Perspective - its strictness and tricks around it

If you're writing in 1st person perspective, or in 3rd person/personal perspective (i.e. non-omniscient, I'm not sure about the correct english terms)...

how strict are you about the details of perspective.

E.g., when your protagonist is in the same room with people who are talking, but in reality it would probably not be possible to overhear the conversation, because they're too far away - would you care about having the protagonist move to the conversationalists? Or try to write around it in some way (let someone else relay the convo, sum it up without mentioning the distance, whatever)? Or just don't care?

As a reader, would you notice it? Would it bug you?

I know that in TV shows, it is conventional that "out of sight is out of hearing distance". But does the opposite hold true for literature?

If it's in first person, generally if the character can't hear it, the readers don't hear it. If a conversation is going on that's a bit too far away from him to listen in on, and it doesn't make sense for him to move closer to eavesdrop, then the readers just don't hear that conversation.

How do I tip off a reader that I'm writing in third-person omniscient? My early writing was criticized for including things the characters shouldn't know in third-person limited, despite the fact that I didn't intend it to be limited, so lately I've just said "fuck it" and exclusively written in limited.

edited 6th Mar '12 12:36:55 PM by feotakahari

I never thought of third person omniscient as something difficult to write. Or, at least, all authors I read always made it look easy. Like here's a paragraph from Burnt Shadows:

Perspective very obviously switches from one guy to another within one paragraph. Actually, I don't even how you would do it in a way that would end up being confusing...

In general, I think omniscient viewpoints are less anchored than limited ones.

Third Person Limited covers such a wide range of things that it's hard to explain.

But then I tended to lump in a bunch of things most people consider omniscient.

To me, Omniscient has always felt a bit like cheating. Or somehow... just wrong. And also arrogant - in its heyday, it wasn't only about "to whose thoughts do we have direct access", but also about the author rambling on and pontificating about whatever. Well and also, constantly switching between the emotions of different people seems kind of confusing to me.

(It just occurs to me, if we want to go into details, we'll need to get clear on our definitions; I have a hunch that they differ between German and English and are a bit more subtle than just 1st/3rd Limited/Omniscient. Like, it does make a lot of difference whether the narrator actually looks into people's heads, or he narrates like god's reporter, as it were, "from the outside").

As to, how do we establish 3rd p. Limited, I think it's simply that once you've followed one person for some time, it gets a might weird to suddenly jump to another person without any warning. (Where "some time" is obviously pretty subjective.)

But anyway - let's assume that it has been established in a story, do ALL of us here agree that it has to be followed 100% with all physical limits?

I find that it does make me crazy, and it overcomplicates my narrative if I always have to find excuses to move my protagonist where he can actually see and hear what I need him to. As a reader, I think it would kick me out of the story a bit; and on the other hand, having him see what he cannot see at all, kicks me out as well. And on the third hand (harhar), I cannot remember that it has ever bugged me when I read other people's stories - perhaps because I don't usually picture the spatial relations precisely enough to determine whether it's possible or not.

I think that's my core problem - I have a hard time determining the limits because my spatial sense is not as precise as it could be.

So please, I need a few opinions on that! (On literary perspective, not my limited spatial sense. ;-) )

edited 7th Mar '12 12:27:56 AM by vijeno

Yes, but there's a tradeoff here. From my experience, audiences have a special corner of hatred in their hearts reserved for that phase where the narrative, perhaps inevitably, goes like so:

And a few pages later they grow used to Eric, mind you, both the readers and the author, and he may even gain some depth, but that tiny transition window is just pure agony. Now imagine this transition over and over and over — that's what you get if you use omniscient viewpoint to solve your "protagonist can't be everywhere, can't do everything" problem. If you honestly have too much plot for one protagonist, introduce another one. Eric is your salvation, groan-inducing as his introduction may be. The alternative is infinitely worse.

edited 7th Mar '12 4:38:13 AM by TripleElation

I definitely and affectionately agree. Omniscient should not be chosen simply to solve the "how do I get information across" issue. It should be chosen if you want to create that specific feel of multiple perspectives at the same time, or because you consciously chose the outdated model of the Godlike narrator and obligatory Author Filibuster. For a gazillion other reasons too, I guess. But not just because you cannot think of a good way to work inside the limitations of Personal Limited.

So, essentially, you do say that if you choose Personal Limited, you have to stick to the rules and cannot, under any circumstances, bend the rules of physics (to extend the protagonist's hearing range, for example)?

^^ That doesn't sound like omniscient, it sounds like several third-person-limited protagonists. (Yes, there is a difference.)

(I don't see why the initial introduction of "Eric" would be groan-inducing. I first encountered that way of doing things when reading A Song Of Ice And Fire and I didn't groan at all.)

(Actually, now that I think about it, the first chapter of Anne Of Green Gables starts from the point of view of a secondary character, and I don't think the story ever returns to her for the same length of time. (Then again, Anne Of Green Gables was written from the omniscient point of view, with the narrator dipping in and out of the heads of lots of characters.))

((Now that I think about it more, I really love omniscient narrators.))

edited 7th Mar '12 4:57:52 AM by fanty

Yes. It's the... Difficult, jarring part of works featuring multiple third-person protagonists. Omniscient viewpoint, when used to solve time and space constraints, is all this all the time. That's what I was trying to say.

I swear, while I was writing that little excerpt with Eric I actually thought "Oh god, I'm taking the piss out of A Song Of Ice And Fire, aren't I?". But that aside, the history of fandom is rife with fans being outraged that suddenly they're supposed to care about the story of this new guy just because the plot needed a new guy (see e.g. Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2; Maya and Alejandro from Heroes). That's pretty much where newcomer characters start off, and they have to work up from there and earn reader empathy, one way or the other.

Yes. But there are a lot of sources available for a character to obtain information: Hearsay, newspaper, television, friends with old secrets, hints that blossom into realizations — and, yes, also overheard conversations. Instead of magically extending their hearing range, just think of a way for them to be in hearing range in the first place, or to get the information from someplace else.

edited 7th Mar '12 5:44:34 AM by TripleElation

No I can't. That's because I'm completely incompetent as a writer.

Of course, I agree with you and will write it like that. It somehow never became an issue until now, so it made me wonder. Well and also, I like to theorize about things like that. It's interesting to see the borders of Acceptable Breaks from Reality.

Oh, btw,

don't that scream trope, or perhaps rather index?

Maybe. Those were one-word soundbytes, though. A lot will hang on their execution, and Tropes usually skip the part with all the candid writing advice (which depends on context to begin with).

The thing you're responding to is no longer there. I thought it was relevant, but on second thought it's just the old garden variety "Well in my work blah blah blah blahdity blah".

edited 7th Mar '12 6:19:38 AM by TripleElation

Yeah, talking about it helped me clarify my thoughts on the subject, so thanks. I like to think that relevance is what happens when everyone involved tries to contribute in order to make the topic relevant. So if you care to widen the focus of the discussion, you're of course welcome to do so.

I think we're overlooking the most important trick of all: Warping Reality.

Granted, you can only ever do it once - the first time you write a specific location. But it totally makes sense to give your location some thought before you write the first scenes.

You want to have a dorm room arranged so that everyone hears everything? Well, duh, maybe smaller rooms make sense. It has to jibe with the story, of course.

In the specific case I had in mind, it doesn't make that much sense, so I'm rewriting it for the protagonist to hear the details of the conversation after the fact. But it's still weird how one specific layout of that damn room stuck in my head - I always saw it as one long row of beds - and I simply didn't think of the fact that - hey, I'm the author, I can just give it another layout.

I bet I'm not the only one to whom this has ever happened.