Looking for some helpful advice on how or what is appropriate narration for 3rd person limited POV. I think part of the confusion is that I've been looking at different authors treatments and it has only made me more confused on how to handle it. I'll see if I can be as clear as possible. I understand the 3rd person limited POV in terms of what the viewpoint character is privy to (sensory, thoughts/feelings) but am wondering if it is ok to provide omniscient narration, or does that "break" 3rd person limited POV? For example, is it ok to write this in 3rd person limited? --- During the founding of the town seventy years ago, the original founding fathers sought a place that provided shelter from the strong winds from the west, thereby choosing a location nestled against a hillside. --- ...or does this omniscient viewpoint spoil the limited perspective?
It does, but it might not matter. For example, if:- - it's at the opening of a scene before the pov character appears (i.e. there are points at which it's ok to switch from 3rd-omni to 3rd-ltd) - it's something the pov character might know Usually the perspective isn't limited for the sake of it, it's more like an aid to immersion/vividness. A question to ask might be 'does the reader really need to know this stuff?' The OP doesn't include the context before and after, but I thought the sentence might be good as a way of showing the pov character has in-depth historical knowledge of the town. But otoh if it's just the author writing to the author (e.g. as part of the process of coming up with a fantasy setting) the detail might not matter to the reader, in which case it might be stronger to take it out and stick with a pure 3rd-ltd. There are numerous other squirrelly approaches - e.g. During the founding of the town seventy years ago, the original founding fathers sought a place that provided shelter from the strong winds from the west, thereby choosing a location nestled against a hillside. But Yosemite Sam didn't know any of that, because he weren't one o' them book-learnt swots. Or it might be possible to cut it down slightly to match what the pov character is aware of, and put it into their voice / say it how they would say it. I'd suggest not to worry too much about formal rules for pov - this is something where if it's wrong it will sound strange when the OP comes back to revise from 1st draft to 2nd draft (especially if a good number of weeks is left inbetween and it's viewed with fresh eyes, or if it's read aloud to another person).
Here's a blog post where I went into some detail about something very close to this: Switching between close and distant 3rd. Look into the comments underneath as well, there's some good discussion there. I was talking more specifically about showing the surroundings, for example a 'shot' where you can 'see' the MC in an environment, something he or she wouldn't be able to see. But if you can pull back for a visual shot like that briefly at the beginning of a chapter or a scene, then you can also pull back in terms of psychic distance—how close or distant we are from the MC's POV.
evild4ve, thanks for the feedback. I do prefer the intro pov or even as Xoic mentioned possibly having it in the middle somewhere that works. I'm finding that beta readers don't really notice or care about any pov inconsistencies, but then I read how editors and publishers harp on it, and it leaves me waffling. Xoic, I'm happy to hear someone else wrestle with the issue who cares enough to possibly extend oneself outside of the envelope in order to create a personal approach to writing vs. going by the book. That you were going by intuition says a lot...that's not to be dismissed so easily, imo.
If you put the little @ sign in front of someone's name it will pull them magically in, like this: @KoW And yeah, my aim is definitely to learn the rules so I can then bend, twist or break them at will. You can't do that if you're not familiar with the rules in the first place, instead you'll be busy fumbling, foundering and flailing. I'll drop my mantra here once again: Study the rules of composition, practice them as much as possible, and then work intuitively
