Thursday, March 5, 2009

What do you think about changing POV in different chapters in children's books? In the Harry Potter books for example the majority of chapters being written in the protagonist's POV . But there might be some chapters in different POV. Mine changes POV in four chapters which seems a nice fit to me. I know Adult books do this a lot.

When changing POV like that does everything that happens have to be known to the protagonist?

And omnipresent POV is what?? Is that when it's not in any one charater's POV? The narrative written as though it's coming from some person unrelated to the story in any way. The Lord of the Rings books for example? Is that an old fashioned way of telling the story? AUGH!! It's all so deep. I just want to write. And rules...are made to be broken, right?

2 comments:

  1. Robyn, I don't think changing POV is a problem is you can do it smoothly. The only time it seems to bother people is when they notice it, or when it stands out as jarring. If you change, not everything has to be known by the protagonist. In fact, you can create suspense by letting readers know something that the protagonist doesn't know. Like that the monster is...right...behind...him. Shhh!

    The omnipresent or omniscient POV just means that the writer sees everything, but even this can have variations. I wrote a post on it here if you want to read more.

    http://literarylab.blogspot.com/2009/02/third-person-point-of-view.html

    And, YES, by all means break the rules if it makes the writing better!

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  2. I think what you described is acceptable and not an example of head-hopping.

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