posted
Omniscient, cinematic, light penetration, or deep penetration?
I bring this up because I think it's good to be clear on what you're doing.
I never do omniscient: I switch POV characters, but I do it with a section break. I prefer deep penetration. I don't think omniscient is a crime, but I've never had a reason to do it, either.
posted
I usually do deep third person or first person. I like the idea of filtering the world through a character's eyes.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I like light penetration, but sometimes find myself sucked in deeper than I plan. I write in either first or third, depending on what I feel tells the story the best.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Leaving aside my initial reaction to the term "deep penetration", it's probably what I do. I've written two novels, one in first person, the other in limited third, and, yes, I'm very strict about POV. You get a lot about the viewpoint character - what she thinks, what she sees - but nothing except what she could reasonably observe about other people. I don't have more than one viewpoint character in either book, so there are no POV switches whatsoever.
I don't think of this as a permanent thing, though. I have a book I'm planning to write within the next few years which will be multiple POV (still strict, but with more than one viewpoint), and I've camera's-eye and omniscient stories which I pick up and fiddle with every now and then.
The benefit of starting in strict POV style is that it makes you acutely aware of POV, which I'm hoping will give me the knowledge and discipline to work with a more flexible point of view someday.
[This message has been edited by KatFeete (edited March 20, 2005).]
I wouldn't touch omniscient. And I doubt I'd go first person for a novel. The former is too hard to keep track of, the latter is too limiting, IMO.
But as far as penetration, in my WIP the pentration (and the POV character) varies from chapter to chapter. But I prefer a book in which the POV character remains consistent throughout a chapter--with some exceptions.
posted
Before I know too much about my plot, for example on a short story, I may write a scene or even the whole story in omniscient, because I don't yet have a POV character. Once I do, I usually tighten up into either 1st or 3rd on the rewrite.
I notice that when I write in 3rd person, my voice doesn't vary too much from story to story, but when I write in 1st person, I have yet to write two stories which sounded anything alike. I think that's a good thing.
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I gravitate toward first person. It started because of reading great first person fiction as a teen. But I'm forcing myself more toward third person now.
I've noticed that many here gravitate toward third person.
I wish OSC had come up with 3PL terms that could not be made into some kind of dirty joke...
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My POV depends completely on what I'm writing... as I've mentioned before, I more or less really don't know what my POV is until I'm already writing it... it's hard to explain, and sounds kinda chaotic to even me... but... that's seems to be the only way I know how to write anything... to just... let it all happen...
Posts: 183 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
i was raised LDS, but that has nothing to do with my knowledge of language... well, it might have a little, in that it influenced my parents, whose influence then got to me... but anyways, the family i grew up in also loved knowledge and literature...
when you are raised in a family where seeking after omniscience is a primary goal, you kind of know what the word means :P
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