Describing actions is fine. It's entering into another character's head that is a no-no as far as the "rules" go. The camera can go wherever it wants so long as the POV character is holding it.
Sure. Either in third person limited with shifting POV, or third person omniscient. Edited to add: And, yes, you can describe the actions of anybody that your POV character can see. But it sounded like you didn't want to be limited to what they can see.
So can it describe what the other person is seeing then as well, as it did in the example I posted in the OP?
So according to the article, third person omniscient does not "head hop" or delve into individual character's psyches or change its tone when it expresses the character's thoughts or feelings, etc. However, the very nature of free indirect discourse is that the narrator's voice actually shifts into the character's voice, even though it maintains itself as standard narration Let me see if I can quickly grab some examples from P&P (which I believe was one of the first uses of the technique, though perhaps only one of the most famous): The description of Darcy is coloured heavily actually from the voice of the disgruntled people of the public ball rather than the actual voice of the narrator, overreacting in their admiration when they heard he was rich, then immediately upon feeling slighted from his not favourably receiving their advances (after having heard he was rich) deciding he was not actually handsome and has a severe personality defect. Edit: we know it is, because we much later in the story learn that Darcy, while indeed proud in some ways, is also actually shy and socially awkward. He struggles talking to new people and making new acquaintances/friends. Because of this, he tends to strictly keep only to the people he already knows, which is how he is seen to give off airs of superior indifference that affronts the neighborhood. A lot of times the tone of voice shifts to mirror the thoughts & feelings of the characters in those instances rather than maintaining the voice of the narrator. But maybe I'm missing something, which is what I was hoping someone could point out to me
No, I didn't actually state my intentions as far as that was concerned. However, I was under the impression that it wasn't okay to switch at all... now I'm getting the sense that it is okay if done properly.
This is why I like first POV. Then when you head hop, the one speaking only knows what they know. It keeps things more central to each character, so if another knows something about another character will not know, unless it is shared between them. I can't see why it would not work for third limited (at least you don't have to define jumps as directly as you do with first), but the page break or time/space gap (***) helps. Who writes in third omniscient? That would be weird.
To be fair, I could just have come from problematic literature The stories I love and am most familiar with very well could be exceptions to the rules, and I'm taking for granted that the rules accommodate them
What's the difference though? I guess I'm confused, if I can describe the person's actions from their POV, then that's still hopping over to them in order to do it. If I moved a real, actual camera over to that person, the camera would then see what they are seeing but from over their shoulder, rather than from their eyes... Edit: I have to drag my happy ass to bed now, kinda late, so I'll chime back in tomorrow sometime. Thanks for all the help here guys!
Hmm. The second link that I provided above does seem to address these things, kinda sorta. For your specific example, I'm perfectly comfortable with seeing the paragraph as omniscient. While it describes the feelings of multiple people, it structures that description in a...er...structure that pretty clearly seems to be a creation of the narrative voice. If we instead got a paragraph from the view of the gentlemen, and a paragraph from the ladies, it would be fractionally less clear--though, there, the fact that we're dealing with the feelings of groups, instead of individuals, again signals "omniscient" to me.
That's the essence of the omniscient POV. The narrator is a separate all-knowing all-seeing character completely divorced from the characters on the page--like grandpa sitting by the fire telling a folktale. It is, quite literally, the voice of god. Now we mainly write books where the narration flows from a character in the book, which makes head-hopping "impossible." Again, there is nothing wrong with a POV shift so long as it is clearly delineated by a chapter or scene break. I have no idea how we ended up with that rule, but somehow it became chapter one for almost every how-to-write book. There are exceptions but they are rare. Ditch the camera analogy, lol... it does more harm than good. If you and I were sitting next to each other right now I could describe all your actions, hear everything you said, and maybe infer a thing or two about what you were feeling from your inflection, expressions, and anything else I know about you (see we've been friends for years). However, I cannot decipher exactly what you are feeling or what you are "seeing" in your mind's eye. That's POV. I, like the reader, am stuck in my own head to the betterment or detriment of all that unfolds before me.
