posted
I'm not totally sure but it sounds like your POV is going back and forth between different characters. Sometimes that is done on purpose but there is usually some type of shift like a ------ or a chapter change. But we can also do it by accident. I had to have one example pointed out to me when I had my Main Character's face change- he blushed or some some such as I recall. He couldn't have seen it unless he was looking in a mirror so that one half sentence switched the POV to the person he was talking to.
I rolled my eyes wondering how many readers would really notice but I changed it.
If I'm wrong about what your question means, I'm sure someone else will answer your question better. Actually, they might anyway.
posted
I've never heard the term 'unsettled or settled pov'. Could you mean 'unreliable'? Or can you give some context to the term. Where have you seen it?
Posts: 1993 | Registered: Jul 2009
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posted
It was brought it to my attention from a well-known editor of Fantasy/Sci-Fi. I have been trying to get a better grasp on it since then. I've been rereading Character and Viewpoint by OSC but I didn't see much about "settled/unsettled" there* so I have been discussing it with other writers, some of whom have been invaluable at helping me to understand this sometimes subtle concern.
The better I understand, the sharper my prose (I hope) will become. Not all "rules" are meant to be supreme. But if one is going to break rules, I suppose they should know them well enough to be able to do that. I am out to learn these sometimes subtle writing issues.
*OSC discusses POV "violation" which, I believe, is along these lines -only he seems to indicate that there are times to go with that and times not to, which is also tricky.
posted
Do you mean the level of penetration? That's what I get from it.
Sometimes you write every sensory description, the POV characters thoughts, every moment or heartbeat... and other times you don't because you don't have time for it, or because too much can get boring.
I would say a settled POV is another term for going deep ( or hot) inside the characters head.
Unsettled POV, I'd say, is looser. For example, when you set the scene, or skim several weeks in a sentence, that kind of thing.
But I didn't make the term up, so interpret away. ~Sheena
posted
I think as writers we sometimes worry much more than readers do about POV.
However before I started getting published, there's only one book I've ever thrown across the room, and it was because POV shifted back and forth between two people during dialogue. It was clear these were going to be the romantic leads, and it was being used so you could see them from each other's perpectives... but it was so badly done, like a game of table tennis, that I couldn't carry on with the book any farther.
However, the author was Tami Hoag, who is extremely successful.
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