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All right guys, sorry for the lateness of my posting, but my laptop has been down, but now it's back up so I'll get chapter 4 posted by next week.

-thanks,
Ridley

Point of view is a powerful tool and misuse of POV by switching from one character to another, called head hopping, is the sign of an amateur writer. There are several points of view possible:

• First Person: This is very powerful and rewarding, but tough to do in a longer work. Everything the reader experiences is filtered through the POV character. When writing the narrative you use "I" for the POV character and "he" or "she" for everyone else. If the POV character cannot see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, or touch it—it does not exist. You should not give more than one or two characters POV when using first person, and of course only one in any given scene.
• Third Person Limited: Here limited means limited to the POV character. This can be almost as powerful as first person, but in the narrative you write "he" or "she" instead of "I". You have more freedom as a writer with third person limited as you may have more characters with POV. For example a novel might have a half-dozen POV characters, maybe more, but too many can become confusing.
• Third Person Objective: This is like a movie. The "camera" is the narrator and the reader can only know what the "camera" can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. With third person objective you cannot know what the characters are thinking, but if they are good actors—that is the writer is good at describing facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice—then the reader can figure it out. Just as the audience in a movie theater can know a character is weary by the half-lidded eyes and the way he drags his feet and slurs his words.
• Third Person Omniscient: The author knows all and tells all. Generally out of favor in today's market. If you push it toward objective—that is you stay shallow when inside the characters heads—it's not too objectionable.
• Second Person: There are very few things written in second person for a very good reason—readers hate it. However, it can work in certain limited situations: the story is for young people such as one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books, or the story is short enough that it ends before you seriously annoy the reader. The reason it doesn't work is character development. Books for pre-teens have a lot less character development than books for grown ups, and when writing in second person the POV character is already fully developed—he or she is reading your story! You dare to dictate to the reader who and what they are, what motivates them, and why they made the choices they did?
• There are other variants of POV types, but these five are the big ones and everything else is variation on one of these themes.

Mixing POV types in a story, especially a longer story, is permissible. Of the five outlined above I suggest you stick to the first three.

Let's say you're writing a story with a hero and a villain and you choose to use first person for these two characters. Seeing the world from their viewpoints and getting deep inside their heads is a powerful way to know what motivates them—and why the conflict is critical to them both. If you need a scene with neither POV character in it, then pick something other than first person. If it's an important ally of either POV character, go with third person limited, but if it just a bunch "extras" go with third person objective.

When you finally get to the final scenes with both the hero and villain, you'll need to choose who gets POV and exclude the other. That is, never put two first person POVs in the same scene. The clash of the "I"s will drive the readers insane.

Who should be a POV character? Someone important to the story. Someone you want your reader to get to know intimately. Minor characters don't need POV and giving it to them, possibly because they are the most important character in a particular scene, can confuse the reader when their overall importance is low. When a character has POV it's a clue to the reader that they should pay attention to the character and that he or she is important to the story.

A powerful clue to the reader as to who has POV in the scene is who appears first. That is, don't open with one character but give a different character POV in that scene. This rule isn't so hard, but careful if you choose to break it.

Why omniscient viewpoint is weak. Writing is about conflict and the author needs to orchestrate the level of tension in the story.

Let's say you're writing a romance and you have two main characters—the potential lovers. They go on a date early in the book and we'll pick a POV—the guy's. He's on this date trying to make a good impression and wondering how the girl really feels because she's being awfully quiet and hasn't said much. Perhaps some things happen and he's thinking the date's a failure and she must think he's an idiot. With POV locked on the guy, the reader identifies with him and wants to know how the girl feels: will she see him again, did he blow it, etc.? When the writer is sloppy—or even if he or she deliberately picks the omniscient POV—the reader knows the girl is quiet because her grandfather is sick and that she thought the guy handled that icky situation with the rude waiter rather well. The reader also knows the girl is hoping the guy will call her back. When an author head hops, all that delicious tension evaporates as fast as he can dream it up and the story is not very satisfying.

Don't I need to know what my characters are thinking? Homer Simpson would say, "Doh!" Of course you need to know, but you don't need to put it in the story. You need to know tons of stuff that never make it in the story. The old adage is, "Write what you know," but we can turn that around and say, "Know what you write," which means, "Do your research." This applies to character development too.

You should know about 10 to 100 times more than what you write in the story, at least for a novel. I've been working on a novel with anthro foxes. I've read several books on fox behavior written by field researchers, a Canadian and an Englishman, who've each spent decades observing wild foxes. I've also tracked down several research papers on fox genetics, family structure, etc. Why my anthro foxes choose the mates they choose, timing of how and when they choose their mates, how they invest their money and differences in the way males and females invest, what kinds of jobs they work at, how the parents control their teenagers when they go into heat, and other weird factors I've worked out are based on real fox behaviors. I also know the university my main character went to, what years he was there, why he dropped out, his major, the fraternity he joined and how he was recruited, the names of some of his college buddies, the incident with the wild vixen that February, and the disaster of his first date with a human woman. I've even created some nursery rhymes, the ones he heard while sitting on his mother's lap. Will any of this find it's way into my novel? A tiny bit. But it's there floating around in the back of my mind (and written down as tiny stories). It defines my character. It shapes him. It allows me to know him.

