Interesting thoughts @ChickenFreak I’m starting to wonder the same thing. It is written in past tense, but I still feel this is technically a violation of POV. My understanding is that you write about the character’s POV at the time the events were happening. If he didn’t know about it until a later point in time, then the narrator can’t say it at the time it’s happening. I actually didn’t know this was possible until this thread. I have never had the experience of being aware I am near to sleep, so had no idea other people could. I’m actually rather envious now, as it sounds interesting.
Actually this character is autistic, and one of the things he is reflecting on is his lack of understanding of a particular character’s intentions. So you’re not far off.
With respect, I disagree. Strict close third means not mentioning anything which is outside the character’s POV at the time it is happening. So if he didn’t know he had fallen asleep, the narrator can’t say it.
Well, I was in the business once upon a time. I have deleted so many autism responses, you wouldn't believe.
I'd say that that isn't mandatory, but if that's how you interpret your POV rules, then I can see that you wouldn't want to break that rule. I think that there could be a whole cluster of different past tense POVs defined by the point from which you're observing the events--immediate, like a millisecond after the events occurred, so that "past" is just a grammatical convention? Looking back from a modest distance? Looking back from a great distance? I think that there are a lot of choices, but if you've made the "immediate" choice I can see that you don't want to mess with it just for a character's nap.
How would it read if you broke the rule, broke free, introduced another aspect of narrator, here and there..? I turn the page, 'oh yes I like it when this guy talks...' If it fails, remove in draft, but no need to stumble.
Confusion intensifies. I see it very black and white. Something is either within a character’s POV or it isn’t. If it isn’t, and you report it, then you’re not within that character’s POV. Sure some things are a later realisation, so occur elsewhere in the timeline. But they’re still in the past, and they still occur after some point at which the character didn’t know about them. This is why I don’t like things like, “He didn’t know it yet, but...” or “She wouldn’t find out until later that...”
He faced the wall like Stone Cold Steve Austin, his fists vice-like and massive. ... Tony slept well that night...
I don't like those either, but I don't see this as being the same thing. Again. if your POV is what I might call "instantaneous past", that's your POV, and that's perfectly legitimate. My objection is to the idea that close third person past tense is always close-third-person-instantaneous-past-tense. If I'm going to argue this, I should have examples, and right now I don't have clear cut examples. I may or may not return someday with some.
Maybe it's just a matter of personal style. I just didn't know that stepping out of POV was the done thing if you are specifically writing in that style. Yeah, I'm kind of looking at this as an academic discussion now I know it probably doesn't matter that much.
I'm saying that you're not stepping out of POV--that is, you are in the "...little did he know..." example, but I believe that there are other definitions of the POV that would support the "fell asleep" premise. I realize that my saying that is useless without examples. I'll see if I can come up with some. I thought that I might find some over lunch in An Episode of Sparrows, but that book is sufficiently fluid in both POV and time that it's not good for an example. My quibbling here is not remotely relevant to your exact problem, because you aren't interested in that other sort of POV; my posts in this thread are now a discussion of POV rather than a discussion of your problem.
OK, I concoct an example: Imagine that a first person story is presented with a viewpoint well ahead of the action: I walked to the Starbucks, reveling in the freedom of escaping the office, enjoying the sound of my shoes on the sidewalk. I did that almost every day, but that day would be quite different. My life was forever after defined by "before" and "after". Perfectly legitimate first person past, yes? (If not 'yes', then we would need to back the discussion up. ) We can grammatically change that to third person: He walked to the Starbucks, reveling in the freedom of escaping the office, enjoying the sound of his shoes on the sidewalk. He did that almost every day, but that day would be quite different. His life was forever after defined by "before" and "after". To me, neither of these are exiting the POV. It's just that the POV is "sitting" on a point in the timeline well past the action being discussed, and therefore that POV can roam up and down the timeline.
Drifting back, and this actually is relevant to your problem, though I'm not assuming that it will be persuasive. Edited to add: OK, maybe it isn't relevant, because it is still tied to the timeline concern. But I'll leave the rest of this post unedited anyway. It occurs to me that even if I weren't aware of the experience of falling asleep, I would certainly say, I fell asleep. I wouldn't quibble, saying, "Well, I didn't consciously experience falling asleep, so I'm going to say, 'By the evidence, I conclude that I fell asleep.'" People use the phrase "I fell asleep". It would be perfectly natural for a conversation to occur: Joe: "What did you think of the movie?" Jane: "I have no idea. I fell asleep." You're using close third person. That means that to some extent, you're riding along using the voice of your character. If your character would say, "I fell asleep," why wouldn't your close third person narrator use that same phrasing? By declining to say that, I feel that you're actually stepping out to a much more distant narrative position. Your narrator would be using an extremely literal voice, but is your character similarly literal? Would your character really refuse to say, "I fell asleep"?
Is he doing something that he would regularly fall asleep doing? Such as- reading after 10pm, turning on CNN, or did he accidently light that scented candle that makes his sleepy.
I fall in the camp of "you're being overly strict." Think about how much of what you do there is that you don't even think about doing, as you are doing it. For example, if I'm writing first person, I might say: "I got ready for work." Unless it's important to the story, I wouldn't mention every step of the process, because it's largely automatic. I'm generally not aware of getting dressed, unless I have trouble finding something, until the point where I match my socks with my pocket square (yes, of course I do. Yes, I'm a freak that way). I'm only aware at a semi-conscious level of all the steps that go into me getting ready for work, and I certainly don't narrate them in my head ("I pulled on the right sock, then the left"). So much of what we do would only realistically be noted by an omniscient narrator that to pull in a bit of omniscience to describe something that, for most people, cannot be noticed internally seems a very minor cheat.
Often when I'm about to sleep, I set my mind to enter a destination. For example, when I finally go to bed tonight, my eyes will close, and I will enter a field full of flowers surrounded by mountains. I will walk, noting the type of flower, the texture, their colour and by mid field I am gone. I follow this routine because it allows me the ability to enter a dream state on my own terms. Being able to control how I enter my sleep state is important because my dreams are excruciatingly vivid. The type of dream where the scene is waiting for me to close my eyes, and we resume where we left off. Maybe your character has a similar routine which allows them to keep the first person POV.
Really? People seriously don't feel themselves fall asleep? Weird. I'm acutely aware of it. As for POV, there are times when you can get away with nudging outside of it for a sentence, maybe two. People might notice it, but it's become conventional in some respects. My short story is in close third, but I break it for one sentence to clarify the ethnicity of a character. Then it's back to close third. It's not technically in keeping with the POV, but it's a common practice.
