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How important is the rule that if the viewpoint character knows something then so must the reader? I've never paid attention to this before but I've noticed it mentioned alot in the Fragments and Feedback section and now I can't stop noticing it.
I recently read 'The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: The Ilse Witch' by Terry Brooks and I got really annoyed every time the Druid thought about a secret he was keeping and I wasn't told what it was. I'm sure I've missed this sort of violation of POV in the past and probably would have in this instance had I not read about it so much on these forums.
It seems like the sort of rule which is only apparent when you're looking for it. Alot of the rules of writing seem like this and to be honest, once you start noticing these things it diminishes the enjoyment of reading. In this case ignorance truly is bliss. I don't think I've become properly immersed in a book since I started looking at the writing.
Was anyone bothered by this sort of thing before they heard the rules or did they just start noticing them once they had been told?
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As a writer I have never even tried such a stunt. I think it is a huge indulgence by the writer to have the viewpoint character keeping secrets from the reader. It may have been done well here or there but frankly, it is laziness on the part of the author. The stories I have always liked best wheather long or short, were the ones where I experienced everything through the main characters sences, and only hers/his sences. That reflects reality, where we sence the world through our brains' interpretations of it.
Of course, that usually takes a lot more work and imagination on the part of the writer.
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I would agree that learning the "rules" of writing can make reading for pure enjoyment a more challenging task. I notice when authors break "rules" even in my favorite books and I often have to push it to the back of my head and remind myself it's not important.
That said, I started to read that particular book by Terry Brooks and ended up putting it down. I thought it was awful and the withholding information was only part of the reason.
To stick to the topic, though, withholding information bothers me a LOT. The best I can say for it is that I can forgive it in one tiny situation....the MC finally figures out what's been going on this time and......dot.......dot....dot....we find out exactly what he figures out in the next chapter as part of some kind of dramatic reveal. Even that doesn't thrill me but I will forgive it.
I will never forgive the sort of thing Terry Brooks did in that book and in many others -- the all-knowing druid whose POV we may as well not be in because...actually..we're not in that druid's POV. If he were to do an omniscient POV I would have a lot more respect for the device, but he is pretending that we are inside the head of a druid. If we were really in that druid's head, we would know what he was thinking. Period.
This device has always bugged me. The only difference now is that I have a name for it.
You will find that it matters to varying degrees to different people, but that is the way of the world. It's a big deal to me. Even in the "dramatic reveal" scenario, I no longer feel as if I am in the MC's POV from the point I know he knows until the reveal actually happens.
Could we move the discussion to that thread? It seems to be the same topic, and it's a way of keeping whatever gems people contribute, accessible through our FAQs and helpful discussions.
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I came up with this rule on my own because it always bugged the hell out of me whenever anyone did it. I'd have to back up, scan the whole page, scrutinize every damn sentance one at a time...I'd check the page numbers to see if there was a page missing, and eventually I'd give up on reading a book if it kept happening.
Readers who are sensitive to the flow of information in a text notice this very naturally. If you read instructions to figure out how to assemble or use something, or learn how a game is played by reading the rulebook, then you are the kind of reader who reads to aquire information. Being that kind of reader makes you sensitive to cases where critical information is promised but withheld. Most people cannot read instructions or rulebooks. I'm not sure what this is like, I understand that it has to do with why so few people could program VCR's back in the day
If you promise that you're going to give the reader information, then do it. By using a POV that includes the characters thoughts, you are promising to tell us everything important that the character thinks. If you can't do that, then just don't use that POV.
The fact that you now notice when story information should have been available but was withheld means that your skill at extracting information from the text has increased. For a time, this may result in a paucity of enjoyment since many popular works aren't really intended to sustain a close reading. However, there is plenty of good literature out there, and you'll be able to enjoy it much better now than was possible for you before. At least, I believe this is the reported experience of most readers who have developed their skills at paying attention to the text.
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Anything that bothers me as a writer bothered me when I was just a reader. The difference now is that I can better explain why I don't like a particular story, and I'm less patient with such stories than I used to be. I don't regret any of that though; life's too short to dwell on crap.
POV withholding is a big deal, especially in Third Person. I did this with a very early story of mine and it ruined everything that I'd intended it to be (there were other problems too, but that was the biggest turnoff in its critiques.)
The thing about being in a POV is that we're privy to that character's thoughts. It doesn't make sense to show all their thoughts except the key one which makes all the other thoughts make sense. Especially because that key thought is what they're always thinking about. Unless they're trying very hard not to think about that, but when you're doing that, you usually can't think of anything else.
Terry Brooks has always had a problem with POV withholding down to his first book. The Sword of Shannara was tolerable, though, because Brooks usually didn't dwell on the secretive character's POV, and even when he did, they were usually brief enough to just be annoyances rather than story-killers. The Jerle Shannara trilogy, however, made Walker Boh a dominant POV character, and now that he took over secretive character mode, it made the story more than just irritating. Especially because most of the "secrets" were pretty obvious.
First Person is more lenient where this is concerned. In this, we're reading what they're saying, not what they're thinking. For all we know, the narrator is a liar. However, even when the narrator is withholding information, it should still be telling us enough information for the story and its events to be plausible. In short, no withholding on the lie.
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