Some Examples:

Who has POV in this snippet?

She laughed. "Coward."

Bobby had to smile at that. He plucked a bit of fluff off her jacket collar. "What's this?"

"I said ‘hello' to my guy when I got home…. Oh, don't stick your tongue out. Paris sheds, and when we cuddle I get covered in his hair. You do grosser things."

Some clues: "Bobby had to smile at that," is an internalization. Maybe he didn't smile; he can't see himself, but he did feel like it. "Oh, don't stick your tongue out," is an observation of one character by the other. I used it to keep from breaking into the girl's paragrah with Bobby's action. If I'd written, "Bobby stuck his tongue out," it would imply the POV character saw it, and sometimes we do things like this reflexively so this third paragraph works best if Bobby and not the girl has POV. Based on the second paragraph this is clearly Bobby's POV, but the third paragraph also supports this.

From your chapter 3. The scene starts off with Haji's POV and there's no clue it has shifted to Charlie (i.e. no scene break).

The Lemur's eyes snapped into focus and his ears jumped to attention, perked and awaiting the hyena to talk, his ringed tail swinging idly through the air with an obvious anxiousness. After a few seconds passed Charlie decided it was time to press on, since Haji obviously wasn't willing.

He tried to lead into it slowly, not wanting to make Haji feel threatened, he knew it wouldn't work, but somewhere deep down he hoped. "Is everything all right man?" He fought the urge to rush in, going to quickly would make Haji tense and frightened…or at least some equivalent of those feelings that Haji experienced.

How could Haji know if Charlie's eyes were in focus or not? This is a POV slip.

"Perked and awaiting the hyena to talk," is another slip. Haji can see the Charlie's ears jump to attention, he can see they are perked, but maybe Charlie heard an interesting noise from next door.

"His ringed tail swinging idly through the air with an obvious anxiousness," is quite good. Haji knows his friend's body language well enough to know that the swinging tail indicates anxiousness. In fact it could indicate that mental state in a lot of mammals with tails.

"Charlie decided to press on." No. It's impossible for Haji to know what Charlie decided unless Charlie tells him.

The second paragraph is a real mess. About the only thing salvageable is the dialog.

The reason "obvious anxiousness" works and "waiting to talk" doesn't has to do with showing versus telling. You can show a mental state such as anxiousness via body language, and you did a good job. With the non-POV character, showing is your only way to let the reader know what Charlie is feeling—although some would say it's better to let the reader draw their own conclusions. We can show that Charlie focuses his attention on Haji, but we can't show Charlie is waiting for a particular thing to happen.

A rewrite:

The Lemur's eyes snapped into focus and his ears perked; his ringed tail swinging idly through the air with an obvious anxiousness. After a few seconds Charlie said, "Is everything all right man?"

Another example:

Behind him a glint of recognition sparked in Charlie's eyes, but it was quickly hidden and replaced with the same worried look from before. Haji quickly straightened up and tried to look as if nothing odd had happened, then continued on into the kitchen.

This isn't bad. What you're seeing is Haji's interpretation of what sparked in Charlie's eyes, recognition. Saying that it was quickly hidden might be overwriting. I think you could simplify this to: "but it was quickly replaced with the same worried look from before."

Third example:

Charlie nodded, understandingly, an interested look on his face. After Haji finished, Charlie thought for a few minutes in the silence that ensued. Haji was slightly distressed by the quiet, had Charlie seen through his brilliant cover-up? No, surely not, it was too perfect.

Other than the first sentence is overwritten, it's fine. But the second sentence does not belong in this paragraph and the POV slip means it doesn't even belong in this scene. I suspect you do want to show the passage of time though. Let me try a rewrite:

Charlie nodded, an interested look on his face, but didn't respond. After a few minutes watching the tip of his friends tail twitch Haji became unnerved by the quiet. Had Charlie seen through his brilliant cover-up? No, surely not, it was too perfect.

Obviously you do shift POV in the next scene. It's Charlie's scene and Haji is not in it. It works.

I hope this was helpful.

Scotty

As a general comment, changing points of view (pov) in mid chapter can be very confusing and is often generally frowned upon. As you read more and more fiction that is professionally written you will notice that the most common (and most widely acceptable approaches) are to either stick with one character per chapter or to stay out of character's heads. A limited third-person pov will facilitate this latter option.

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Always,
Nathan "Nadan" R.

'He is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.'