Is this finally a conundrum that CAN'T be solved with helicopter theft?

[minxy]

Heh: T-Rex On Hidden Talents.

First time, standing apart. Walking the line of sex buddies and something more emotional, with an exit clause. Plus points for sneaky and effective use of tense changes: Something Guys Do from princessofg, who continues to provide wonderfully fresh, new Jack/Daniel. Hard R. S4ish.

From the Teyla ficathon, a darker femmeslash: strong women, surviving and finding that gives them more in common than they have with anyone else. Do No Harm, Teyla/Cadman, R, from alizarin_nyc.

kellifer_fic's entertaining drinking fic: It's the Firewater That Gets You. I love Ronon. I'm just saying. John & Rodney, G rated, humor.

Long, plotty Sam & Jack with a great premise: What if, one day, Sam just lost it and snapped and went a bit AWOL. Frankly, I'm stunned it hasn't happened, but it was with great foresight that Jojo had Maybourne approach her with a proposal in a story that played right into Season 5's Desperate Measures. It also does that thing where characters are allowed to have faults, and make mistakes, and accept consequences, and drive their friends to the edge. Daniel and Teal'c exist in this very nicely and importantly and as players in relationships that stand on their own and are as important as the great unspoken thing between Sam and Jack. And when they're pushed to the edge, you do find out exactly what it would take to get them to talk. Crisis, by Jojo, PG-13.

There was one about Rodney being insomniac. In fact, I think I read a DVD commentary on that one. Seems appropriate. I'll just go look for it for a moment... Oh, here is is: Solutions by teaphile, with DVD commentary here. John/Rodney, first time, cliche/kink challenge. NC-17.

And now, some brief meta, for I have not been sleeping well do to impending dissertation defense. Sure, it's in over a month, but there are deadlines and administration and there's work to do and advisors to badger and inconsistant people who must come through for me though there really isn't much precident... and I am sliiiiightly insomniac. But I'm working on it.

As per discussion with princessofg, using a hard POV in a fic is something that's a choice of the author, but is it a strength of fanfiction that T.V. or performances can't do as well? It seems to me that the camera's eye on screen is by default an omniscient POV, although I remember in bits of Ascension where the camera quite deliberately took on the POV of a floaty alien Orlin. In writing fanfic, I remember getting the first piece of beta advice alerting me to some alarming head hopping, and while omniscient POV in fic doesn't put me off, it's something I don't do well and try to deliberately avoid in my own writing.

There is a interesting side effect of hard character POV, though, and that's that if your character is unreliable or doesn't notice something or isn't there, you really can't get that information to the reader without telling your character or being very sneaky. T.V., on the other hand, can switch A to B storylines quite easily, and has been known to even jump clean away from our heroes and show wacky stuff like the badguys hanging out together, which is probably a more efficient way of doing things, but automatically filters the reactions through the audiences opinions rather than a characters opinions. I really like the intimacy of a hard POV, though, it's a direct and immediate way to access emotions and show how they're thinking by what they're registering. It's the anticipation of a first time when you really don't know how the other character is going to react, vs a foregone conclusion. Not that that is the only kind of tension, but it's an interesting kind.

I do suppose the camerawork itself is a (literal, har,) lens into the onscreen scene, and a director might suggest more intimacy with a two shot or aggression with a low angle, but even then, it's the directors POV you're getting.

Has Stargate ever followed just one character's POV in a hard way? If a hero is on his own, I suppose. Say, Daniel in The Summit/whateverthesecondepwascalled, but in a snap, they'll pull back to the Tok'ra planet and show stuff Daniel knows nothing about, and not particularly commit to Teal'c or Sam or Jack's POV there. In Alias early seasons, there was a significant commitment to Sydney's POV, and she carried you into and out of every scene, but apparently it almost flattened Jennifer Garner into exhaustion, so by S3 they'd introduced the idea of scenes that don't include Sydney, and there was much grumbling amongst the fans.

Anyway, insomniac inability to remember the scathing conclusion I was going to draw here, so tell me moments in fanfic where you thought a character's POV really changed the way the story unfolded (I really enjoyed writing Daniel as an unreliable narrator in Like No One is Watching, for example), or instances where omniscient POV made it a better action fic or something (do you find the omniscient POV better lends itself to fanfic that feels like an episode? That might have been my whiz-bang conclusion.) Any times when you remember canon committing to a hard character POV?

Maybe Beneath the Surface? Because we do get reintroduced to the characters, and don't follow Daniel until he's introduced to us through Jack...

Or the Changeling, which might be the best example, since Teal'c is effectively in a series of AUs and dreamscapes, so he more than many other episodes, is the standout hero of his dreams, and his is the only POV that matters. It isn't until he is discovered and at least partially stabilized at the SGC that the audience hears any other opinions other than Teal'c's, and even then, he's still in the room.

