My question is, how do POV shifts affect you?

First of all, there are no rules, but if you do something jarring, make sure it's important enough to be worth it.

Point of view shifts need to happen at a break. This is as close to a rule as you can get. You either need a double spaced break or a chapter break to shift point of view, shifting mid section, even between paragaphs, will not work.

Second, while there are some who propose a maximum limit of POV characters, my basic guideline is this: a POV character should be one we've already met in order for it not to be jarring. That is, if you start in character X's POV, and then switch to character Y, did you mention character Y in those first 20 pages? If you did, it will seriously help smooth the transition.

The longer you tell a stroy in one POV before switching, the more jarring. THe less you've mentioned the character we switch to, the more jarring. If you create a pattern (XYXYXYXYXY per chapter) and then change it abruptly, that can be jarring.

For example, Harry Turtledove's alternate history World War series easily POV shifts between several protagonists and antagonists, sometimes within the same chapter. Of course, having that many characters can be a serious drawback and I was confused at times when dealing with the lizard-like aliens' names.

Then Ben Elton's book Inconceivable comes to mind... Two protagonists that are also each other's antagonist in a way. The book is written as diary entries for each person and often switches POV after a paragraph or two. It doesn't detract from the story. In fact, it's quite cleverly done and very humorous.

Smith looked up. He was hungry. Hopefully, the customer would be quick.

"Hello?" Jane said. "Could you help me please?"

She had to return her air conditoner and get the money back. Supper had to be bought, and while being cool would be nice, starving wouldn't.

God, why wasn't the accountant saying anything?

Smith took his time, letting the customer bask in her impatience. If she wanted to annoy him, just as he was about to leave, well...she could wait a little herself.

I used the term "skitzo" very loosely. I'm sure most everyone would have gathered my meaning without too much trouble, as you have. Thank you, though, you're are absolutely correct.

Don't thank her! She hates you!

"No she doesn't, she's only trying to help. Now quit it, you, or it's back in the box."

Ha! You wouldn't! You're bluffing, you goit!

"Am not. Remember the last time you wanted kittens for breakfast and wouldn't take no for answer?"

Er.. yeah.

First person point of view: A character tells the story using "I"

Second person point of view: The reader walks through the story or is being commanded, "You" (Most often used in instruction manuals such as cookbooks)

Third person point of view: He/she to tell the story

Third person omniscient: The narrator tells the story through no particular character's eyes, ocassionally revealing the thoughts of any character.

Third person limited: The narrator tells the story through one character's point of view, telling only what he knows and sees.

I certainly hope POV shifts can be done well, because I'm relying on them heavily for my current novel WIP.

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(I suppose you could semi-omniscient POV shifts, like tell the story through three characters' eyes, but never get inside any other characters' heads, and then switch to telling the story from four other characters' POVs, without getting in the first three characters' heads, but that's just silly; you would probably end up with a highly experimental, edgy piece of crap. More power to you, though, if you can make it work.)

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I suppose it all depends on story length. The longer the story, the more lee-way you have when it comes to POV.

Basically, we've got 4 clones. No. Three (I^3) is the narrator. But you get perspective from all four clones as they do their thing.

Here's just the tiniest bit of the start:

Since the agency opened for business, I've worked out a mutually sastifactory division of labor among myself. I^3 manage the office, I^1,2 do the legwork, and I^4 take care of the deep thinking. So far, the system works.

***

Or "choose your own adventure" books.

Mind of I ask a question?

The most common criticim (and probably deservedly so) of my current work is that I have too many POV shifts and that it is confusing. From my POV :-) this early part of the novel is all introduction and background anyway, and each POV shift and the information gained thereby is just a means to set the stage before the main story line starts.

So, where do I go from here? Would it make sense to expand each of the POV scenes into a chapter? At present, they're each just a page or so long.

Is there an acceptable artifice to tell the reader what I'm trying to do without being too obvious or interfering about it?

I am sadly confused... but that's OK. It's getting my readers confused that bothers me. Any suggestions?

Mike

One time when it might be appropriate to go into the POV of a character who hasn't been mentioned before, even late in the book, is if no one else in the scene has been mentioned before, either. Granted, this is an unusual situation, but it can happen. It is rather jarring if you have someone new, watching and thinking about an old familiar character who has had lots of POV coverage before.

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Marie felt the breath suck out of her body and her arms fell lifeless to her sides. She dropped to the ground, struggling for breath as the old man began to fight Wukung.
The curve vanished from his spine; where he had appeared thin and wizened, he now seemed skeletal. As he fought, he shook himself and a ghastly white skeleton in rich, embroidered robes faced the Monkey King.

Kennedy knelt by his sister. “Marie? Marie? What’s wrong?”

Words would not come. She tried to shake her head to tell him that everything was wrong. Her arms seemed glued to her sides and it felt as if her bones were melting away inside. She groaned as she looked past Kennedy to the fight. He turned to see what she stared at.

