Stew21
04-06-2006, 07:23 AM
Just a little "vent".
I do a lot of driving, so get CD's of books to listen to. Since I have a couple of kids and it cuts into my reading time in the evenings, this is good use of time on a commute. Well...I was shocked today. In the middle of a first person POV book...and I mean well over half way through, she has stayed in POV beautifully (though her use of dialogue tags and adverbs was just about to kill me), then... out of nowhere, a whole chapter in another POV...even referring to herself (the MC first POV in the rest of the book) by first name, and what? I'm guessing limited 3rd (on a support character)? Then even had the character that chapter centered around come in and speak to our original 1st person mc?? I was so confused! I had to jump back a track on the CD to figure out what the hell just happened! WOW!
Wouldn't it have made more sense to stay in her original POV and have the character she followed limited 3rd just tell the MC about it so she could keep it in POV? I have never been so distracted as I was by that. And maybe having it read to me instead of reading for myself made it worse, I'm not sure. It made me want to turn it off. And the story is somewhat flimsy anyway, so I almost just turned it off. I shouldn't have to try to keep my place with a book that is being read TO me, should I?
I'm going to have to go through my MS. I think after that, even the slightest "head hop" will be annoying to me, and I was pretty good about not doing it anyway, but wow...that was shocking! She could have worked around it! I'm sure of it!
All the conversation lately about reading books good and bad to help you in your own work...well this would be a good lesson in what NOT to do in POV! And a pretty good one for see-through twists in plot, and too many adverb dialogue tags too! Yikes...thankfully this was a free library borrow!
I do a lot of driving, so get CD's of books to listen to. Since I have a couple of kids and it cuts into my reading time in the evenings, this is good use of time on a commute. Well...I was shocked today. In the middle of a first person POV book...and I mean well over half way through, she has stayed in POV beautifully (though her use of dialogue tags and adverbs was just about to kill me), then... out of nowhere, a whole chapter in another POV...even referring to herself (the MC first POV in the rest of the book) by first name, and what? I'm guessing limited 3rd (on a support character)? Then even had the character that chapter centered around come in and speak to our original 1st person mc?? I was so confused! I had to jump back a track on the CD to figure out what the hell just happened! WOW!
Wouldn't it have made more sense to stay in her original POV and have the character she followed limited 3rd just tell the MC about it so she could keep it in POV? I have never been so distracted as I was by that. And maybe having it read to me instead of reading for myself made it worse, I'm not sure. It made me want to turn it off. And the story is somewhat flimsy anyway, so I almost just turned it off. I shouldn't have to try to keep my place with a book that is being read TO me, should I?
I'm going to have to go through my MS. I think after that, even the slightest "head hop" will be annoying to me, and I was pretty good about not doing it anyway, but wow...that was shocking! She could have worked around it! I'm sure of it!
All the conversation lately about reading books good and bad to help you in your own work...well this would be a good lesson in what NOT to do in POV! And a pretty good one for see-through twists in plot, and too many adverb dialogue tags too! Yikes...thankfully this was a free library borrow!