Thomas closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upwards. He thought about the Wikipedia article and it’s complex explanation of third person narrative. He closed his fingers tight shut and snatched at the air, as he came to the decision. He could never understand Point Of View.
( explain )
It probably doesn’t tell me that in my writing, with my short sentences and present tense, I have switching POVs – so yeah I’m not exactly making it easy for myself. That says it does seem to work when it works 😉
But please tell me, put me out of my misery, and yes bright_as_day I guess this probably means you (sorry!), do I write in third person, limited, or third person, omniscient?
You tend to slip between limited and omni. You write from different POVs (Ben’s, Eleanor’s, Hanna Katla’s), which is fine, as long as you stick to one POV per scene.
*But* you sometimes slip, where – for instance – you’re writing a section from Hanna Katla’s POV, but during the scene you throw in something like, ‘Ben frowns, unsure what Hanna means’ – in other words, you’re head-hopping between Hanna and Ben in a scene that is supposed to be in Hanna’s POV.
Third person omni is very much out of favour – publishers don’t like it. If I see any POV slips I’ll point them out 😉
Thanks! 🙂 I *think* I’m beginning to understand now…