Wukung was tired. Kennedy could see that trying to get past Pa Chieh had worn him out, and the Demon took full advantage of this. Kennedy looked for Pa Chieh to see if he could help, but he was still struggling with the cloth and had worked his way farther from the group.

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I get more concerned with the story arcs than with the POVs: I don't mind getting the POV of someone who is in the same subplot as someone else (hell, it's a welcome change of narrator).
But I mind more the prospect of departing from that subplot entirely and getting the POV of someone who is embroiled in something else entirely.

I don't know if I've been clear...To take an example, I don't mind getting the POV of the captain of an invading army, and then that of the mayor of the city they're besieging, but I do mind if the POV shifts to that of a priest who's hundreds of miles from there and who has nothing to with the subplot of the siege.

I have to be honest, this formula drives me nuts. It is often 1'3 to halfway through the book before I've got a handle on everyone and everything that's going on. Occassionally, when it's done poorly enough, I have to reread parts of it to keep it all straight. But occassionally, particularly in world disaster books, this method makes quite a bit of sense.

The trick is to make each character memorable. If you're just talking about some guy doing what he always does and that's not very interesting, then I will have forgotten him by the time you come around to him again, no matter how long you spent on him in the first place. In that way, it may be better to just do a page. But something memorable, some trait that may even be stereotypical that you can attribute to each character so we can hold him or her in our heads until we can learn who they are for real.

lessee, there's:

the little nomad girl Alessa
Marta and Helmut (scruffy sorts)
Tabard, the leader of the City Guard
The Doctores, elder and younger

>>Do you have breaks between the sections?<<

Yes, but I write very compactly, so all this is presented within 10 pages.

>>And, most importantly: If it's just background, why don't you cut it altogether?<<

Ouch! But yes, that's an option. However, in retrospect, I see that the one thing I have tying all these disparate POV/characters together, is the sequence of events that brings them all into one place at a crucial time; the Market Hall, where together they make the decisions that set all the rest of the events in motion.

Perhaps if I bring that aspect out more it will serve to reduce the confusion?

Thanks so much for the comments and questions!!

Thanks for the comments. I often find myself in the same place, "Ok, guy, just WHEN are you going to stop introducing characters and start the story!!", and I am chagrined that I am guilty of the same thing.

About making the characters memorable, I really have no way to judge that. Is this character memorable?

"Her companion was startling, at first, in the physical beauty that showed through the dirt. Helmut could have been a god, from the waist up, and if his inner spirit had matched even that half he would have commanded armies, owned lands, and inspired fear. As it was he inspired only contempt in those who viewed him now. For if ever a man could have overcome the deformity of the twisted, stunted legs that bore him, surely the man of that face would encounter life head on and demand respect, even from his enemies. But the man who crouched at Marta's side, trembling, was a thief. He stole hope from all who looked at him and saw the groveling wretch he was. He stole dreams from the eyes of the young and brave memories from the old, for he was a man who feared above all; feared life and living."

Thank you also for the tip on signposting. I appreciate it.

I'm going to look hard at what I wrote to see if I can make that work.

If it doesn;t work, of course, it'll just be due to my lack of skill, not that it isn't the correct technique at the right time.

And that's the most humble I can be for today. Any more and I'll have to puke. ;-)

Thanks again.

I guess I'm just introducing too many characters too quickly?

Thanks for writing out the break-down of the different POVs. I've been reading "Redwall" aloud to my kids, and could not, for the life of me, figure out how it was okay for the author to switch POVs so often! (And I kept hearing Survivor's voice in my head saying "POV! POV!" over and over again... )

The FO narrator must establish very early on the degree of omniscience and the character of omniscience. If you read well written FO, usually it doesn't start out in the heads of any of the characters, it starts out with a clearly omniscient rather than "cinematic" exposition. The difference is that an omniscient opening is telling us things that we wouldn't be able to see (and that none of the characters can see) were we there.

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And I kept hearing Survivor's voice in my head saying "POV! POV!" over and over again...

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Example:

....and then Tom saw his friend no more.

* * *

Eric gzed out the window perplexed ...

etc.

Brin spent the first half of the book (as I recall it) introducing a whole cast of characters, giving one chapter to each of them. He did manage to arrange the order so that it helped advance the overall plot of the story, but I found it frustrating because I'd start to know one character and he'd end that chapter and move onto a new character.

It wasn't until I was over half-way through the book before I began to care about any of it (this was when I still made myself finish everything I started reading).

Mike Munsil, your description of your story made me think of this.

I actually had the opportunity to tell David Brin about my frustration (and he was very gracious about it). His next book in the series, UPLIFT WAR, had a whole cast of characters again, but he spent more time on each of them before introducing the next one as a point-of-view character, and I thought it worked much better. (I don't know whether he incorporated my suggestions or not, but I like to think he did.)

As I already know that is one of my WIP's weaknesses, I'll get started working on it before I submit it to my group. Hopefully we'll ACTUALLY get started submitting one of these days.

As a result of all the discussion on this topic, I'll be paying extra attention to POV as I review other's work. Not to be negative, but to learn.