someoneyouknow
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2006
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^ ^ ^ Always makes me laugh
This "strongly suggest" will pull up a ton of "poor advice" comments, and I shall be first - it's bollocks .But I strongly suggest that you not mix the two POVs in the same story. That usually ends up confusing the reader.
I've always been partial to first person narration for conveying the intimate details of a character's inner life. But this story wonderfully shows how third person narration can be used to convey the inner activity of two characters, even during the intricate steps of their dance. We see the evening not as we would see it in real life---where we know our own feelings but can only guess at our partner's---but privy to both sides, able to see the uncertainty and hopefulness and playfulness and arousal on both sides as flirtation turns to courtship and courtship turns to foreplay. It's two intimate stories, really, interwoven at every scene. A tour-de-force of patient, loving, doubly imagined detail.
This "strongly suggest" will pull up a ton of "poor advice" comments, and I shall be first - it's bollocks .
Written coherently, stories can and do present multiple point of views, and readers are perfectly able to understand what's going on. But I won't argue the case directly, I'll repeat here the final paragraph of a comment I received to one of my stories (that clearly and without confusion alternated the point of view between two protagonists):
This "strongly suggest" will pull up a ton of "poor advice" comments, and I shall be first - it's bollocks .
Fair comment - it was a while before I had the confidence to take on shifting viewpoints. My first stories were all first person pov, then I gave simple third person narrator a go, then said, what the hell, I can do this multiple viewpoint stuff.But I assumed that the poser of the question was a neophyte, because this is the sort of question that neophytes typically ask. And neophytes typically have more problems with clarity of perspective than more accomplished authors do.
(I'm sorry that I've been so tardy in my comments, but I've been traveling for the last couple of weeks and was unable to indulge myself in wasting time on the Internet ... if I had access to it at all.)
Whatever fits the story best.
I still think that men can't really write a woman's perspective but that has been discussed over and over in this forum.
Now I tend to write what I call close third person (is that even a term? I don't know) where the narrator gets in nearly as close as first person, but has the authorial latitude to wander about a bit. It still takes discipline and clear sign-posting to indicate who you're sidling up to, though.
This "strongly suggest" will pull up a ton of "poor advice" comments, and I shall be first - it's bollocks .
Written coherently, stories can and do present multiple point of views, and readers are perfectly able to understand what's going on. But I won't argue the case directly, I'll repeat here the final paragraph of a comment I received to one of my stories (that clearly and without confusion alternated the point of view between two protagonists):
I think writing from multiple points of view, if handled with clarity and restraint, can work really well in erotic fiction, precisely because it so often involves a very intimate interaction between two people, and the contrast of their perspectives can add drama and interest.
Yes, that's the technical term, ta. I have several stories where I tell the tale from one character's point of view, and then from the other's, with clearly delineated shifts.I think what you’re describing there, EB, would be what is usually called a ‘limited-omniscient third person narrator.’ Meaning the narrator is capable of knowing and seeing things beyond a strict first person, but generally sticks to what is going on with or in the head of a single character.
Thanks for posting this as I was going to say something similar yesterday but I couldn't write it as well.I asked a similar question some time ago.
After having thought about it and experimented somewhat over the years, I can say this much: doing multiple viewpoints won't confuse or annoy anyone as long as it is made OBVIOUS (I mean like, doing something like [CHARACTER NAME] where you do it), and as long as the change happens at a natural place. I wouldn't switch POV in the middle of a scene unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then I'd try and make it happen somewhere where there was a natural break.
Multiple POV can give you the advantage of inducing emotion in the reader when you're showing how the thoughts of the different characters don't match up (e.g. the frustrated hope when two characters are into each other but one or both think otherwise)...but at the expense of mystery. There's less of that feeling of suspense of 'how is X going to react to what Y just did/said?', because the reader has more of an idea of how X's brain works. Horses for courses, I suppose. What do you want your readers to feel?
I usually do the opposite. My POV characters are usually male good-guy characters who don't have a lot of personality. It's the female character who is interesting and it's his trying to understand her that drives most of the plot.And I second what some people here have said about how to choose a character for POV: pick the most interesting one.
I usually do the opposite. My POV characters are usually male good-guy characters who don't have a lot of personality. It's the female character who is interesting and it's his trying to understand her that drives most of the plot.
A great understanding of women is requisite.
In Gay Male, not so much.
Ih a thread about writing from a woman's or a man's perspective, and discussing the woman's perspective, I seriously doubt said 'woman' would be a gay male.