Given the background, consider an exchange something like the following (made up on the spot) example:
John waited an hour for Fred to arrive. It was starting to make him angry. Couldn't Fred ever be on time? Suddenly, Fred turned the corner and joined John in front of the restaurant.
"I told you last time. If you're late again, you owe me five bucks," John said. John extended his hand, palm up.
Fred pretended not to see John's hand and turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
--
What do you make of "Fred pretended not to see John's hand" ? I've gotten several comments on statements similar to this, saying this is a POV violation, because to know that Fred is pretending, we have to be in Fred's POV. However, if we have already established that we are in John's POV, the entire point of what I was trying to achieve is that the narration is filtered through John's thoughts. We don't know that Fred "pretended" not to see his hand. But *John interprets Fred's actions* as Fred pretending.
In real life, all we have is our own POV. We have to make assumptions as to people's motivations. When I write from a character's POV, I try to filter everything this way. The POV character makes assumptions about other characters' motivations (even if we're wrong!). But when I try to show this in narration, readers often think I'm "slipping POV."
Any thoughts? Is this too subtle/confusing a game to play? Do I have to make it more obvious, and state "Fred acted like he didn't see John's hand, though John thought he was faking it" or something, every time I ascribe motivations to a non-POV character? What do people think about this?
Because the reader is so deeply inside of John's POV, all you need to do is show what Fred does, and the reader can infer by John's reaction to it what John thinks Fred is doing.
What I'm suggesting is that instead of
quote:have
Fred pretended not to see John's hand and turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
quote:
Fred turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
It should be clear that Fred will seem to be pretending not to see John's hand, and that John perceives Fred's response as pretending, especially if John gets angrier. If the reader really is that deep in John's head, the reader will "get it."
Edited to add:
If you really think you need to do more with Fred, you could say something like
quote:
Fred looked away instead of down at John's hand and turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited November 04, 2009).]
For instance:
Fred looked past John toward the restaurant without even glancing at John's out stretched hand although John was certain he noticed it. "Man I'm hungry," Fred said. "Let's go inside."
In this case, you don't even need to tell the reader that Fred is pretending since it is obvious to the reader what Fred is doing.
But if you just tell us that Fred is pretending without giving us a reason why John would know that, then it does seem like a POV violation. How would John know he was pretending?
I hope this helps.
Edited to Add:
Sorry to be repeating what KDW said. I guess we were posting at the same time. Although I am pleased that my assessment matches KDW since she is so very wise.
[This message has been edited by MAP (edited November 04, 2009).]
"I told you last time. If you're late again, you owe me five bucks," John said. He extended his hand, palm up.
Fred's eyes flickered to the outstretched hand, but then he turned to the restaurant, as though he hadn't seen it. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
Just a quick example; it combines the interpretation (pretending to not see) with the factors from which John formulated the interpretation (eyes flicking down, turning away).
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited November 04, 2009).]
Here is an example of possibly baseless conclusions:
That guy in the BMW just cut me off. Rich guy. Thinks he owns the road. Didn't even look.
Explaining why someone would come to such conclusions by showing actions and responses assumes that there is something to show. Prejudiced and conditioned responses don't need proof at the time of occurrence. If John expects his handshake to be shunned, and you've set this up earlier, then there may not be anything to 'show'.
Rather, what I see is a passage that's a narrator's direct address to readers, diegesis or "telling." Not a writing principle violation, per se, just not in a modern narrative voice, and lacking depiction of the narrator's relationship to the narrative, no definitive reader focal empathy character: narrator? John? or Fred?
Mimesis or imitation is in indirect address, showing, and often with an invisible narrator, in third person anyway. The discordant nature of the passage is it's trying to be mimetic, but comes off as largely summarization in diegesis.
quote:If in mimesis, that passage switches viewpoint characters from John to Fred. If in diegesis, the narrator's focal perspective change is unremarked. In other words, in both cases, the "camera" crosses the demarkation line between John and Fred, does a somersault with full twist from John's shoulder to Fred's shoulder without a notable mechanism for the perspective shift.
