular famous players that are on magazines everywhere and talked about on ESPN so much that even people who don't like them know pretty much everything about them? Well, I figure that if someone's clicking on a fic written about them, they are doing so because they know about them already, not because they want to get to know about them. So using 2nd person isn't really a problem.

Also, I've never thought about it until now, as I'm writing this, but maybe past tense v. present tense has to do with what POV you go for! And, in my experience, I write angsty fics in 2nd, and more fluffy fics in 3rd. Hmmm. *ponders the meaning of this.*

Excuse any redundancy. xD

via metafandom

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I am okay with first and second person in very specific contexts if they're done really well (one of my favorite pro genres, preternatural thrillers, tends to be first person, and while I'd love to see someone write in third, I've had to get used to it). I hate third person omniscient. The genres I read in require a limited viewpoint to maintain mystery and tension and plot, and I find it annoying to jump around between different characters' heads. Most of the time I see third person omniscient handled really badly, too.

Third person limited is my favorite to read and the most natural for me to write. It has more distance than first person and the genre associations (chicklit and teenage girl fiction) don't distract me as much, and it's great for having an unreliable narrator and for preserving plot mystery. Very subtle POV lapses won't bug me, but serious ones will. Guy Gavriel Kay may be able to break this rule (he breaks a lot) without incurring my irritation, but most writers (fan and pro) can't.

I almost always write in third person limited, very rarely in second or first for a specific story. Which character's POV is very much on a case-by-case basis and not something I can generalize about. There are certainly a few characters I try to avoid writing as viewpoint characters because I find their 'style' hard to get down, of course.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Apart from Xander's relations to his emotions, or his delight in language, it's the "fray-adjacent" who get to do the war corresponding. Think of Henry V, where Henry had to ask the Herald who won the battle.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent point.

[scatteredgray.livejournal.com]

I don't like first person, not because its too intimate, but because the author rarely gives us a good reason for the charachter to be telling us this stuff.

When a charachter tells us what clothes he put on and in what order, it just comes off as kind of narcissistic (of the charachter) to me, unless theres a good reason he/she would be telling anyone, let alone telling a whole story about it.

And thats not even getting into smut fic.

(Exceptions exist, of course)

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

This is one of the problems I run into when I try to write from that POV.

Me, too. I've done it with framing devices, having the beginning and end be in that sort of "Dear reader" tone and then the actual story be in someone's POV - "Tending to Grace" kind of works like that, where the opening and closing sections are from a sort of generalized 'town' POV before Simon comes in to tell the story. I think it lends a kind of fairy-tale vibe to stories to do that, but I don't think I could have handled that kind of POV for a whole story, even one that's only 2500 words long.

Because there is this ambiguity to "you," I feel much more distant from the character I'm reading about.

*nod*

And it's also a way for the character to alienate himself from himself, as it were. At least, that's how it works best for me.

I think one of the reasons that Xander ends up narrating a lot of Buffyverse fic is that he's rather verbose and not so big on the concealing of his emotions.

*nod nod*

And also, he's the one who sees. It's kind of his job to be the sideline reporter.

I like fic very much that manages to get inside one of those characters who is tightly emotionally reined (like Dean) and convincingly show me what that character is thinking--the thought behind the clenched jaw. (And incidentally, man can Jensen Ackles clench a jaw something fierce)

Mmm... yes, yes he does. And yeah, I've found a comfort zone writing from Dean's POV, possibly more because I overidentify with some of his issues than anything, and it's a lot of fun detailing the split between what he's thinking/feeling and what he says, though sometimes it can be difficult when he doesn't really have the emotional language to process some of it.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

And also, he's the one who sees. It's kind of his job to be the sideline reporter.

Somewhere down- or up-thread, Exec calls him "the fray adjacent" which has a nice ring to it.

I think it lends a kind of fairy-tale vibe to stories to do that

*nods*

I really like re-workings of fairytales, and I do like that kind of framing device to fic. I'm actually working on a piece of super!crack right now that uses that structure. LOL

I welcome redundancy :)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

being in 3rd-person limited and then, DAMN, I have this awesome idea/line I could put in, but it'd be from another character's POV, thus destroying that limited thing.

Yes! I often find myself copiously rewriting or even changing structure (let's say to vignettes, where I can comfortably change POV from section to section) to accommodate the info.

You don't get this gradual connection with the character.

Oooh, that's an interesting way of putting it.

And, I have to say here, my 3rd-person limited is probably more of a 3rd-person limited and the 3rd-person closed that you're talking about. In that, the tone is more tailored to the character, but not exactly the vocabulary?

In third person limited, you have a traditional third person narrator except that the narration doesn't reveal any information that the POV character wouldn't know or have access to. Close third person is the same as third person limited except that everything is rendered in the character's voice, not just that character's dialogue. It's as if we're getting a running third person commentary from inside that character's head. So, for instance, if Derek Jeter and his dad are sitting down to dinner, third person limited might say, Derek and his dad ate dinner in silence. Derek wondered what was wrong and close third person might read, Dad was really quiet at dinner and Derek wondered what was wrong. That's like the most shit-tacular example, ever, LOL but hopefully you can see what I mean.

Re: via metafandom

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

one of my favorite pro genres, preternatural thrillers, tends to be first person

That's a good point. What we read in profic must necessarily inform our fanfic choices.

The genres I read in require a limited viewpoint to maintain mystery and tension and plot

That's another really excellent point. I think narrative tension is best maintained from a limited viewpoint as well.

Thanks for such a thoughtful answer. :)