Script - Omniscience - Scope
A script, these days, written with an omniscient POV, is no longer fully appreciated, I fear. How, then, can one achieve the broad scope desired in, for instance, a sprawling historical fiction novel?
Take Shogun. While Blackthorne is the main protagonist, the text is so well written that you can practically 'hear' Toranaga scheme. Same in Gone with the Wind. If we only knew what went on in Scarlett's mind (or that frivolous heart of hers), how much we would miss.
Anyway, I usually adopt the omniscient POV- often to the lament of (young and impatient) readers. That's My View, and I am sticking to it. Maybe because it's that I myself usually can't abide reading something written in first person, present tense - unless the story really warrants it and it is well done.
What's you take on this?
I write in both POVs and feel some stories need to be told in first person.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot another very popular choice -- third-person limited. All my work is in third-person limited; I write in third-person, but only choose one person per scene to be the main POV character.
ReplyDeleteYou are both correct, of course. Lexa, many of my chapters are written in third-person limited--unless an unruly crowd bursts into the scene (they have that habit), but I always try to make my changes in POV very clear. No good having to go back, asking "Wait, who is talking now?" So, I admit - when done right - anything goes. I am just shaking my head over the popularity of these YA-romantic, sexy pimply girls and their Angst. But what do I know; I only take a peek at them to figure that one out.
ReplyDeleteI like an omniscient POV!
ReplyDelete"Well, bless you," as they say here in the southern USA...
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