Okay, I have a question about POV. I have read OSC's book on characters and viewpoints, and he makes a strong case that once you commit to a POV, you must stay in it unless you notify the reader with either a break in the chapter or new chapter altogether.

Now, I just started reading Speaker for the Dead, and I'm still only in Chapter 1, and I had to stop to ask this question. I just finished reading the interview between Pipo and Novinha before Pipo allows her to take the xenobiologist exam. Maybe I am ignorant, but it seems to be that OSC changes the POV in the middle of the section! He seems to start of with Novinha's POV, and then, out of nowhere, says, "Don't lecture me, thought Pipo. Tell me what you feel." Has OSC broken his own rule?

And further, right after the exposition about Novinha taking and passing the exam, OSC seems to slip into Libo's POV when it says that he was galled that Novinha was around.

Am I not understanding how a 3rd person POV works, or has (horror of horrors!) OSC made some serious blunders? Or, is he using the omniscient POV?

HELP!

Sorry, I know this was aimed for Kathleen, but I think you're right: He broke his own rule. My guess is that he just lost track of the POV, since in his head he was probably immersed equally in both. If he had done it on purpose, I expect he would put a line break and managed it a bit differently, and the way he had been going so far, it doesn't seem like 3rd person omniscient to me: No hint of what Pipo is thinking in that section until that moment, whereas we have deep penetration of Novinha. So, it seems like an oops, probably brought on by the preceding block of dialog, wherein he doesn't need to make reference to either character's thoughts for a little while. But it feels only slightly jarring to me, which I suspect is how it got into the book.

Thanks for the note. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one noticing these things. I've had this question for a long time--not just with OSC books, but I also see Stephen King changing POV's suddenly. Of course, both Card and King are incredible writers, and you know what they say--the good writers not only know the rules, but they also know how to break them.

So, if this really is the case, then why and when should such an important rule be broken?

Sorry, but I disagree. POV is quite different from grammar. Grammar changes according to the kind of piece you are writing. For example, I had to use formal grammar for my Master's thesis and all of my academic papers. However, in the few popular articles that I've published, I used a much more lax style of grammar. I used contractions and dashes, for example, and I didn't have to worry if a particular conjunction is a post-positive or not.

I submit that within fiction--other than the most basic grammatical rules--there are no rules. There are one-word sentences and paragraphs. Incomplete sentences are used. Words are made up. Commas aren't used when they're supposed to be. Et cetera. Of course, you need to know the rules if you expect to know when and how to break them, and what affect breaking them will have on the reader. (I don't want to sound nasty, Bone, but grammar is something you need to work on. You're above entry is horrendous!)

Now, it seems to me that POV is quite different. I can't say that I'm writing a limited 3rd person POV and then dip into the heads of three characters in one scene. That's not 3rd person POV, that's omniscient POV. It's like drawing a geometrical figure with three sides and wanting to call it a square. Sorry, but it's not a square, it's a triangle. That's how I view POV. You're either writing in limited 3rd person or not.

My original question with OSC's book is that he starts off in a tight 3rd person POV and then suddenly switches it. And I've seen other authors do this, too. Am I view POV wrong? Is it a rule that can be broken? If so, when and why?

It's interesting to talk about OSC's work because many of us (including myself and Augustine) know something of what he teaches on the subject of writing, and he has very clearly-developed opinions on how best to use it. He does, not surprisingly, say that rules can be broken -- you just have to know what the cost is.

My inference on this one is that he did not notice he broke this rule, and that the reason he didn't notice that the section of pure dialog served as a decent segue from Novinha's point of view to Pipo's, so that the change isn't jarring. Or possibly he did this, noticed it, and decided it really didn't break the flow of scene, so why change it?

It seems to me if there weren't all that dialog between the two, we would have been very well established in Novinha's POV still and would have felt jarred to suddenly be dumped into Pipo's.

The lesson I'm taking away from it so far is that dialog can sometimes act as a transition between characters, and while it's not a great idea to change POV abruptly in mid-scene using dialog as a transition, if you do write a scene that way, the resulting problem is very minor.

It's been long enough since I've read SPEAKER that I don't think I could answer with regard to the specific incident unless I reread it.

That said, I'll guess that either it is as Luc suggested: OSC noticed the POV change and decided to let it go because the dialogue worked as a kind of break in POV, or, as has been known to happen, it was a slip.

Nobody's perfect, not even OSC, and I think he'd be the first to admit it.

We all know what we should do better than we actually end up doing it--my father used to tell me "don't do as I do, do as I say" and, as you may have guessed, that went over like a lead balloon.

What I'd suggest as a learning experience from the particular scene in SPEAKER that you are talking about is that the insertion of dialogue can ease a point of view change in a way not terribly different from a scene break.

After all, the final judgment call on a rule breaking, whether intentional on the author's part or not, depends on whether the rule breaking worked.

If it bothered you enough to stop you cold in the story, then it didn't work, and no matter what OSC intended, he failed. But you may have been reading more carefully than other readers, and they may never have noticed it--so it worked for them.

If it didn't work for you, add it to the list of things you will try to watch for in your own work.

If it worked for you, add it to the list of ways you may be able to try to break the POV rules--but only when it's really necessary.

I also think you two (Luc and Kathleen) are right. The dialogue does serve as a pseudo-break. Perhaps the reason why it didn't work for me is becasue I try to read as a writer, thus I know I read more closely than the average reader.

Speaker has a unique flow, and Card's use of POV is an important part of it. He switched POV and interjected thoughts at moments in which they worked well in the plot. A break in the chapter would have disrupted the flow.

The POV rule is a matter of aesthetics. Just as a blemish can look good on Cindy Crawford or gawdy tail fins can look good on a '59 Cadillac, a sudden POV change can feel right in a story.

I have to take issue with you. I have read most of King's novels, and I can't recall one in which he uses the omniscient POV. (I'm not saying, however, that he doesn't use omniscient POV -- I just can't remember a story now.)

I think you are confusing multiple limited 3rd person POV with omniscient POV. I say that because of your reference to Misery. It's been a long time since I read that book, but if I recall correctly, King never moves outside of Paul Sheldon's POV. In other words, we only see the story through his eyes.

Then you said that in other stories he jumps around. The Stand, for example, is told from several POV. Chapter 1 is told from Stu's POV; Chapter 2, from Frannie's; Chapter 3, from Larry's; et cetera. But that is not omniscient viewpoint. He still uses a limited 3rd person POV, but he tells the story from multipule viewpoints.

Omniscient viewpoint is when you dip into the thoughts of several characters in the same scene. Have you ever read the Dragonlance novels? They are written in omniscient viewpoint. In the course of one scene, we may tap into the mind's of two or three characters.

I refer you to OSC's Character and Viewpoint for a more detailed discussion.