McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
POV Advice
Paynesgrey:
A good example of a limited but pivotal additional POV's would be Lois McMaster-Bujold's A Civil Campaign. But it's something I'd use sparingly, not shotgun-style.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Paynesgrey on August 09, 2012, 11:23:56 AM ---A good example of a limited but pivotal additional POV's would be Lois McMaster-Bujold's A Civil Campaign. But it's something I'd use sparingly, not shotgun-style.
--- End quote ---
That book's not using one-off POVs for incidental bits, though, but multiple significant POVs. I suppose some of them are one-offs on a series scale, but I still think there's a qualitative difference there.
Paynesgrey:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 09, 2012, 06:37:38 PM ---That book's not using one-off POVs for incidental bits, though, but multiple significant POVs. I suppose some of them are one-offs on a series scale, but I still think there's a qualitative difference there.
--- End quote ---
Ah, quite right. I was thinking of terms of POV shifts in general, not small splashes in particular. With that in mind, I'd use the small splash very, very sparingly.
Aminar:
I want to extend the discussion. Why should you use them.
The biggest reason I can think of.
Fantasy tends to have characters with amazing abilities, abilities they are so used to that the sense of awe or terror just isn't there. So throw a section in from Joe Blow's perspective where he watches the main character doing something the character sees as routine. Suddenly that routine thing is probably EPIC. Or at least that's where I need to use them.
My next project has way too many one offs though. One of the major plot points is that a series of Madrox style clones that can shapeshift(The last thing shifting allows is self cloning and it makes for a really fun villain) are running a mafia organization and somebody is hunting them. All of tyhose Madrox clones are slightly different characters, but in many ways the same. But I need to show hings from their perspective... It'll be an interesting project.
The Deposed King:
--- Quote from: Aminar on August 10, 2012, 12:32:23 AM ---I want to extend the discussion. Why should you use them.
The biggest reason I can think of.
Fantasy tends to have characters with amazing abilities, abilities they are so used to that the sense of awe or terror just isn't there. So throw a section in from Joe Blow's perspective where he watches the main character doing something the character sees as routine. Suddenly that routine thing is probably EPIC. Or at least that's where I need to use them.
My next project has way too many one offs though. One of the major plot points is that a series of Madrox style clones that can shapeshift(The last thing shifting allows is self cloning and it makes for a really fun villain) are running a mafia organization and somebody is hunting them. All of tyhose Madrox clones are slightly different characters, but in many ways the same. But I need to show hings from their perspective... It'll be an interesting project.
--- End quote ---
I used POV characters in my first book for two reasons. One was to provide a second point of view. My first character was all 1st person, so we only got to see what he saw. It was nice to give you a little base line impression of what was happening underneath his feet.
The second? Comic relief. Preferably I'd do both. Chief Engineer Spalding was a great example. Bombasitic, informative in his whole, he listens with a scowl, nods slowly before exclaiming 'That's a bunch of space rot lads! Now you'll do it how I say!' insert sound of a plasma torch being lit up followed by a few practice swings. Then he'd go off to 'save the day', which in Spalding's estimation could be anything from getting the crew to stop 'slacking' and go preforming a few safety drills, to personally walking into a leaky reactor core with no hope of survival. To him both were vital tasks, vital you here, to the survival of the ship!
With other characters, the situations they found themselves in were interesting asides, and the conflicts might be funny but not so much the basic natures of the characters themselves. With the Chief Engineer I had a POV character who took himself so seriously it was comic relief from top to bottomus.
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