Friday, May 5, 2017

Promiscuous Point of View by Alison Henderson

No, I don't mean your heroine is a shameless tart. I'm talking about frequent, almost random head-hopping in fiction. After having been schooled in the highly-focused point of view promoted in modern romance fiction, I thought head-hopping was a thing of the past. Oh, no; not so!

For the past couple of months, I've been doing most my leisure reading outside our genre. I think it's healthy for a writer to expand her exposure beyond her own genre, but also--and there's no gentle way to put this--I'm bored with romance. 

First, I chose a contemporary village mystery set in Quebec. I enjoyed the setting,exotic but not too much so, and the plot was sufficiently intricate to keep me guessing. However, the author made a habit of popping in and out of characters' points of view for a paragraph or two here and there. And these weren't just the major characters, either. There was a large cast of characters, and nearly every one managed to score a brief place in the sun. By the time I was half-way through the book, my head was spinning. To be fair, this was the author's first book, written a number of years ago. She's become very successful, and I need to read a more recent volume in the series to see if she's still doing it.

My most recent read was a VERY long literary novel written by a well-known and well-regarded Minnesota author that followed the life of an ordinary woman in a small town in Minnesota from the turn of the twentieth century through the nineteen fifties. To my amazement, this author did the same thing--giving a POV paragraph to whichever of the umpteen characters struck her fancy, seemingly willy-nilly. This woman has also been writing for many years and has won a number of awards.

When I first started writing twenty-seven years ago, the issue of POV was largely ignored in popular fiction and certainly in romance. Nora Roberts ignored it, so I ignored it, too. I wrote intuitively; I wrote what I read. It was only after joining RWA and my first critique group in the mid-nineties that I was introduced to the term. I will always be grateful to the leader of that group, who patiently explained and corrected my manuscript until I figured it out.

Most romance writers these days employ deep, third-person POV because it is best for conveying characters' feelings, and that's what we strive to do. Neither of the books I mentioned above focused on feelings, but that's the primary reason our readers buy our books. I know that even if I decide in the future to experiment with other genres, I'll stick to limited, deep POV. I can't imagine writing any other way.

I wonder if the successful authors I mentioned write the way they do because they've always written that way and their editors don't try to change them, or if POV isn't important in other genres the way it is in romance. What is your experience reading outside our genre? Do you think POV matters, or is it merely a stylistic technicality we get wrapped up in when we should be concentrating on the meat of a story?

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com 




17 comments:

Diane Burton said...

I read outside the romance genre on occasion, esp. for my local book group. There's something almost sterile about those books compared to a romance. I don't feel as engaged with the main characters. Headhopping drives me crazy. It's confusing as to who's talking/thinking. My first book with TWRP had too many characters' POVs. What a challenge to change that. But I did it and the book was better for it. I try to stick to two, maybe three, POVs. I love writing 1st person POV for my mysteries, though. I have to stay in one person's head. That means the reader only knows what the MC knows.

Jannine Gallant said...

It's not just authors outside the romance genre. I think most of the old-school romance authors (you know, the ones actually keeping the publishers profitable) still head-hop. The pubs don't care since they sell extremely well...or that's my take. Most readers don't notice. My mom is a perfect example. After I explained what head-hopping was, she said she started noticing it. Until then, she hadn't. As authors, we consciously look for it, so it drives us crazy!

Jannine Gallant said...

Wait, maybe it was the said tags my mom started noticing. That's another one the old school authors still use. And it makes me lose my mind!

Brenda Whiteside said...

When I read outside my genre, it's usually mystery/thriller. I don't see much head hopping with the authors I read--who are well known. I had something new happen with my TWRP editor on my last book. She had me remove the **** between POV switches because she said the transition was smooth and didn't need them. On my current ms, I've done that a few times and it drives my crit partners crazy. LOL But I like the flexibility to do that. What you have to be careful of is the every other paragraph jumping. I think if you've gone a couple of pages or an entire scene and then another character takes over, it works. As for number of POVs, I stick with 3. I wanted to do a 4th in my current ms, but refrained. Not sure what TWRP would've said.

Rolynn Anderson said...

I'm amazed what well-known authors get away with...and such easy fixes are possible. One tactic that drives me nuts is when the author stops to explain kinds of guns or the intricacies of bullet trajectory in the middle of an action scene...three pages of explanation while the hero and the villain are poised to kill each other. I like third person POV with the story told in real time, with the camera rolling (I even like flashbacks to 'move along'). Much as types of music depend on preference, so go readers and novels...the big jog=to match reader to writer!

Andrea Downing said...

