We were looking at Ursula K. Le Guin's writing book, Steering the Craft, which we're reading together really slowly. Le Guin talks at length about point of view. Specifically, we were talking about her example from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, where the point of view shifts from one character to the next and back and around. It's masterfully done, and most of my group agreed that trying it themselves just made a huge mess, and this was a lesson in sticking to the point of view of one character.
When I tried to write something like Woolf where the perspective shifts from one character to the next (and in my defense, I tried for about ten minutes and declared it good enough) I looked back on it when I was done, squinted at it, and said, "Well, that's just omniscient."
So that got me wondering, if you manage to make this work elegantly and smoothly, if you manage to change perspectives mid sentence without losing your reader, at what point is it still 3rd person and at what point have you moved to omniscient?
Feeling a sense of exasperation, Charlie Brown said, "Good grief," unknowing that Snoopy's activities were completely reasonable.So we get information from Charlie Brown's point of view (he feels exasperated) and then information from Snoopy's point of view (his plan is reasonable, if you ask Snoopy). So, without seeing any of the surrounding sentences, you could argue that this is in third person limited, but jumps from Chuck to Snoopy, or you could argue that this is omniscient and told by someone who knows what they're both thinking. I think there's two things going on that lean towards one or the other.
1. Voice. If I did a better job of having the first half in Charlie Brown's voice and the second half being in Snoopy's voice, that would be evidence for a shifting third person POV. If the voice is consistent through the whole sentence (which is not to say that there is no voice) that would be evidence for an omniscient POV.
2. Scope. Or how far the camera that shows us the scene is zoomed in. If this were a movie, and if the scene shows a wider view of the events, that's evidence for an omniscient POV. So if the camera can pick up Chuck's exasperation and Snoopy's motives at the same time, it's like we have both characters in frame at the same time in a wider shot. If the camera is zoomed in on Chuck, and then swivels or cuts to a close up of Snoopy, that's more like 3rd person POV. I can't really tell if you could say which one this is from this example, so maybe that's not helpful here. But one of my critique partners pointed out that an omniscient POV would be able to tell you something that the characters don't know themselves, and that seems to fit with this.
Thanks: I often try to avoid thinking about this . . . I agree that voice is a useful diagnostic for POV.. So, the way I see it, both First person and Close Third Person have the same voice but different pronouns . . . Close Third Person can shift between characters, but some sort of clear plot/scene/ major text structure transition prepares the reader for the shift, so you don't have to depend only on the characters' distinct and separate voices to tell what happened. . . . Omniscient has it's own voice, and doesn't use any of the characters' voices, even though it can reflect (in its own voice) on characters' different POV's. (which is why it can tell you something that the characters don't know themselves). . . Shifting Third Person shifts between voices that are, to the reader, identifiably different. I think that Shifting Third Person can be jarring, because it can pull the reader out of the story --- but if the point of the writing is reflection, analysis, etc., and not primarily story, then shifting third person can be useful and work effectively for the reader. . . . . And yes, I think the Charlie Brown example is omniscient because Snoopy's voice isn't used, and we don't really hear Charlie's voice. ---- on Scope: the camera gives Shifting POV's. If the camera is zoomed in on Chuck, and then swivels or cuts to a close up of Snoopy, that, to me, is more like Shifting Third Person POV if only Chuck/Snoopy are speaking. If the zoom and swivel come with anything that could pass for an outside voice, real or implied, then, I think, it's omniscient.
ReplyDelete"Strange The Dreamer" does an interesting thing with POV at the beginning of Ch 22.
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