But then, Teal'c stories don't often overlap well with the other heroes, since he is a bit removed.

Thoughts? Ideas? Coherent arguments? Bring it.

OMG, I need to sleep. How do people handle this for a lifetime? I've only missed out on less than my normal 8 hours for a couple of nights in a row and I'm loopy. Of course, I'm not sleeping due to panic, so that could be causing the loopiness.

Comments

[taselby.livejournal.com]

{{{sleeeepy hugs}}}

Can I call you tomorrow (Weds)?

*mwah*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Sure. I think we'll find the cell phone will not support marathon chats, however. Battery life veeeeerrrryyyy short. But I'll charge it O/N and we'll see what the cell phone Gods degree.

*yawnz*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

*thwaps self upside the head*

DECREE. I meant decree. How's that for a slip? Lordy.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, the TV show The Prisoner was strict POV, which added to the creepy-cool paranoia.

Hmm, SG canon... Along the lines of Changeling, Forever in a Day was Daniel POV and Grace was Sam POV. And I think Crystal Skull and Absolute Power are mostly Daniel, while Window of Opportunity and Zero Hour are mostly Jack. (Maybe Zero Hour is all Jack?)

I like when they've played with POV, too, like the crystal entity in Cold Lazarus, the reporter in Heroes, The Other Guys and Citizen Joe; or SG-1 actually being robots in Tin Man; or SG-1 being unreliable -- as in Foothold and The Fifth Man.

In fanfic, strict POV works best, I think for character study, and for those really deft, clever twists. As you say, omniscent is fine for plotty, adventure stories, but not necessary -- Merry's Downtime is a fab adventure that's also wonderful Jack POV.

[cofax7]

I'm a demon for a limited pov (I've never heard it called "hard" before). I love it because you can limit the information made available to the character, and thus to the reader. It does make big stories harder, and that's why in A Dirty Wind I had to bring in Rah'nak because otherwise the reader wouldn't know that SG-1 was in danger, because they didn't know, until very near the end.

But limited povs really let you play games, and use unreliable narrators, and channel the character's voices in a way that omniscient doesn't. I have an essay on my website that I wrote about Story Structure, that included a fair amount of pov discussion. Err, here. Although you shouldn't read the stories I talk about in it until you get to the end of Season 3 of ... damn. You shouldn't read this essay until after you've seen "Eat Me", and you shouldn't read the stories until after you've seen all of Season 3 of Farscape. Pfeh. Hurry up with the watching!

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

EEEEEE! Thank you so much for the rec. I'm honored beyond measure and feeling rather puffed up for having my first attempt at femmeslash do so well in your eyes. raqs will deflate me tomorrow.

I really like the intimacy of a hard POV, though, it's a direct and immediate way to access emotions and show how they're thinking by what they're registering.

I do too! And I love that fanfic has that limited POV. However, I think in a lot of novels that I've read, it's not that way. A Henry James drawing room, for example, may show you the tiny turn of a wrist and the sidelong glance across the room but rarely does he put forward the intimate POV, rather lets the reader draw the conclusions that they will.

So I'm thinking that what I find in fanfic is a character POV rather than an omniscient narrator. Novels have a narrator, who is all-seeing if not altogether reliable, but it's at such a remove and I wonder (now, having read this post), why fanfic differs so much. It is likely because we, the fans, want to get closer to our favorite characters. We want to see and be inside their heads. That's the point of fanfic, I think.

Sleep my darling Minxy, sleeeeeep!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I am now totally excited, because I don't think I've read Merry's downtime. Whee! fic recs!

I love the eps you've picked as particular character POV episodes. It occurs to me that the years when they couldn't get all their actors on screen at the same time very often produced some interesting POV eps. Abyss was a good one too, for unreliable Jack narration.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

You've probably never heard it called hard before because I just made up that term out of my widdle head. It made sense at the time, though.

I love that you've already thought about this, and I seem to remember somebody talking about story structure in a comm, maybe the cutting board? and some of the same ideas were addressed. Probably either you or Katie M. Rah'nak worked so well as a narrator, because he not only told an important aspect of the story that no one else could tell, but he was himself an interestingly unreliable narrator, which is So Much Fun. I love unreliable narrators greatly. I just started saying 'especially if I'm already invested in them before they turn unreliable', but then I thought that it might be really quite awesome to have a new character as unreliable narrator beginning, middle and end, regardless of their interaction with characters one already knows.

Tiptoeing through S3. Have the next few eps ready to watch.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

You know, one day you're going to figure out that I'm not all that, and I will feel bad for falling so spectacularly off my pedastal. Hope I don't break anything on the way down.

