*What about the occasional and subtle lapse of POV in fic? Eyeball bleeding deal breaker? Doesn’t even register? Somewhere in between?
Something in between. If it's occasional and subtle, it registers, but it's no worse than the occasional typo--it happens; nobody's perfect. If it's frequent and glaring, it's a deal-breaker. (If I'm beta-reading, all bets are off, and I will leave big red notes about the POV shifts, often with punctuation abuse: PICK A POV!!!!! (but then, the person I beta for most often is someone I know very well--I wouldn't be quite that emphatic to a stranger. ;) )
*What are your favorite and least favorite POVs to write from? To read? Why?
Writing: My favorite is a very close third-person. With particular characters who have very distinctive speaking styles, in fact, I find it hard *not* to write in close-third person. With others, I tend more toward a more distant third-person limited (though again, without that super-distinctive speaking style, it can be hard to tell). I've never thought of those as different POVs, though; I consider them both third-person limited, and the voice in the narrative passages to be a stylistic choice.
My least favorite would be first-person. I don't like writing it (either in fanfic or original fic).
Reading: I still prefer third-person limited. In original fic, I don't mind first-person at all; but in fanfic, it is my least favorite choice--unless it's a story written by an author I trust, or a story that requires it (an epistolary fic, for example), I don't read first-person fic. Second-person is off-putting as a rule, but when it's done *well,* it can be really effective, especially in something quite short.
*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?
I can really only think of one time I didn't write in third-person limited, and that was a conscious stylistic choice. The entire story was built around a fortune-cookie fortune I got that read, "Suppose you can get what you want," and I used second-person for that. I think it worked, but I'm in no hurry to try it again.
But since you're considering close third-person to be a different POV to third-person limited... it does depend on character. There are certain characters I write that really *demand* of me that everything be expressed in their voice. Xander Harris is one of them. If I need a more detached POV for the narrative, I probably won't choose to write Xander's POV. (In fact, in a longer story that I'm working on, where there are multiple POVs (in different scenes), that's one of the reasons I choose to use/not use Xander's POV for a particular scene.)
In a shorter story, I tend to pick one POV and stay with it. In a longer story, I may opt for different POVs in different scenes (I stick with one POV per scene, generally), and I base it, a great deal, on "whose perceptions would add the most to this scene?" Does someone have knowledge they're not going to reveal out loud, but that the reader needs? Whose thoughts would be the most helpful in getting across what I'm trying to say? And sometimes, whose POV would avoid the most clunky dialogue where one character has to explain things to another at great length when there's no reason for him to even mention it, because the reader needs to know it?
no subject
*What about the occasional and subtle lapse of POV in fic? Eyeball bleeding deal breaker? Doesn’t even register? Somewhere in between?
Something in between. If it's occasional and subtle, it registers, but it's no worse than the occasional typo--it happens; nobody's perfect. If it's frequent and glaring, it's a deal-breaker. (If I'm beta-reading, all bets are off, and I will leave big red notes about the POV shifts, often with punctuation abuse: PICK A POV!!!!! (but then, the person I beta for most often is someone I know very well--I wouldn't be quite that emphatic to a stranger. ;) )
*What are your favorite and least favorite POVs to write from? To read? Why?
Writing: My favorite is a very close third-person. With particular characters who have very distinctive speaking styles, in fact, I find it hard *not* to write in close-third person. With others, I tend more toward a more distant third-person limited (though again, without that super-distinctive speaking style, it can be hard to tell). I've never thought of those as different POVs, though; I consider them both third-person limited, and the voice in the narrative passages to be a stylistic choice.
My least favorite would be first-person. I don't like writing it (either in fanfic or original fic).
Reading: I still prefer third-person limited. In original fic, I don't mind first-person at all; but in fanfic, it is my least favorite choice--unless it's a story written by an author I trust, or a story that requires it (an epistolary fic, for example), I don't read first-person fic. Second-person is off-putting as a rule, but when it's done *well,* it can be really effective, especially in something quite short.
*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?
I can really only think of one time I didn't write in third-person limited, and that was a conscious stylistic choice. The entire story was built around a fortune-cookie fortune I got that read, "Suppose you can get what you want," and I used second-person for that. I think it worked, but I'm in no hurry to try it again.
But since you're considering close third-person to be a different POV to third-person limited... it does depend on character. There are certain characters I write that really *demand* of me that everything be expressed in their voice. Xander Harris is one of them. If I need a more detached POV for the narrative, I probably won't choose to write Xander's POV. (In fact, in a longer story that I'm working on, where there are multiple POVs (in different scenes), that's one of the reasons I choose to use/not use Xander's POV for a particular scene.)
In a shorter story, I tend to pick one POV and stay with it. In a longer story, I may opt for different POVs in different scenes (I stick with one POV per scene, generally), and I base it, a great deal, on "whose perceptions would add the most to this scene?" Does someone have knowledge they're not going to reveal out loud, but that the reader needs? Whose thoughts would be the most helpful in getting across what I'm trying to say? And sometimes, whose POV would avoid the most clunky dialogue where one character has to explain things to another at great length when there's no reason for him to even mention it, because the reader needs to know it?