Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
Elmore Leonard
That's a really harsh edict, isn't it? As a reader who tends to skip most descriptive passages, I find myself wanting to skip writing the whole look/sound/taste/smell part of the narrative. But it's so boooooring, I say! I hate describing! I don't see the point!!!
Much of this resistance is me being lazy. But then again, the point is... what's the point? If we don't like writing description, and if after hours of labor we present this paragraph or passage that the reader is just going to skip.... what is the point?
Exactly. What is the point? We're not just writing to fill up pages. So... what's that descriptive passage there for?
Actually, sometimes a description of the setting is needed,
to set the stage for action, to outline the context of the conflict, to
reflect some aspect of the character. And I think if before I start, I can figure out my purpose here, why I'm describing this, maybe I won't hate writing it, and the reader won't want to skip it.
In deep POV, or in first-person, the essential purpose of description is to show something about what the POV character perceives... and maybe to show what's changing in the character-- what this all means to him/her, how he or she interprets this.
Here's a short passage (end of chapter) in Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. (Very good book, "boarding school thriller," I'll call the genre.) It's in dual first-person (the good guy and the bad guy). This is the good guy, an old Latin teacher at the boarding school. He's been there forever, and at this point, things are starting to change in ways he doesn't like. So the author uses this "change" to provide an opportunity to describe the place:
As I said, it's hard to explain St. Oswald's: the sound of the place in the mornings; the flat echo of boys' feet against the stone steps; the smell of burning toast from the Refrectory; the peculiar sliding sound of overfilled sports bags being dragged along the newly polished floor. The Honors Board, with gold-painted names dating back from before my great-grandfather; the war memorial; the team photographs; the brash young faces, tinted sepia with the passing of time.
Okay, notice how very much this is in HIS viewpoint-- the description is filtered through his memories, his values, his affection for the place. And notice how the beginning perceptions are very sensual, very focused on the experience of the senses in this place. But then, the 'summary" becomes something more personal (my great-grandfather) and poignant (the brash young faces). The nostalgia and sadness of that last (this is in Britain, so the names of many of those "brash youngsters" probably are etched onto the war memorial) leads into the deep feeling of the POV character. This is the paragraph that ends the chapter:
Gods, I'm getting sentimental. Age does that; a moment ago I was bemoaning my lot, and now here I am getting all misty-eyed. It must be the weather. And yet, Camus says, we must imagine Sisyphus happy. Am I unhappy? All I know is that something has shaken us; shaken us to the foundations. It's in the air, a breath of revolt, and somehow I know it goes deeper than the Fallow affair. Whatever it may be, it is not over. And it's still only September.
Notice that he is commenting on his own description, analyzing what his own choices of perceptions mean. The movement in the first paragraph from pure sensual description to nostalgia and sadness creates a slow accumulation of emotion. And the POV character is the one who, without using the word, identifies that emotion-- dread. Something wicked this way comes.
Description should never just be description. It should be there for some purpose. It should somehow advance the plot, or develop the character-- something that deepens our experience not just of the setting but of the story as a whole.
Why not look at some descriptive passage you have in the last scene you wrote, and tell what the purpose is, and how you furthered that purpose with the sensory description?
Alicia
Showing posts with label first person pov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first person pov. Show all posts
Friday, March 22, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
First Person uncertainty
Recently a writer said that the good thing about first person was that you get to tell the truth. And I-- never one to let a categorical statement stand categorically-- riposted that it all depends, as it's the character's understanding of the truth, which might or might not be true.
I came across an example of this in Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth, which is in first-person. The issue here isn't whether the POV character is deliberately or subconsciously distorting the truth, but one of certainty-- she doesn't know to a certainty:
My sight lines weren't good, but I thought his hands were shaking.
That is, she's confessing that she doesn't really know because of "the sight lines", but she's reporting what she thinks she sees. Of course, two considerations here:
First, the narrator WANTS his hands to be shaking, that is, that he's evincing nervousness at being close to her. (She wants to think he's attracted to her.) So her perception might be less than accurate, just because she wants it to be so.
Second, one step removed-- the author put this in there. If there was no relevance, if it didn't matter, then the author wouldn't have bothered. We as readers generally assume that whatever is narrated has some importance, whether or not that's the fact. And the author knows we'll think this is important, and so decides whether or not to include this based on whether or not he/she thinks it's worth getting the reader excited about these shaking hands.
