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POV

                                              February 19, 2005

Once upon a time, I conceived a simple,
universal rule about how fictional
narrative should be handled.                 I'm the kind of person that
                                             likes simple universal rules.
The rule is that all fiction must
have a single point-of-view, and             In this case,    It's too bad I
you must stick to this "pov"                 the rule was     like to insist
rigorously.                                  based on what    on the rules
                                             I suspect is     actually being
The reader should know nothing               a misreading     correct.
that the main character does                 of Blish/
not know.                                    Atheling
                                             criticism.
                      WHOS_ON_FIRST
                                             Blish was complaining about
   Identification of the reader              writers that abruptly shift pov
   with the fictional hero is                from paragraph to paragraph (or
   central to the function of                even sentence to sentence).
   the story.
                                                   I don't think that a
                                                   clearly indicated shift
                                                   of pov between chapters
                                                   (or even scenes) would
                                                   have bothered him.

                                                      BLISH

  There's the question of whether
  the narrative is allowed to
  jump around in time.              A single pov in a
                                    single virtual moment?
The modern style is to
maintain a pretence that                 Or is the narrative supposed
the reader is riding along               to be an account written down
inside of the narrator's                 in retrospect by the main
head from moment to moment.              character?  In which case one
                                         might even address the reader
   Despite the vestigial past            directly.
   tense, which is an odd
   historical remnant of the               Once that was the standard
   older narrative style, which            narrative device: Doctor Watson
   imitates a non-fiction                  is sitting down discussing why
   account of past events.                 he feels he can now tell the
                                           tale which will follow.
      The modern style is a
      pseudo-present tense,                The fiction of the fiction was
      written in past form.                that the author was pretending
                                           to be presenting an actual
                                           historical document, something
                                           written by a person involved in
                                           the story.

                               A story thus begun      The-- otherwise
                               rules out use of an     execrable-- critic
                               omniscient narrator.    Darrel Schweitzer named
                                                       this well, calling it a
                                 That strikes          story with a "frame" in
                                 me as a virtue.       analogy to pictures
                                                       presented in a frame.
                                 ALL_WRONG 
                                                         A framing narrative
                                                         around the narrative.
Creative writing                                         
classes seem to place a                                  
lot of emphasis on the                             
choice of the "person"                             
of the narrative: first         
person (past tense) and
third person (past
tense) being the two            Second person is
most common choices.            always discussed,
                                though it's rare.
"I walked down the street";
"He walked down the street".        "You didn't realize,
                                    did you, as you walked
  (Or "She walked --"               down the street, that --"
   of course.)
                                        Other, even rarer choices are
A point that often seems                possible... a friend once
overlooked, though it seems             suggested as a joke writing
obvious enough, is that all             a story in plural future tense.
these "persons" are connected.
                                        It struck me as very easy
   "I am telling                        to do... e.g. as a prophecy:
   you about him."                      "One day you will all rise up
                                        and become The Great People --"
             (or her)

      There isn't any reason a
      coherent narrative can't
      switch between persons--
      e.g. in using a framing         Examples of contemporary
      narrative, the story            writers that make good
      might start in first,           use of a shifting pov?
      then shift to third.
                                      Geoffrey Household
                                      comes to mind.


            There's no shortage of modern
            examples of the kind of problem
            that Blish/Atheling was
            complaining about, though.

               The influence of the movies:
               no one can resist rapid
               cutting.




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