A question about points of view

[ShadowsPale]

I had a couple of my friends look over a fic I am writing just to get their opinion on it. One had a problem with the way I did the point of view; she said it was difficult to follow and jumped around too much.

The other said she saw nothing wrong with the way I had written them. Since neither of them write themselves, I thought I had better come to people that know what they are doing as I wasn't sure which of my friends knew what she was talking about.

What is the correct way to write two or more points of view in the same scene?

I never seem to get anything put up for running into snags; this is one I hopefully can find a solution too.

[DemonGoddess]

On this one, first thing I'd be asking you is what kinds of readers are your friends? If you have an avid reader critiquing your story, and they find issue with the POV changes, then I'd take another look at how they were written.

[ShadowsPale]

Thanks. I now know there is a problem as the friend that had issues is constantly reading; I don't think I have ever seen her without a book. The second ones reads a lot but not nearly as much as the first. Now I have to figure out what to do to fix it.

[Melrick]

Points of view that change around constantly within the one scene... for that to work, it has to be written very well. Otherwise, it can have the tendency to be at least a little off-putting, if not outright difficult to follow. I also feel there needs to be a good reason for it to be written like that, since it's not a technique that I believe should be used in every story. It's also likely to come down to the personal preference of the reader. Some won't like it, no matter how well written it is, while others will be fine with it.

[ShadowsPale]

okay. Maybe I need to explain what I did The scene started out with Harry Potter who meet up with Fenrir Greyback. When he tried running, he was tackled. At that point the point of view changed to Fenrir's until he had transported Harry from the area. It then changed back to Harry's view.

I am once again confused as the friend that complained said I needed to separate them or use another means of making it clear the POV's have changed. She suggested something like this ****** which seems too much as I am already using @!@!@!@!@ to show changes in scenes.

To be truthful; I am getting discouraged. It is beginning to feel like everything I thought I knew about writing is incorrect.

[BronxWench]

One thing you don't say, and it really makes a difference, is whether or not the story is being told in the first person or not. If it's being told in the first person, you do need to make the transition clear, and the asterisks or other subtle marker (please do NOT announce the POV change) is needed.

If you're telling the story in third person, consider what we called the "third person omniscient" back in the Jurassic age. It allows the author to reveal the thoughts of all the characters. A good description is this article. A little more in-depth discussion is here.

Don't let yourself get discouraged. Point of view is a tricky thing to get right, and the fact that you care enough to worry about getting it right is the hallmark of a writer.

[ShadowsPale]

Having what is about to happen next announced has always annoyed me; especially when its in big bold letters. I wouldn't do that; it would make me a hypocrite and that is something I try to avoid. Thank you so much for the links. They were a huge help as now I can see where my friend was coming from. I knew what was happening so I wasn't confused but thanks to the now deeper understanding I can see why she was.

It is in the third person as I can't seem to write any other way and looking it over now; its clear that it does seem to jump about.

Thank you also for the words of encouragement. I love to write but I don't want to be one of these writers that have a good plot going but their writing makes you cringe.

Thank you all for responding; it all helped me pin point the problem.

[Melrick]

I tell you what I did to help me with my writing in the early days: I read books by good published authors and paid attention to how they wrote. I say authors, plural, instead of author, singular, because you need to be exposed to different authors and different writing styles. And another thing to do is to keep writing and keep trying to improve! Oh, and just because one single person doesn't like a particular thing you do doesn't mean that it's wrong. It might simply mean that this one person doesn't like that style, while everybody else does.