So let's assume McEwan chose to put this in there because it had some (albeit perhaps slight) meaning. What are we to make of it? Is it actually true (the character's hands really are shaking)? Or is what he wants us to get is that the young lady watching wants him to be nervous, thereby showing us that she really does like him (despite her recent rejection of him)?
That is, is the "importance" the event (hands shaking) or the POV's perception (her thinking that his hands are shaking)? The fun of this is, of course, that we don't need to determine that at this point in the narrative. We can wait to find out if he's really that affected by being near her, or if she's just hoping that he is.
Third-Person
Now think about how differently that simple observation would be rendered in the more common form of third-person. There would be no doubt, because ordinary third-person narrates what's happening.
His hands were shaking.
We wouldn't need the line about the sight lines, because this would be a narration of the action of the scene, not the narration from her perspective about what she's thinking as the scene plays out. In ordinary third-person, we are given no reason to doubt the truth of the narration. Clearly this is the POV of choice if you just want the reader focusing on what's happening, if you don't want them wasting time doubting or speculating. His hands were shaking. Nuff said.
But what about Deep Third POV, which is cognitively much more akin to first-person, in that narration is completely through the perspective of a character (though with third person pronouns -- he/she)?
In that case, the perspective-limiting observation (sight lines) and the doubt would probably be preserved.
Serena's sight lines weren't good, but she thought his hands were shaking.
A deep third narration is no more certain than a first-person narration-- both are colored and perhaps distorted by the limitations, desires, and biases of the POV character.
So, short work of it:
If you don't want the reader speculating, common third is your best choice. This would be more useful in plot-driven books, where the characters' inner workings and doubts aren't that important.
If you want the reader speculating and doubting if the character POV is transparent and accurate, use first-person or deep third. That is more appropriate for character-driven books.
Examples? I'd love to start collecting some examples.
Alicia
I came across an example of this in Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth, which is in first-person. The issue here isn't whether the POV character is deliberately or subconsciously distorting the truth, but one of certainty-- she doesn't know to a certainty:
My sight lines weren't good, but I thought his hands were shaking.
That is, she's confessing that she doesn't really know because of "the sight lines", but she's reporting what she thinks she sees. Of course, two considerations here:
First, the narrator WANTS his hands to be shaking, that is, that he's evincing nervousness at being close to her. (She wants to think he's attracted to her.) So her perception might be less than accurate, just because she wants it to be so.
Second, one step removed-- the author put this in there. If there was no relevance, if it didn't matter, then the author wouldn't have bothered. We as readers generally assume that whatever is narrated has some importance, whether or not that's the fact. And the author knows we'll think this is important, and so decides whether or not to include this based on whether or not he/she thinks it's worth getting the reader excited about these shaking hands.
So let's assume McEwan chose to put this in there because it had some (albeit perhaps slight) meaning. What are we to make of it? Is it actually true (the character's hands really are shaking)? Or is what he wants us to get is that the young lady watching wants him to be nervous, thereby showing us that she really does like him (despite her recent rejection of him)?
That is, is the "importance" the event (hands shaking) or the POV's perception (her thinking that his hands are shaking)? The fun of this is, of course, that we don't need to determine that at this point in the narrative. We can wait to find out if he's really that affected by being near her, or if she's just hoping that he is.
Third-Person
Now think about how differently that simple observation would be rendered in the more common form of third-person. There would be no doubt, because ordinary third-person narrates what's happening.
His hands were shaking.
We wouldn't need the line about the sight lines, because this would be a narration of the action of the scene, not the narration from her perspective about what she's thinking as the scene plays out. In ordinary third-person, we are given no reason to doubt the truth of the narration. Clearly this is the POV of choice if you just want the reader focusing on what's happening, if you don't want them wasting time doubting or speculating. His hands were shaking. Nuff said.
But what about Deep Third POV, which is cognitively much more akin to first-person, in that narration is completely through the perspective of a character (though with third person pronouns -- he/she)?
In that case, the perspective-limiting observation (sight lines) and the doubt would probably be preserved.
Serena's sight lines weren't good, but she thought his hands were shaking.
A deep third narration is no more certain than a first-person narration-- both are colored and perhaps distorted by the limitations, desires, and biases of the POV character.
So, short work of it:
If you don't want the reader speculating, common third is your best choice. This would be more useful in plot-driven books, where the characters' inner workings and doubts aren't that important.