Fred pretended not to see John's hand and turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
In narrator direct address, diegesis, a narrator can know all characters' thoughts through objective omniscient "reportorial" after the fact recounting, telling. In free indirect discourse though, mimesis, psychic access to a sole viewpoint character in a dramatic unit is widely preferred because it's less disruptively confusing. Mimesis is widely preferred of late, at least since the middle of the 19th Century, because it has a greater potential for participation mystique. In other words, less reader alienation, more immersion potential, from an unfolding story.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited November 04, 2009).]
"Fred pretended not to see John's hand and turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
Fred is the person speaking and acting. It could be that readers attach the tag 'Fred' to the paragraph and assume that all the thoughts, words, and deeds described in the paragraph are Fred's. "Pretending not to see" can appear to be Fred's intention, not John's thought.
A simple change to clear things up might be:
"I told you last time. If you're late again, you owe me five bucks," John said. John extended his hand, palm up. Fred pretended not to see it.
Fred turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
The resulting text is similar to what Kathleen suggested, but perhaps for a different reason. You might choose not to voice John's opinion; it might be unnecessary. If you choose to voice it, though, then readers may expect it to be grouped with John's words and deeds.
[This message has been edited by posulliv (edited November 04, 2009).]
I suggested to Astro that Kathleen's right, and that further debate as to the exact grammatical explanation for the error was probably time better spend elsewhere. If you disagree with me, feel free to continue to discuss POV, and show vs. tell, and mimesis vs. diegesis, or whatever else makes your day. Who knows, there might be some benefit to the discussion.
You now have my blessing to continue to chat amongst yourselves.
[This message has been edited by Wolfe_boy (edited November 04, 2009).]
quote:
My bad. I thought the posted text was an example illustrating a problem for general discussion. I feel pretty stupid wasting all my time thinking about this.
Don't. It was a request for specific help but as Kitti says there is nothing preventing or even discouraging open discussions on the topic.
In fact I'd figure the original poster was probably desiring multiple points of view, so to speak, and input about both specific and generalities of the topic for future reference if nothing else.
Would you mind sharing your email with me posulliv? If you don't want to put it here in public just send me a message, mine is in my contact thingy at the top of my posts.
My apologies to all those insulted. It wasn't my intent the first time around, and I was petulant the second time around.
A major frustration in this kind of discussion is that no one can see or hear the other people speaking, and misunderstandings happen even when we can see and hear each other (as in the "Fred pretended" example, come to think of it).
Thick skins can be helpful when we're getting feedback on prose we want to submit to an editor, but they shouldn't be necessary for the kind of polite discussion we want to encourage here on the forum.
But to further posulliv's point... what if there is no evidence? (Or no substantial evidence) to back up the POV character's judgment? The problem, as I see it, is that when you have 2 character, both of whom get POV time regularly, I've found that readers are more likely to assume that any "John thought" or "John pretended" etc. is going to be from John's POV... even if we just spent 5 pages in Fred's POV.
So is it impossible to assign judgments and assumptions, without having it look like a POV violation? (Or telling instead of showing?) I feel like going back and leaving out these small bits of thought would take away from developing some of my characters. How we perceive events, and what assumptions we make when there is insufficient information either way say a lot about who a person is. And if two POV characters are meeting for the first time, they're going to have assumptions about each other based on little to no information...
quote:
Ruby fell to the floor and peered into Sam’s eyes; they were already turning red. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”
He looked back up at her, fighting the horrid thoughts surging through his mind, and said, “Will you kiss me?”
She leaned over and placed her lips around his, releasing to him all the passion she had stored up inside. Her blood-soaked tears wetted his face. When the kiss finally ended, she cradled him in her arms.
quote:
Ruby fell to the floor and peered into Sam’s eyes; they were already turning red. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”
He looked back up at her, a scowl of agony spreading across his face, and said, “Kiss me.”
