More POV thoughts

[colealpaugh]

I'm sure I'll come across as defensive about this, so I'll just try to present the facts and step back to gratefully appreciate any opinions regarding a certain style of POV changes I use for humor/dreams/pathos in one of my MS's. Another example, other than the one below, might be quickly switching to the POV of a circling seagull, who was just jilted out of a French fry and angrily discusses taking aim with a squirt of bird crap.

In this example, the POV has been that of the MC, Billy Wayne, a 30-year-old man moving out of his mother's house to become a cult leader after coming across a how-to book in the library:

“You walk out that door and you ain’t never allowed back in, Billy Wayne,” his mother shouted through angry tears, the recliner under her great bottom groaning from the massive weight. Who was going to do the laundry and the shopping? Who was going to use the pumice stone on her corns? Who was going to help her out of this chair to the toilet?

I've seen it done by talented writers, Vonnegut for example. And I've seen it done with italics by less than talented (published) writers. I worry I've wandered into my own blind spot and latched on to the idea that readers simply get it, despite screwing with the rules.

Any thoughts would be wicked-awesome....

c.

[Regan Leigh]

Honestly, I don't see a problem. Maybe that's the green, newbie in me, but...

Are you jumping from third omniscient to third subjective in the chapter? That's okay, right? Yeah... I'm of no help. But it reads fine to me.

[Toothpaste]

If you want to change the POV often, write the story in third omniscient. I'm not sure what the problem is.

Just remember, if you're doing something because it suits the story and tone, then it's awesome. If you're doing something because you can't think of any other way to get something across to the reader . . . that isn't as awesome. Do something because it's what suits your writing, not because you're too lazy to come up with an alternative.

And above all things, do it well. You can doing anything, break any rule, so long as you do it well (oh and understand that to break the rules requires a lot of ability, and that you've set yourself up for harder scrutiny because of it).

[Exir]

The passage read perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with it.

[OpheliaRevived]

I don't see the huge jump. Can you give us another example?

[kaitie]

It read just fine for me as well. Breaking the rules is fine as long as it works, right?

[JanDarby]

I think what the OP means is that the stuff after the dialogue is from the mother's POV, instead of the son's. (Look at the last sentence -- "this chair" suggests it's the pov of the person sitting in it, whereas "that chair" is the pov of the person not in the chair.)

Two thoughts: First, omniscient works really well for humor, and if that's what you're writing, just go omniscient, establish a narrator's pov, and revel in it. See Terry Pratchett's work as the ultimate example of how well this can work.

Second, omniscient does NOT work so well for deeply emotional works, so if that's what you're aiming for, and the humor is just the occasional comic relief, then you're probably better off in third-limited, and you can restructure the comedy to stay with the person's pov. Comedy at its most effective is intimate, a shared joke between the reader and the pov character (either protagonist or the narrator/author). If it's random, it's generic, and less effective. Unlike stand-up comedian's jokes, most of the very best comic lines in novels are impossible to explain to someone who hasn't read the whole book.

Now, I don't know the gist of your story, but assuming they've just had a truly emotional argument, and you want to break the angst with a little comedy, then you could keep virtually all of the original paragraph, while still staying in the son's pov, like this:

“You walk out that door and you ain’t never allowed back in, Billy Wayne,” his mother shouted through angry tears, the recliner under her great bottom groaning from the massive weight.

Oh, yeah, Billy Wayne thought. She was really going to stick to that threat. By tomorrow, she'd be wondering who was going to do the laundry and the shopping for her. Who was going to use the pumice stone on her corns? Heck, she'd be worried before tomorrow. In about an hour, she was going to wonder who was going to help her out of that awful chair so she could go to the toilet.

Or, if Billy Wayne thinks she means it, and he's relieved, then it becomes:

“You walk out that door and you ain’t never allowed back in, Billy Wayne,” his mother shouted through angry tears, the recliner under her great bottom groaning from the massive weight.