If you want the reader speculating and doubting if the character POV is transparent and accurate, use first-person or deep third. That is more appropriate for character-driven books.
Examples? I'd love to start collecting some examples.
Alicia
Saturday, July 7, 2012
POV Choices
I've been trying to figure out for some time now how to blog about a book I'm reading without actually identifying the book. I don't want to hurt the author's feelings because I'm convinced the problems in the book are not her fault. I know her editor. I know the kinds of errors her editor routinely fumbles, and I keep thinking that experience will cure these problems -- she's still a new editor, in her defense, and she's still learning her job. Maybe once or twice a year, I will pick up a book this editor worked on just to see if she has figured out how to repair these things I keep spotting. The books are always brimming with unreached potential, and every time I finish one, I swear that the next time I see this editor, I'm going to take her aside and give her a few tips. Not that I'll ever actually do that -- but that is my standard response to one of her projects.
Without getting into too much detail, this is an historical novel with an actual historical event forming the spine of the plot. There have been other historical novels written about these events and people, both from the points of view of the central figures and from a meta-pov of a non-central actor who was impacted by these events. We probably have passed the tipping point of reader interest about this time and these people, and it would be hard to come up with a fresh angle.
But they tried. They chose as the pov character someone who witnessed the key events without actually being involved in them. With this choice, they were stuck with one inescapable fact. The pov character was a very young person when events began to unfold. We'll call the pov character VYP for Very Young Person. How young? Young enough to lack manual dexterity. Young enough to be incapable of basic daily tasks for the time period, such as riding a horse. So young that the meaning of the witnessed events would escape our pov character.
By the way, they chose first person pov, too. This created some difficulties with the plot because, in first person, it's very difficult to insert information not available to the pov character -- and the pov character in this case would have little ability to provide analysis or commentary. Imagine, for example, VYP at a big family party. Where would VYP naturally spend the party? In the company of other children, not at the grown-up's table, right? VYP might notice that certain adults spoke to other adults without being able to supply insight about the implications of those moments. VYP would be naturally more interested that cousin Johnny found a bug than that rich Uncle Frankie gave the family wastrel a loan. This leads to a problem in the text: how to provide the reader with information that would not be available to VYP.
As I see it, they had two workable options.
1 - Hack off the first third of the plot, which occurs when VYP was too young to grasp the events.
2 - Choose a different pov character.
Instead, they made a mistake I've seen over and over in works handled by this editor. They used narrative compression to try to patch the damage. Long passages -- pages and pages, even entire chapters -- summarize years of events in a sort of viewpointless exposition, with occasional dips into actual scene material from VYP's pov. It's like reading a long essay about the political situation interspersed with short bits where a tall person helps VYP get something down from a shelf. Six pages of family interrelations explained, then a half-page about what VYP ate for dinner.Nine pages about a war happening elsewhere, then a page about someone giving VYP a present.
It doesn't work.
The real-time scene material is too trivial, and the exposition is too compressed, too dense with facts, and too dull. And it went on this way for well over 100 pages. Out of curiosity, I checked the book's reviews to see if ordinary readers reacted the same way I did. Sure enough, in many reviews, people complained that they couldn't get into the story and that they were bored. I saw a few that said they did not finish the book.
We talk a lot about using a pov character who has something at stake in the events. In this case, the character did have something at stake (not much, but something), but lacked the maturity to understand that and the ability to convey it to the reader. So it has to be about more than the stakes. You have to choose a character who will serve as a good medium for the story. The reader will experience the events through the prism of this character's pov, and choosing a cracked prism will only distort the experience.
Theresa
Without getting into too much detail, this is an historical novel with an actual historical event forming the spine of the plot. There have been other historical novels written about these events and people, both from the points of view of the central figures and from a meta-pov of a non-central actor who was impacted by these events. We probably have passed the tipping point of reader interest about this time and these people, and it would be hard to come up with a fresh angle.
But they tried. They chose as the pov character someone who witnessed the key events without actually being involved in them. With this choice, they were stuck with one inescapable fact. The pov character was a very young person when events began to unfold. We'll call the pov character VYP for Very Young Person. How young? Young enough to lack manual dexterity. Young enough to be incapable of basic daily tasks for the time period, such as riding a horse. So young that the meaning of the witnessed events would escape our pov character.