She leaned over and placed her lips around his, releasing in him all her stored up passion. Her blood-soaked tears wetted his face. When the kiss finally ended, she cradled him in her arms.
Multiple viewpoint characters in short fiction are not necessarily disruptive, but smooth, seamless transitions are critically important and consume word count. Same with multiple settings. Add in multiple character points of view as related to tone and other narrative voice features and it becomes obvious that a short fiction easily expands into a long fiction with multiple accesses to viewpoint characters and settings.
I've compiled a list of attributes for a narrative voice, first, the attributes of a narrative point of view; tone, grammatical person and number, psychic access and motility, tense; narrative voice also includes mood, register, and tenor.
In general, tone is a narrator's attitude toward a story's theme or subject or topic, ie, virtue and/or vice. Tone falls along a continuum of objective to subjective, unbiased, factual to open to interpretation to biased to outright unreliable. Other flavors of subjective tone include reflexive and imperative, usually seen in second person, sometimes in first person.
Grammatical person, psychic access and motility, and tense are self-explanatory. They occur in auxilliary varieties, but ideally remain close to a primary narrative voice established in a story opening, ie, from a narrator's viewpoint perspective in diegesis, or from a focal viewpoint character's perspective in mimesis.
Mood relates to an emotional attitude toward a topic, theme, or subject, ie, angry, sad, resigned, forelorn, tragic, glad, blissful, funny, etc.
Register relates to a diction pertinent to a topic, theme, or subject, ie, formal or informal, dialect, jargon, nomenclature, vocabulary, lexicon of a story's milieu; military jargon, for example.
Tenor relates to mood somewhat and also relates to an attitude toward a topic, theme, or subject; however, tenor is distinguished by the nature of emotional approach in standing toward an attitude, ie, cynicism, skepticism, sarcasm, the various flavors of irony, and perhaps optimism, pessimism, and so on.
Below is a representation for the levels of engagement between a writer and a text and an audience. The present-day ideal deepest immersion intersection occurs at the narrator >>> |text| >>> narratee interface.
[[Real Author >>> [[Implied Author >>> (Narrator) >>> (Narratee) >>> Implied Reader]] >>> Real Reader]] Chatman's "Diagram of Narrative Structure" pg. 267 Story and Discourse from http://members.westnet.com.au/emmas/2p/thesis/2.htm#1-2
One more area worth looking at that goes to diegesis versus mimesis is the fiction-writing modes. Diane's Secret is a mnemonic for remembering the varieties.
Description - depictions usually from a sensory experience
Introspection - depictions of thoughts
Action - depiction of dramatic meaning, not exclusive to physical motion, can be any kind of causal** actions.
Narration - typically a direct address to readers unless in a viewpoint character's interior monologue or dialogue
Emotion - depiction of emotional experiences
Sensation - depiction of sensory experiences
Summarization - typically a direct address summarizing another mode
Explanation - typically a direct address explaining a meaningful detail
Conversation - dialogue or monologue
Recollection - backstory through a viewpoint character's thoughts
Exposition - typically a direct address clarifying a meaningful or purposeful detail
Transition - a mode for transitioning from viewpoint to viewpoint, scene to scene, setting to setting, time to time, etc.
**A thought is itself an action, if it's a part of a causal train of actions, it's dramatic. Causation and tension and antagonism equals drama.
Diegesis, direct addresses to a narratee from a narrator are widely deprecated in today's fiction, but not absolutely forbidden or altogether extinct. Direct addresses from an implied author are even less desirable today. Direct addresses from a real author to a real reader are the least desirable today. But again, not extinct or prohibited. One of creative nonfiction's strengths comes from real author direct addresses to a narratee.