Since I've mostly read literary fiction with my smattering of romance, the POV question has never bothered me. Having said that, I stick to the rules when writing because I think that's what readers are used to--when I wrote Dances of the Heart, which has 4 protagonists, hence 4 POVs, I got a lot of comments about 'having to get used to the different POVs'. I think if it's done correctly, it's fine, but I recently beta-read a ms. where the author had a single solitary scene in someone else's POV; I pointed that out as taking me right out of the story but she insisted on keeping it. I guess some authors just like to break rules....

Alison Henderson said...

Headhopping drives me crazy now, too, Diane. I've never written more than two POV's in a book. I just had to learn not to pop back and forth. Now, I can't imagine doing that.

Alison Henderson said...

Jannine, I'm reading Nora's 2016 suspense book now, and the headhopping wasn't too bad until last night. She ended a chapter written entirely in the heroine's POV with two short paragraphs in the hero's. It was very jarring, but I'm sure no one dare's to edit her. Why should they?

Alison Henderson said...

Brenda, in one of my old TWRP books my editor did the same thing--asked me to remove the asterisks from a couple of transitions. I did, but it didn't feel all that "smooth" to me. I always use them in my self-pubbed books.

Alison Henderson said...

Rolynn, extraneous explanation drives me crazy, too. Give your readers credit for knowing a thing or two, already!

Alison Henderson said...

Andrea, I think for the readers' sake, it's best to narrow the POV's to the minimum number necessary to tell the story well.

Vonnie Davis ~ Romance Author said...

I wrote Mr. OH in two pov's, but first person for each. An experiment just to see if I could do it. I loved it so much, it took me months of writing to get back to my normal third person verbage, etc. I see a lot of authors, romance included, who use filter words--heard, saw, felt, thought, etc.--and this bothers me as a writer/reader. I love political intrigue, but they're often written in the first person pov or omniscient, which is how I wrote my first two books so I can handle it. People scoff at romance writers. Remark about how easily we can knock them out. But, honestly, I feel we're held to a higher standard and I resent their narrow pov.

Joanne Stewart said...

I too like to read outside of what I write. Certain genres are my favorite (historical romance, the occasional Rom/Com or Rom/Sus), but I'll read whatever's interesting. Headhopping though drives me bonkers. It's the main reason I can't read Nora. Ive tried several times and I just find it so confusing. It's very jarring. Deep third is my favorite to read. 1st is okay, but it has to be done well.

Alison Henderson said...

Vonnie, I think it might be fun to experiment with first person sometime. I enjoy reading it in mysteries. I have pet peeves besides headhopping, too--mostly habits beaten out of me by my first editors. One famous author I love overuses "that" all the time. It makes the reader wonder if she's being paid by the word. LOL

Alison Henderson said...

We're on the same page, Joanne. Deep third is my favorite, and first can work well in some situations, mainly mysteries.

Leah St. James said...

Head-hopping also drives me nuts, but like Jannine mentioned, I don't know that I noticed before I learned the rules! I love writing in deep third person, but I enjoyed experimenting with first in a short story I wrote a couple months ago. It had more of a comedic tone, and it seemed to work well. I have noticed a number of authors are doing alternating fist-person POV lately. I like that, too. I think if the story is well written, and it's a good story, readers don't care.

Alicia Dean said...

Argh...sorry I'm late to this one. This is one of my HUGE pet peeves, and as someone else said, one reason I don't read Nora. (There are other reasons, but that one is enough.) When people say it's done 'smoothly' so it's okay, I disagree. You cannot smoothly jerk me from one person's head to another. I agree about it not bother me until I really knew what it was, but sometimes, readers are bothered by a story without really knowing why, without knowing what rule the author is breaking. When they say things like: I couldn't connect with the characters or it didn't hold my interest, sometimes it's because the readers are taken out of the story by POV switches, or an author stopping to explain something. Or, they can't connect because they aren't sure whose POV they are in at times. There is ALWAYS a way around it without losing anything in the story. Also, yes, too many POV characters is not advisable. I read and write thriller/mystery/suspense. I often like going into a victim's or killer's POV. But, I've read some where the author goes into a completely non-essential character's POV. Like the one I'm reading now. A detective is investigating a murder and a co-worker of the victim found something in her files that looked suspicious. We were in the POV of that co-worker, when we didn't need to be. We could have waited until she told the detective what she found. If the co-worker had been killed or something before she could tell the detective, it might have been reason enough to show her POV, but she wasn't. Not long after, she told the detective exactly what she'd found. Annoying. Whew...sorry so lengthy. This topic apparently touches a nerve! :D