By the way, they chose first person pov, too. This created some difficulties with the plot because, in first person, it's very difficult to insert information not available to the pov character -- and the pov character in this case would have little ability to provide analysis or commentary. Imagine, for example, VYP at a big family party. Where would VYP naturally spend the party? In the company of other children, not at the grown-up's table, right? VYP might notice that certain adults spoke to other adults without being able to supply insight about the implications of those moments. VYP would be naturally more interested that cousin Johnny found a bug than that rich Uncle Frankie gave the family wastrel a loan. This leads to a problem in the text: how to provide the reader with information that would not be available to VYP.
As I see it, they had two workable options.
1 - Hack off the first third of the plot, which occurs when VYP was too young to grasp the events.
2 - Choose a different pov character.
Instead, they made a mistake I've seen over and over in works handled by this editor. They used narrative compression to try to patch the damage. Long passages -- pages and pages, even entire chapters -- summarize years of events in a sort of viewpointless exposition, with occasional dips into actual scene material from VYP's pov. It's like reading a long essay about the political situation interspersed with short bits where a tall person helps VYP get something down from a shelf. Six pages of family interrelations explained, then a half-page about what VYP ate for dinner.Nine pages about a war happening elsewhere, then a page about someone giving VYP a present.
It doesn't work.
The real-time scene material is too trivial, and the exposition is too compressed, too dense with facts, and too dull. And it went on this way for well over 100 pages. Out of curiosity, I checked the book's reviews to see if ordinary readers reacted the same way I did. Sure enough, in many reviews, people complained that they couldn't get into the story and that they were bored. I saw a few that said they did not finish the book.
We talk a lot about using a pov character who has something at stake in the events. In this case, the character did have something at stake (not much, but something), but lacked the maturity to understand that and the ability to convey it to the reader. So it has to be about more than the stakes. You have to choose a character who will serve as a good medium for the story. The reader will experience the events through the prism of this character's pov, and choosing a cracked prism will only distort the experience.
Theresa
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Few Thoughts on First Person
Last week in the comments to my post about the slush pile, several of you questioned our policy about first person manuscripts. This has come up before, and I thought maybe it would be worth front-page attention for two reasons. First, it touches on the way publishing houses operate. And second, we can talk about some of the pitfalls of first person.
In-House Debates
Editors are not all-powerful goddesses, even though we look the part. ;) We have bosses, just like any other person working a job. I'm the managing editor, and my boss is the publisher, and part of my job is enforcing the publisher's rules across the entire acquisitions and editing process.
Sometimes I get to make some rules, and sometimes I get to influence some rules, and sometimes I do what I'm told without having any influence on that mandated rule. Part of being an effective employee is knowing when to hold and when to fold. The first time, the very first time, I asked my boss about her rule banning first person narratives, the tone in her voice made it clear that this was not a hand I wanted to play. She has strong feelings on the subject, and I trust her editorial sense. If she says these don't fit our house style and mission, then they don't, and that's that.
I might ante up on other topics, and at different times, I've played my cards on a wide variety of subjects. Don't ask for details, though, because another part of my job is to be a good public representative of the company. This means that, win or lose, I don't air our debates in public. We present a unified front because we are, in fact, unified in our mission of making this company strong and positive and supportive and successful.
Some battles have been hard fought and hard won, but never in the sense that my boss and I are adversaries. We play on the same team. She's my leader, and I am her enforcer. We might disagree in the course of making decisions, but in the end, once the decision is made, I implement it without further debate. And to the best of my ability. Because that's my role, and it's one I embrace willingly.
So. We don't publish first-person narratives because our publisher said not to, and she means it. I've never tried to change her mind on this topic because I know how to pick my battles, and because, even though I enjoy reading first person stories, the slush pile has convinced me that the publisher is probably right about this.
First Person Pitfalls
It surprises me to say that because I enjoy first person narratives. I read plenty of them -- in fact, right now, I'm working my way with great pleasure through the Tasha Alexander books, which are first-person historical mysteries. Before I came to work at Red Sage, I handled plenty of first-person narratives as a freelance editor, writing instructor, agent, and so on. I have no bias against this form of pov.
But our books are erotic romances, which means there's a higher than average (and more explicit than average) amount of sexual content in them. Human sexual behavior tends to be highly personal (with some commonalities, of course), and pov might influence the way we read a sex scene more so than it influences the way we read other kinds of scenes. That is, it's one thing to read about someone else doing something that we might not do. It's entirely another to read about "I" doing it. And all it takes is one little detail, one thing that the reader might not personally relate to, and the reader bond is weakened. Maybe even broken.