In the meantime, though, I will reaffirm that I did enjoy that story so much, partly for the complexity of the relationship, partly for omgTeyla, partly for the women and in a big way because it was dark. That really got to me, and I am so enjoying the implications for them. Especially as they are women, and so much of the femmeslash, at least that I've seen, is so comfort laden, that the the softness contrasts nicely with the dark themes, and balances out.

My favorite bit of intimate POV is that sometimes, it's really not overt, what you're doing with your narrator. You can have Teal'c registering that Sam is horizonal on the couch and have him think that she is tired, without really realizing that she is also comfortable enough in his presence to let her guard down completely. Snazzy things like letting the reader draw conclusions your character hasn't made yet. Fun. Yay!

Interesting difference between limited and intimate POV, though. I must ponder.

One of the biggest barriers to writing any kind of full length novel for me is the omniscient narrator. I don't like that style nearly as much. I do think, for a new character(s), you would be taking a huge risk focusing really absolutely on a single night watching a movie, where with our fandom characters it adds a unique moment to the canon and fanon and wealth of information we have about them. It's probably really freeing to have that background here, where with original characters it might be a huge risk or require confidence and dexterity that many of us lack.

I caaaaaaan't sleeeeeeeep! OMG! It's past midnight. I'm turning off the light. I need my beauty sleep.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Actual looking at the clock indicates it is really nearly 1 in the morning.

I think there will be no more actual looking at the clock.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I've always been a fan of limited 3rd person pov, whether it's for one character throughout the whole story or for a character per scene. It just fits for me. I am rather against the omniscient pov, for writing. I feel differently for TV and film...with both of those I think some limited pov is nice, but it makes sense for those media to shake things up a bit. It's necessary to move the story along, especially if you have an ensemble cast or something. If the whole poitn of the movie or the film is to mislead you, then obviously use of the limited pov is more useful.

Some of my best writing has come from the limited pov usage, such as Echoes of Autumn. The whole fic is about an unreliable narrator. All the necessary information to understand what is happening is given in bits and pieces, word usage mby myself, and various clues throughout the text. But since someone like Jack would not have context for this information yet (just like the reader) they don't fall into place until things start to make sense. In that respect, it's much like Changling which was Teal'c's pov until the very end -- scene when he is getting tretonin and unconscious is the only time the episode switches to outside of Teal'c's head.

Other fics I've written, I jump between limited 3rd pov. If a character knows something that I don't want him or her to share, i won't write through their pov for a while. And when I do, I write around some of the information by using a variety of sneaky language that could mean anything.

I don't know. I get very bored when I read something where someone tells me everything that is going on. It's one of those things I stick to rather regularly.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

*rubs hands*

btw, what is the general area of your doctorate, if you announce that sort of thing? If not, no problem....

I have studied up on, though I am not an English major, nor do I play one on TV, the use of pov in WRITTEN FICTION quite a bit over the years, and there is so much to learn there -- it's exhausting, the way scholars and readers have broken this down and analyzed it. But I have two humble observations: For sex-centered writing, tight third person POV or first person (which I know you generall detest, but I don't, nyah nyah nyah :) ) is really good to use, because it's all about the intense personal responses and acts of one person. Some writers, like the immortal Keiko Kirin, are good enough to switch back and forth between POVs, like she does to great effect in The Steak Series, but generally I agree with you that one POV is best.

Using one pov and making that person an unreliable narrator is so much fun, and harder to pull off, because you have to KNOW more than you TELL. I think this is why that new fic of mine that you are so kind to rec, up there, is so tantalizing, because we DON"T know what Jack is thinking, but we know what he DOES. The author has to know something, or has to listen very carefully for what happens, for that to work.

So that's all very well understood: the pov thing in written fiction.

What I know MUCH LESS about is the contrast between pov as in fic and pov as in TV.

I so agree that the tv and movies generally do jump around to many POVs, and use the omniscient all the time, and switch between omniscient and actually making the camera the eye of a character. This is where we need the film school fans; yoo hoo?

I remember in early SG-1 that they often gave us a few SXF shots as if the camera were seeing what the replicators saw, and in "The Tomb" we saw things through the characters' eyes, as they careened down the dark corridors. In Solitudes we saw Daniel waking up, seeing Teal'c's blurry face. Same thing in Forever In A Day. But I don't there's any pattern to it, that I can see. But again, here's where we need the film school people, and I'm not one.

I don't think the omniscient POV better lends itself to fanfic that feels like an episode. Fic that feels like an episode has these characteristics, for me: Lots of plot, a broader focus than the romantic or sexual relationship between two characters, and an attempt to present the minor characters as they are in canon or a focus on the TEAM not the ship or the pairing. POV is not the issue for me.

Most fanfic gets written in tight third person, which is Teh Good, IMHO. It's rare that someone can make third person omniscient emotional enough for me to want to read it. There's a distance there that I find off putting, because I'm all about the characters in fanfic, prefereably characters having sex.

Thanks so much for doing this meta; I can't wait to see the comments.