The novel also* has free indirect discourse for individual characters, particularly from Lizzy but also from others. And I personally fully argue it's in those characters voices the narration's voice assumes. I just grabbed the first example I could find, because it's a large book (originally two volumes) and I can't remember what part happens at what page number. Edit: the first article says the narration must maintain only the omniscient narrator's voice. The second article seems to argue that free indirect discourse has a "he thought" or "she said" attached to attribute & make obvious the free indirect discourses. How I've always been taught it is that often it has no attribution, and can slip into the narrative structure as though it comes from the narrator themselves—but the big hint that it in fact is not the impartial & all-knowing narrator providing facts but the subjective & oft biased thoughts or impressions of characters (singular or a group) is the fact that the tone or voice matches said characters. Edited again: nope, I seemed to have missed some of the second article in trying to read it quickly. Feel free to disregard that struck through portion. Although I currently still have qualms with the first articles stance on narration never altering or mirroring characters voice * means altered for clarification. However, Austen might just be a rare & famous exception to rules and I'm harping on this rare exception And once more, I truly do appreciate your clarifications and even searching for articles for me
In your example, you switched in the middle of a paragraph, and with essentially zero signal to the reader that you were making a switch. I tweak it to make a POV shift at a paragraph mark: Stepping out on the wharf among the docked ships, a sound made him give pause. It was distinct, yet faint. At first he thought he’d imagined it, and the rabble behind him made it difficult to hear. About to go on his way, he heard it again, and clearly this time. It was like hearing a dog being kicked, the sort of noise that made one cringe while giving a sense of pity. Agnar felt that pity more than anything. Behind a stack of barrels, he found a small child, a boy no more than seven years, slumped into a ball. His clothes were worn and filthy, and his body pale, covered in dirt. His bones showed through the skin, drained of sustenance. Agnar's shadow was cast upon the ground, covering him, shielding the boy from the sun’s fading rays. Jay had been grieving all through the cold night and into the merciless glare of the morning. His chest was aching with sobs when the shadow fell over him, causing him to look up in terror. He saw a tall figure and skittered back, preparing to run. But the weathered, middle-aged man made him think of Granddad. The stern face and serious gaze reminded Jay of a safer time, and so he froze and waited to see what might happen. I try to signal the POV shift in several ways: "Jay"--a moment ago, Agnar had no idea who the child was. Now we have a POV that does know, so obviously we've shifted. The "had been"--we're moving to the immediate past of Jay, to events that Agnar doesn't know about. "aching with sobs"--only the person sobbing could know that fact. "Shadow fell over him"--the shadow is acting as a sort of handoff--as Agnar we cast it, now as the boy it's cast on us. Granddad, reminded, etc.--we dive deep into Jay's thoughts. Edited to add: Of course, we could have added one of those marky-things, line of asterisks or somesuch, between the shift points. But if you're going to return to Agnar a few paragraphs later, that would probably be too disruptive.
I don't know that I'd say exception--maybe "variant"? Omniscient is a really variable thing. If I saw specific examples, I could probably again describe how I feel that the identity/voice of the narrator is preserved, but I'd need the examples. And I should add that I really think that all of these things are descriptive rather than prescriptive. If a mode of narration works, it works. If the reader is gently lowered into a character for a while, and then gently fished back out again to rejoin the narrative voice, and that reader's engagement in the story isn't hampered, then that worked.
First Article on Omniscient Narrator & Headhopping: Second Article on Free Indirect Discourse (particularly Austen portion in 3rd person omniscient: Italics are mine. I think basically I just take issue with the first article's stance—because it bars frequent use of free indirect discourse which is what I'm used to and love in 3rd omniscient
Not an exception at all. Most 19th century novels were written like this. Head-hopping was the rule until plot-based novels took over the industry. Some chalk it up to attention span, namely that movies diluted the story experience with quick, convenient action and character cliches. Readers wanted to see a similar package in their books, so the drifting, atmospheric novels of Austen, Tolstoy, et al were replaced by simpler, plot-based narratives. My guess would be that the tighter POVs grew out of this. Readers wanted to "be" the characters (or the movie stars) so writers stopped head-hopping and divided their POVs into manageable, movie-style cuts. They still followed different characters, but they didn't flip heads whenever they felt like it anymore.
I agree when I take the first article literally. I feel that perhaps "voice" was the wrong term for the author of that article to use. I find myself thinking...structure? Or...or... OK, probably bad analogy: Imagine that the author is creating a collage. The elements of the collage, the pictures and headlines and stuff, were created by other people, but you can still see the hand of the artist in what elements were chosen and how they were arranged. You want an omniscient work to feel like a single person is presenting you with that collage picture, rather than a whole bunch of different people running up to you, thrusting a picture at you and saying, "Look!" before they run away and the next one runs up.