She was going to be sorry, he thought. She couldn't live without him. Who was going to do the laundry and the shopping? Who was going to use the pumice stone on her corns? Who was going to help her out of that bleeping chair to go to the toilet? Not him. Not ever again.

As it is, by switching, you're diluting the emotional impact, and we don't know how Billy feels about the threat, which is what we're interested in. Presumably, the reader has been invested in Billy's side of the argument up to this point, and the mother makes her horrible, awful threat, right? And the reader is thinking, "Oh, no, how is Billy gonig to cope?" and you don't answer that question, but instead answer a question that the reader does NOT have, namely whether the mother is having second thoughts about her threat. Which may not even be a problem, since, for all the reader knows, Billy is already frantic to take back whatever caused the mother to issue the threat. On the other hand, if you've stayed in Billy's pov, answered the question of how is Billy going to cope, and he's indicated that he's still leaving, and he's never going to come back, but, really, he's still worried about the mother, because he knows her well enough that he can predict that she's going to have problems with her daily living, then the reader will care about both sides of the equation.

JD

[job]

The snippet as it stands is fine. Needs a little tweaking in the next draft to refine the POV, but it's going well for first draft.

If the paragraph before your snippet was:

The postman stopped at the mailbox, listening to the argument inside. He shook his head and walked onward. Always somebody shouting and carrying on in the Miller house. Disquieting, he'd call it.

and you immediately follow up your line with:

Billy felt his head get hot. Angry words buzzed in his belly like live hornets.

Then you are in Omniscient Narrator.

My advice would be to find a dozen books written in O.N. and study them. O.N. may be the hardest of all the common POVs to do effectively.

[colealpaugh]

Thank you, I really appreciate the amazing input from everyone. It is an 80k word commercial fiction MS, and a very light story...eh, Vonnegut-esque, if I may be so bold. Now to ponder and get to work. Again: you folks rock.

[colealpaugh]

Originally Posted by Toothpaste

If you want to change the POV often, write the story in third omniscient. I'm not sure what the problem is.

So many of the books I reread are TPO, so I don't easily recognize how dizzying or jolting it can be to pop in and out of people's minds. I love the style when the author isn't turning it into a 700 page epic because they feel every thought needs to be expressed.

[Lady Ice]

Agree with Jan. If we care about Billy, we want to know Billy's thoughts. I suppose we might be interested in the mother's thoughts if we know they have an effect on Billy or show that his mother loves him when he doesn't think that, though.

[Exir]

The hardest thing with Omni is to decide whaich thoughts to hide. I'm sure everybody's read a book or two where it seems like the author's writing for a three-year-old because they feel the need to express every thought and emotion. On the other hand, if you decide to hide what a certain character thinks, and the information turns out to be crucial to the plot, you'd better do it in a convincing manner or else your reader's gonna call bluff.

[Barpaio]

Read great to me.

[maestrowork]

You need discipline with any POV, especially omniscient. With 3rd limited or first person (or 2nd person, even though it's rare), you're automatically limited. With omniscient, suddenly the writer can do anything, and that itself is dangerous, and many unseasoned writer tend to overindulge with a lack of discipline required for such an omnipresent way of storytelling. What transpires is a disorienting story with too many characters, too many thoughts, too many "angles" -- or what I call "telleverythingititis" -- and not even relevance for the readers to really care about these characters.

Omniscient also creates the feeling of distance, because there's this all-knowing narrator. In real life, there's no such thing (unless you are talking to god). In real life, most people are limited by one person's thoughts and feelings, namely their own. Even if they're psychic or have telepathy, they are still limited. That's why first person or 3rd limited are more popular now because they allow the readers to follow these characters one-on-one, and it resembles real life. Omniscient, by design, has that "let me tell you a story" feel to it, thus a bigger narrative distance, as if the readers are being told a story, not invited to experience it through a select few characters.

[Stijn Hommes]

I'm not seeing a problem with the given example. Just keep writing.