My point with all of the above is narrative voice inconsistencies are manifold, some effective, some disruptive. That's why I don't care for the catchall phrase point of view violation, there's too many possibilities that that phrase overlooks. Besides, there are no violations that haven't been violated effectively by someone sometime and probably relatively recently. So thinking in terms of violations to me limits creative vision possibilities. Fresh, original, and dynamic voice consistency is paramount for reader immersion in creative writing anymore.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited November 05, 2009).]
quote:
But to further posulliv's point... what if there is no evidence? (Or no substantial evidence) to back up the POV character's judgment? The problem, as I see it, is that when you have 2 character, both of whom get POV time regularly, I've found that readers are more likely to assume that any "John thought" or "John pretended" etc. is going to be from John's POV... even if we just spent 5 pages in Fred's POV.So is it impossible to assign judgments and assumptions, without having it look like a POV violation? (Or telling instead of showing?) I feel like going back and leaving out these small bits of thought would take away from developing some of my characters. How we perceive events, and what assumptions we make when there is insufficient information either way say a lot about who a person is. And if two POV characters are meeting for the first time, they're going to have assumptions about each other based on little to no information...
I understand Posulliv's point that we all make snap judgements, but I don't think there is ever no evidence for the judgement if the person is rational. There may be insufficient evidence and that person may be jumping to conclusions, but there is always some evidence no matter how small.
Look at Posulliv's example:
quote:
That guy in the BMW just cut me off. Rich guy. Thinks he owns the road. Didn't even look.
The judgement is that the guy was rich who thinks he owns the road. The evidence is that the guy was driving an expensive car and cut him off. The judgement may be unfair and harsh, but it wasn't baseless IMO.
Posulliv's example works as an example of someone making a rash judgement, and I think it does say a lot about the character of the person narrating.
[This message has been edited by MAP (edited November 05, 2009).]
quote:
Fred is the person speaking and acting. It could be that readers attach the tag 'Fred' to the paragraph and assume that all the thoughts, words, and deeds described in the paragraph are Fred's. "Pretending not to see" can appear to be Fred's intention, not John's thought.A simple change to clear things up might be:
"I told you last time. If you're late again, you owe me five bucks," John said. John extended his hand, palm up. Fred pretended not to see it.
Fred turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
I thought this was an excellent point, but no one followed up on it (that I can see). Is it not sufficient to solve the problem?
A viewpoint transition would solve it, if that's the case. Grisham, Clancy, Tolkien, Vonnegut, to name a few, all wrote multiple viewpoint character novels, each addressing viewpoint transitions in different ways. Tolkien in conventional methods, used subchapter breaks. Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions has the most apparent transition methods through blunt force with its omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent narrator. Clancy's viewpoint transitions tend to occur within paragraphs, multiple viewpoints depicted in the same paragraph. Grisham's occur across paragraph breaks, sometimes across line breaks.
Me as reader, in some cases, I find line break viewpoint transitions can be too abrupt without a transition passage. On the other hand, in the cut scene breaks can be effective with dynamic transition setups.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited November 05, 2009).]
quote:
So is it impossible to assign judgments and assumptions, without having it look like a POV violation? (Or telling instead of showing?)
Well the thing is, theres multiple definitions of both "showing" and "telling", and not everyone considers "telling" a universally bad thing. You can't write a whole story, let alone a novel, without telling. Some even prefer it for some things, especially emotions and other internal stuff. The editor of "Beneath Ceaseless Skies" once chided me in a rejection letter for trying to "show emotion through movie-style actions." Some folks feel attempt to "show" emotions and thoughts makes them too external, they want to simply be right in there with the thoughts and emotions.
My advice, based on my opinion and experience is this. Don't worry about what "rules" you are violating. Figure out what works best for the story your telling, and do that. Thats my opinion.
"I told you last time. If you're late again, you owe me five bucks," John said. John extended his hand. Maybe Fred didn't see his empty palm. No, not Fred. He saw it.
Fred turned towards the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry. Let's go inside."
Says the same thing, uses a few more words, but might tell us more about John and what he thinks about Fred.
[This message has been edited by posulliv (edited November 06, 2009).]