Remember how you said there are no stupid questions? POV Q.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

I feel like this is a silly question, because I don't see anything wrong with it, and I've read many books like this. Nevertheless, someone told me it would be confusing, so I want to make sure...

Is it confusing to have a first person narrator who is not be present for all of the scenes, effectively making her an omniscient 3rd person narrator for those scenes?

Trip F. · Mar 23, 2014

I feel like that's an issue of 'how does the character know'. Were events relayed back to your POV character? In that instance you'd have to write the scene two steps removed.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

Trip F. said:
I feel like that's an issue of 'how does the character know'. Were events relayed back to your POV character? In that instance you'd have to write the scene two steps removed.

She's retelling a story that already happened. Does that help?

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

job said:
So it sounds like you have a story where some scenes are in First Person and some scenes are in Omniscient Narrator.
No problem

That is 100% correct. Except that in the scenes where she is not present, the narrator might still refer to characters in relation to her...."Daddy looked upset when he found out..."

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

job said:
No problem putting some scenes in First Person and some scenes in Omniscient narrator.

It's more that some scenes are in first person, and some are in omni pov. However, the omniscient narrator is still that first person, as the characters and events are relayed in relation to her. "My parents did blah blah blah" when she wasn't there to witness her parents doing it.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

job said:
I don't see any problem doing this, so long as it's fairly clear whether the First Person is going to show up in each scene she's narrating.

Honestly, I think it's very clear. But, I'm the writer, so I guess I'll find out when I have some readers!

job · Mar 23, 2014

TaliaCele said:
It's more that some scenes are in first person, and some are in omni pov. However, the omniscient narrator is still that first person, as the characters and events are relayed in relation to her. "My parents did blah blah blah" when she wasn't there to witness her parents doing it.

Who is she telling the story to?
Is she talking to the reader?

This is fairly standard for all First Person stories. They are all 'talking to the reader."

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

job said:
Who is she telling the story to?
Is she talking to the reader?

Yes - the reader.

job · Mar 23, 2014

TaliaCele said:
Yes - the reader.

If the protag discusses what happens someplace she isn't,
and she says,
"My Mom told me the McFinneys had a big fight last night and he said ... and then she said ... and they went downstairs to the kitchen and ..."
Then you have not slipped into narrator POV.
You are still in First Person.

Does the protagonist start talking about events that she has no way of knowing about? Nobody told her. She wasn't there. There is no imaginable way somebody could have passed the information along to her.
That would be some sort of Narrator POV.

One can do both First Person and Narrator. It's okay.
It's a good thing to make clear which is which at the start of the scene.

I think a combination of First Person and Omniscient Narrator is rare in YA -- if you happen to be writing YA.
But I am very much not an expert in YA.

BethS · Mar 23, 2014

TaliaCele said:
I feel like this is a silly question, because I don't see anything wrong with it, and I've read many books like this. Nevertheless, someone told me it would be confusing, so I want to make sure...

Is it confusing to have a first person narrator who is not be present for all of the scenes, effectively making her an omniscient 3rd person narrator for those scenes?

I can't think of a single book I've ever encountered where a first-person narrator doubles as an omniscient narrator. I can't even imagine how that would work. Would be curious to know the titles of some of these many books that you say do this.

The closest to that I've seen is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, where the frame story is told in an objective POV and the main story in first-person. But that first-person narrator doesn't become omniscient.

job · Mar 23, 2014

BethS said:
I can't think of a single book I've ever encountered where a first-person narrator doubles as an omniscient narrator. I can't even imagine how that would work.

It's possible this boils down to different terminology somehow.

I don't see a general problem mixing POVs in a story. I do 3rd Limited and O.N. regularly. Don't see why switching 1st and O.N. would be impossible.

But is she really talking about scenes of Omniscient Narrator?

TaliaCele says

It's more that some scenes are in first person, and some are in omni pov. However, the omniscient narrator is still that first person, as the characters and events are relayed in relation to her. "My parents did blah blah blah" when she wasn't there to witness her parents doing it.

If the protag has learned what her parents were up to by some reasonable method -- maybe her friend Mandy told her -- it's all just First Person POV. Very straightforward.

I would worry if the protagonist suddenly demonstrates omniscient knowledge with no explanation. That strikes me less as moving to a new POV than the protagonist breaking character.

But I'm not sure precisely what she means.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

Yeah, she's basically a first person omniscient narrator. And I really don't think it's confusing at all. I guess I don't understand why it necessarily can't work?

This isn't YA. It's more like women's literary fiction.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

job said:
It's possible this boils down to different terminology somehow.

I don't see a general problem mixing POVs in a story. I do 3rd Limited and O.N. regularly. Don't see why switching 1st and O.N. would be impossible.

Or does the protagonist demonstrate omniscient knowledge with no explanation of how she knows these distant and hidden things? That's not a new POV. It's just a character suddenly knowing stuff she can't know.
I think it would be a bit disconcerting.

Most of the time it's just first person. It's very reasonable that she would know these other things. The first two scenes, however, which kind of set the stage, are really first person omniscient. I guess I could make it a prologue of sorts, but I REALLY do not want to.

Sonsofthepharaohs · Mar 23, 2014

So, you want to have first person POV for the scenes your POV character witnesses first hand, but then switch to first person omni (still from your MC's perspective tho) to show things she did not witness and had no way of knowing?

I'm afraid I call shenanigans...

That's major POV violation, because you're not actually switching to am omniscient narrator, you're just giving your first person POV omniscience. That's blatant cheating where I come from, and your book would be lining the rabbit hutch in no time.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

BethS said:
I can't think of a single book I've ever encountered where a first-person narrator doubles as an omniscient narrator. I can't even imagine how that would work. Would be curious to know the titles of some of these many books that you say do this.