Alright so basically this is answering my initial actually second, subsequent question: The main distinguishable distinction from a poorly handled limited with inappropriate POV shifts and a third person omniscient, is that omniscient has the noticeable artistic presentation or particular style or tone or voice that colours the entire piece while the headhoppimg limited has no internal consistent structure of voice or tone? (I can totally accept that as the answer, by the way)
Mostly yes. I say "mostly" because I wouldn't say that the presentation/style/tone/voice is necessarily the main distinction, but I would say that it is absolutely necessary. And, really, I can't think of a more important one.
And that absolutely works for me, and I understand that Thank you so much for taking all this time to work through this with me. I really, really appreciate it This is why I love talking to you. I learn so much [also thank you for not interpreting me as being a smartass—I almost always get accused of being snarky or rude or captious, and my tone generally doesn't come across right. So thanks for being patient with me]
I think it's more likely to be confusing when inexperienced writers use it. But even when it's done "right" and it's clear at all times whose POV we're in, I don't like it. A lot of people make a similar argument to you--that it doesn't bother readers, only writer-readers. I disagree. I didn't like head hopping (or intentional omni) before I started writing. The difference is that when I was just a reader, I didn't have the knowledge to identify exactly what was bothering me. If asked what I didn't like I would have said something like I didn't feel close enough to the characters, or the story felt unfocused, or something like that. Now I would say, "There was lots of head hopping." or "It was in omni." This is a personal taste thing - like ChickenFreak, I recognise that omni has a place, but it's not a place I enjoy going to. It's the same reason I much prefer deep POV over shallow; I like to be right in a character's head, living the story with them, rather than hovering above and watching from a distance. I can't get immersed in one head when I'm being shunted from one to another every few paragraphs. I don't even like limited when it shifts character POV too often - again, I can't get comfortable when I keep being booted around.
I like how @Tenderiser comes in and sorta ends the discussion, she knows her stuff. I also agree, @Homer Potvin , that the camera analogy is probably wrong, I think I may have been tripping myself up with that. I still have a dilemma about how to describe Agnar before getting much further in the story since this is sorta the character introduction. I was trying to use the kid to describe him, but now it's almost like I have to find a way for him to describe himself, or do it in the next chapter, or something like that. Thanks everybody, I appreciate all the great help I get on this forum!
I agree that it's the independent voice of the narrator that distinguishes omniscient from head-hopping, and some of my favourite books are in omniscient. With Austen, I think it's important to recognize that the narration is poking fun at the characters a lot of the time. So, yes, it will report "He must marry no one but herself!" but it's doing it in a tongue-in-cheek way, like the narrator is reporting the character's thoughts at the same time as holding them up to be laughed at (gently). For me, close third allows me to have a close "relationship" with the character(s) of the book, while omniscient allows me to have a close relationship with the narrator of the book. Does that distinction make sense?
Yes, it makes perfect sense. Spoiler: Narrative Voice Actually, I always associated narration with a(n undisclosed) narrator—that narrations have particular voices and even personalities, often unrelated or not meant to reflect the actual person of the author, a distinct voice of each book. Narration I've always sort of read as it's own shadow character. And for me, I find it so dry & dull with stories when it seems there's really no flavour to the narration—just barebones "did this" and "said that" basic facts reported with the indifferent opinion of a cookbook. I sadly find a lot of modern/contemporary literature—with the obsession of minimalism of expression—comes off like this to me. I rather like close third, first person, and omniscient with a distinct voice. I like the individual character and unique expressions of a personal narration. It's probably why, regardless of point of view, I'm often drawn to satires & parodies. There is nearly no way to express disapprobation, disgust, or mocking bemusement without the narration itself possessing an overpowering personality that bleeds through the prose. They just have too much of an opinion to not have a character. Of course, that is a very subjective view of writing/reading.
Like everybody else said, it's a POV change. If you hadn't brought it up, I, as a reader, wouldn't have noticed it. It doesn't bother me. But don't trust my opinion, I have the same problems with POV as a writer. In fact, I only learned about POV after I joined the forum. Before that, I would just notice that something would not flow right. Sometimes I would fix it by instinct, sometimes I would struggle in vain. At least now I know what I'm looking for. Still, as a reader, it doesn't bother me. Maybe because I've read many 19th century classics and I'm used to POV shifts. I'll say this, though: the smoother the better. I prefer @ChickenFreak's take on the paragraphs because there's a better distinction between POV change. My opinion, in short: it's not about the POV shift, it's about the smoothness of the transition. I still have a lot to learn about this myself.