Compare:
I kissed my way down his broad, strong back, admiring the planes of his muscles as I lingered here or there. When I reached his ass, I pulled apart the round globes of his cheeks and then I licked his asshole. (Reader: OMG, I would never do that.)
She kissed her way down his broad, strong back, admiring the planes of his muscles as she lingered here or there. When she reached his ass, she pulled apart the round globes of his cheeks and then she licked his asshole. (Reader: Euw, but okay, if you think it's fun, go for it and I'll watch and wait until you start doing things I like better.)
Yes, there is the third option, the one in which a reader thinks, Yay! Yummy! and eagerly reads for more asshole licking, regardless of the pov of the narrative. As a house, we can choose to cater to this reader, perhaps by including notes on the product page about particular fetishes. Or we can choose, as we have chosen, a more mainstream approach which focuses on character, premise, plot, conflict, etc., and references the sexual content as it relates to those elements. This better fits our house style and mission.
There are other common pitfalls to first person which are unrelated to sexual content. Just listing them off the top of my head --
*I don't ask for changes that would weaken the story. Duh, right? There have been extremely rare instances (Alicia will remember one) when we've had first person narratives that were exactly right as first person narratives. The action was vivid and strong, the voice was consistent and interesting, the amount of exposition was appropriate, the narrative frame was relevant to the story, and the sexual content was both hot enough and mainstream enough to work within the context of erotic romance as we publish them. But these are extremely rare manuscripts, and we handle them with caution. More likely, as we ask for revisions to a first-person narrative, we're also discussing other changes we want to make, like a shift in narrative focus away from telling and into actual scenes.
This is in danger of turning into a ramble now. Instead of continuing to get deeper into detail, I'll turn it back over to the commenters who prompted this post. Does this answer your questions? Does it raise more questions?
Theresa
In-House Debates
Editors are not all-powerful goddesses, even though we look the part. ;) We have bosses, just like any other person working a job. I'm the managing editor, and my boss is the publisher, and part of my job is enforcing the publisher's rules across the entire acquisitions and editing process.
Sometimes I get to make some rules, and sometimes I get to influence some rules, and sometimes I do what I'm told without having any influence on that mandated rule. Part of being an effective employee is knowing when to hold and when to fold. The first time, the very first time, I asked my boss about her rule banning first person narratives, the tone in her voice made it clear that this was not a hand I wanted to play. She has strong feelings on the subject, and I trust her editorial sense. If she says these don't fit our house style and mission, then they don't, and that's that.
I might ante up on other topics, and at different times, I've played my cards on a wide variety of subjects. Don't ask for details, though, because another part of my job is to be a good public representative of the company. This means that, win or lose, I don't air our debates in public. We present a unified front because we are, in fact, unified in our mission of making this company strong and positive and supportive and successful.
Some battles have been hard fought and hard won, but never in the sense that my boss and I are adversaries. We play on the same team. She's my leader, and I am her enforcer. We might disagree in the course of making decisions, but in the end, once the decision is made, I implement it without further debate. And to the best of my ability. Because that's my role, and it's one I embrace willingly.
So. We don't publish first-person narratives because our publisher said not to, and she means it. I've never tried to change her mind on this topic because I know how to pick my battles, and because, even though I enjoy reading first person stories, the slush pile has convinced me that the publisher is probably right about this.
First Person Pitfalls
It surprises me to say that because I enjoy first person narratives. I read plenty of them -- in fact, right now, I'm working my way with great pleasure through the Tasha Alexander books, which are first-person historical mysteries. Before I came to work at Red Sage, I handled plenty of first-person narratives as a freelance editor, writing instructor, agent, and so on. I have no bias against this form of pov.
But our books are erotic romances, which means there's a higher than average (and more explicit than average) amount of sexual content in them. Human sexual behavior tends to be highly personal (with some commonalities, of course), and pov might influence the way we read a sex scene more so than it influences the way we read other kinds of scenes. That is, it's one thing to read about someone else doing something that we might not do. It's entirely another to read about "I" doing it. And all it takes is one little detail, one thing that the reader might not personally relate to, and the reader bond is weakened. Maybe even broken.