The Great Gatsby
The Lovely Bones (though different, as she is telling the story from heaven and can now see all space and time)
The Book Thief (also a little different, as the narrator is death)

But like I wrote before, it's mostly first person who just knows all this information. But there are a couple of scenes in the beginning in which she would be omniscient, because it's a character's death, and no one else is there.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

Kallithrix said:
So, you want to have first person POV for the scenes your POV character witnesses first hand, but then switch to first person omni (still from your MC's perspective tho) to show things she did not witness and had no way of knowing?

You can call it omniscient if you'd like for the rest of it, as she describes people's inner thoughts and feelings. But it is plausible that she can find out these thoughts - that they were shared with her. The opening scenes of the character's death that sets up the whole book, can't be from the same POV, as this character was alone when she died.

As for your remarks at the end - very kind, thank you.

Sonsofthepharaohs · Mar 23, 2014

TaliaCele said:
The Great Gatsby - can't remember, been a long time since I read it, but I thought this was narrated by Nick?
The Lovely Bones (though different, as she is telling the story from heaven and can now see all space and time) so... this is not what you describe at all, it's just first person omni, because there is a rational explanation for the POV character's omniscience.
The Book Thief (also a little different, as the narrator is death) ditto - narrator is death, so... omniscience is established and explained

TaliaCele said:
But like I wrote before, it's mostly first person who just knows all this information. But there are a couple of scenes in the beginning in which she would be omniscient, because it's a character's death, and no one else is there.

You can do first person omniscient, but then it's not from one particularly character's point of view UNLESS there is a good reason for her being omniscient (as above). If she has no rational in-book reason for being able to know things she was not witness to, then it's POV violation.

If you want to write first person omni, then write omni. But don't confuse it with having a first person POV character with limited knowledge, because you will most likely confuse your reader.

Sonsofthepharaohs · Mar 23, 2014

TaliaCele said:
You can call it omniscient if you'd like for the rest of it, as she describes people's inner thoughts and feelings. But it is plausible that she can find out these thoughts - that they were shared with her. The opening scenes of the character's death that sets up the whole book, can't be from the same POV, as this character was alone when she died.

I honestly think you are struggling with the definition of different narrative POVs, and advise you to look into them more closely. I don't think omniscient POV means what you think it means

TaliaCele said:
As for your remarks at the end - very kind, thank you.

Honest and opinionated opinions is why you come here

Sage · Mar 23, 2014

I feel like you'd have to make it understood in the book why the first-person character knows what's going on. Usually when you're in first person, you're looking for an intimate POV. She's telling the story that happened to her from her perspective, and she didn't know back then what was going on beyond her experiences unless she had someone tell her them, and even then, she wouldn't know they were going on at the time they were going on.

If it's a frame story, where the narrator acknowledges that it's a story to some sort of audience and right up front makes it clear that she knows more in the present time than she would have at the time, it makes it easier to accept that the character is telling a story and might even be guessing that other person's part for the sake of the story.

Or you might have to say, every time, something like, "Now, Jenny told me later that right at this moment, she was..."

But honestly, without some convention for explaining why the 1st-person narrator knows (or thinks she knows) what's going on beyond what she's personally experienced, I wouldn't accept her knowing it. Even in past tense, we're right there with the narrator in the moment she was experiencing. It's jarring to suddenly jump to knowledge that she can't possibly have in that moment.

blacbird · Mar 23, 2014

TaliaCele said:
Is it confusing to have a first person narrator who is not be present for all of the scenes, effectively making her an omniscient 3rd person narrator for those scenes?

. . .

I've read many books like this.

I restructured the quotation from your post, above, to make my response clearer. Which is, you need to document this; I can't recall ever reading any books with a narrative style of this kind. Frankly, it sounds like a narrative mess.

caw

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

blacbird said:
I restructured the quotation from your post, above, to make my response clearer. Which is, you need to document this; I can't recall ever reading any books with a narrative style of this kind. Frankly, it sounds like a narrative mess.

caw

Well, to be fair, I wrote that when I was confused about my POV definitions. I've been schooled since then.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

Sage said:
I feel like you'd have to make it understood in the book why the first-person character knows what's going on. Usually when you're in first person, you're looking for an intimate POV. She's telling the story that happened to her from her perspective, and she didn't know back then what was going on beyond her experiences unless she had someone tell her them, and even then, she wouldn't know they were going on at the time they were going on.

If it's a frame story, where the narrator acknowledges that it's a story to some sort of audience and right up front makes it clear that she knows more in the present time than she would have at the time, it makes it easier to accept that the character is telling a story and might even be guessing that other person's part for the sake of the story.

Or you might have to say, every time, something like, "Now, Jenny told me later that right at this moment, she was..."

It is 100% understood in the narrative that she is telling the story of something that happened in the past, that she knows more now, and that she is now looking back on those events.

Sage · Mar 23, 2014

Then let your betas tell you if it is 100% understood, and if it is, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

job · Mar 23, 2014

It could be a story told at a distant remove.
"Let me tell you about how my family moved to Hooterville."

If this is the case, the protagonist would have broad knowledge of what happened in the library with Colonel Mustard and the candlestick because she heard all about it in the intervening six years. (Especially at the trial, y'know.)

Ummm ... I think of the second chapter of Rebecca. There's description of the past and of what's going to happen, told in First Person. If OP's omniscient chapters are at the beginning of the story, maybe it's a 'Rebecca'.

TaliaCele · Mar 23, 2014

Sage said:
Then let your betas tell you if it is 100% understood, and if it is, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Thanks : ) So far, great feedback from my betas. Just one person, who did not read my book, got me freaking out! I think my lack of clear understanding of the definitions did not help me out here, either.

Remember how you said there are no stupid questions? POV Q.

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