Compare:
I kissed my way down his broad, strong back, admiring the planes of his muscles as I lingered here or there. When I reached his ass, I pulled apart the round globes of his cheeks and then I licked his asshole. (Reader: OMG, I would never do that.)
She kissed her way down his broad, strong back, admiring the planes of his muscles as she lingered here or there. When she reached his ass, she pulled apart the round globes of his cheeks and then she licked his asshole. (Reader: Euw, but okay, if you think it's fun, go for it and I'll watch and wait until you start doing things I like better.)
Yes, there is the third option, the one in which a reader thinks, Yay! Yummy! and eagerly reads for more asshole licking, regardless of the pov of the narrative. As a house, we can choose to cater to this reader, perhaps by including notes on the product page about particular fetishes. Or we can choose, as we have chosen, a more mainstream approach which focuses on character, premise, plot, conflict, etc., and references the sexual content as it relates to those elements. This better fits our house style and mission.
There are other common pitfalls to first person which are unrelated to sexual content. Just listing them off the top of my head --
- Uneven voice. It frequently happens that the author can sustain the first-person narrator's voice during exposition ("telling") or interior monologue, but completely loses it during action and dialogue.
- Too much exposition. An inexperienced author sometimes tries to compensate for this uneven voice by relying more on exposition than on scenes. This makes for a boring narrative, no matter how lively the character voice.
- Drowning in I. Too many I pronouns can make for a claustrophobic and repetitive narrative.
- Failure to leverage. This is one of my pet peeves. The main reason to choose first person pov is to provide a consistent filter through which the reader perceives the action. First person narrators are often unreliable because their perspectives color their interpretations of the narratives. It's that filter in action. Bridget Jones was wrong about Daniel Cleaver and wrong about Mark Darcy, but we initially saw these characters through her eyes, so we wandered down the wrong path with her. Would that story have been as entertaining if Bridget was always right?
*I don't ask for changes that would weaken the story. Duh, right? There have been extremely rare instances (Alicia will remember one) when we've had first person narratives that were exactly right as first person narratives. The action was vivid and strong, the voice was consistent and interesting, the amount of exposition was appropriate, the narrative frame was relevant to the story, and the sexual content was both hot enough and mainstream enough to work within the context of erotic romance as we publish them. But these are extremely rare manuscripts, and we handle them with caution. More likely, as we ask for revisions to a first-person narrative, we're also discussing other changes we want to make, like a shift in narrative focus away from telling and into actual scenes.
This is in danger of turning into a ramble now. Instead of continuing to get deeper into detail, I'll turn it back over to the commenters who prompted this post. Does this answer your questions? Does it raise more questions?
Theresa
Monday, March 15, 2010
POV Glitch
I had not noticed it when she first arrived: the way she leaned too far toward him as he kissed her hand, the hint of surprised recognition in his eyes.
~ A Fatal Waltz, Tasha Alexander
That's the first line of the third book in the Lady Emily Ashton series. I've already read the first two, so I already know we're dealing with a competent, controlled author. Even the best can run into these small pov snags, though.
What's the problem with this sentence? We're dealing with a first-person narrative. This means the narrative should be confined to what is within the scope of the viewpoint of the narrator. So, if the narrator didn't notice these things, how can she report them? She can't, not without breaking the pov. Or, if she did notice them, why does she say she didn't?
Can anyone see a way to read this sentence so that it doesn't break pov? There is a way, but you would need to spell it out for the reader in the next sentence or sentences, I think. In the alternative, there might be a way to tweak that sentence so that the meaning is slightly different but the pov remains pure. Anyone care to take a stab at this as an exercise?
Theresa
~ A Fatal Waltz, Tasha Alexander
That's the first line of the third book in the Lady Emily Ashton series. I've already read the first two, so I already know we're dealing with a competent, controlled author. Even the best can run into these small pov snags, though.
What's the problem with this sentence? We're dealing with a first-person narrative. This means the narrative should be confined to what is within the scope of the viewpoint of the narrator. So, if the narrator didn't notice these things, how can she report them? She can't, not without breaking the pov. Or, if she did notice them, why does she say she didn't?
Can anyone see a way to read this sentence so that it doesn't break pov? There is a way, but you would need to spell it out for the reader in the next sentence or sentences, I think. In the alternative, there might be a way to tweak that sentence so that the meaning is slightly different but the pov remains pure. Anyone care to take a stab at this as an exercise?
Theresa
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