Hang in there on the sleep deprivation; it's a bitch. Try to get more exercise; it will help both the panic and the insomnia. It's hard to make time for it, though. I don't have a doctorate, but my experience comes from having babies in the house and various deadline-busting projects through the years. *cheers*

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

Downtime -- it was in the recent greensilver ficathon and was one of the very absolute best stories to come out of that, but of course everything merry touches is just ace, both in Sentinel and in SG-1, IMHO.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

reading the other comments:

clearly we need the film school vocab here, because there is a distinction between the character's pov, making a story with a narrator, like Abyss was for Jack, and using the camera as the eyeball of a character. I personally don't know what the film school people would call both of those things.

The novels of Robert B. Parker about Spenser are absolute tour de forces of presenting ONLY what a given character knows, never switching the scene to the villains, and presenting the detective story only through one character's eyes. In fact they are all first-person, which is why they're so excellent and unique... plus no one does exposition-through-dialogue better. i can only think of one of the novels in that series where he switches to the villain's pov, and he does that in first person too, and it's just chilling.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, silly girl, you are tired -- you have read Downtime -- it was her ficathon piece. But always fun to read again, just because!

I thought of Abyss, too, but it had very memorable SGC scenes as well. (Or were those Daniel POV?!)

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Interesting thoughts on pov in fanfic. Obviously the 3rd person limited omniscient pov has distinct advantages in a genre that is largely concerned with teasing out character nuances and doing things with the characters that we can't really see onscreen because of the limits of that medium (and the choices of the writers/directors). I would venture to say as well, though, that writing a successful non-limited omniscient pov (that is, with a narrator) is really difficult--not the sort of thing that lots of amateur writers could pull off successfully, even if they wanted to.

Of course in the history of fiction you get lots of really present outside, omniscient narrators: Fielding, Dickens, Joyce (well, Joyce is complicated). But there's not a lot of character intimacy with Dickens, for instance. Then of course there are the limited ones (whether first person or not): Charlotte Bronte, Conrad's Marlow, Fitzgerald (at least in Gatsby), James. Lots of character intimacy, but only with one character. But even in canonical fiction, the number of people who can pull off 3rd person indirect discourse successfully through different characters without being really narrator-ish is small: Austen, I would argue, is still the master; Woolf also does a damned good job.

So back to fanfic. Certainly a high percentage of writers--the really good ones and the not-so-good ones--choose to filter through a given character because of the effect. Of the ones who choose not to write that way, I've read a handful of fics, usually plotty and/or humorous, that have great narrator voices. But fics with a fairly unobtrusive narrator that gets into the heads of various characters without giving that head-hopping sensation? Very few, at least that I've ever read. At best, I've seen longer fics divided into scenes and chapters with different character povs in the different scenes.

And all this may be shoddy narrative theory indeed, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee! ;)

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

I remember in early SG-1 that they often gave us a few SXF shots as if the camera were seeing what the replicators saw, and in "The Tomb" we saw things through the characters' eyes, as they careened down the dark corridors.

They've also used "monster-cam" several times throughout the series -- which is the term my circle uses for when you get a SFX camera shot that's clearly meant to be what a non-human is seeing. "Ooooh, monster-cam!" we will observe. "That's never good!"

Off the top of my head, I can think of SG1 using it in "Cold Lazarus" (initial shots of the crystal "looking at" Jack, I believe); for the Replicators; for Chaka at the beginning of "The First Ones"; and for the critter in "The Tomb". Maybe others, but those are the ones I remember.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

First, let me say: Jojo is one of my two favorite 'ship writers; the other is SuzVoy. "Crisis" is really cool, and Jojo wrote a few other Sam-centric fics, one of which I think was a giant AU-mirror epic, that I really enjoyed. And Suz wrote a long plotty bleak UST drama, as well. One of the things I liked best about both of those writers, aside from their humor and their handling of the voices of both characters, (and that they'd include Daniel and Teal'c sometimes), was that they sometimes wrote RST but also wrote UST.

Second, let me say that in general, I *love* "unreliable narrator", and it's one thing I would point to that I love about the crossover concept, although you don't always see it done well. I love crossovers (not everyone does, I realize), because they allow the reader to see one world/set of characters from the unreliable viewpoint of another set of characters/worldview, and there is a lot of fun to be had with that. (Recent stellar example: LTLJ's "Retrograde" series, crossing SG1/SGA; another example would be Martha's "Lovely" and especially its sequel "Tatters", crossing SG1/TS/ATS.)

I think that the best "hard" or limited-POV SG1 ep I can think of -- aside from the already-mentioned "Changeling" -- is the bulk of "Absolute Power", which of course is limited for the same reasons as "Changeling" was. IIRC, the camera departs from Daniel to be "in" the jail when Jack is talking to Sam, but then it shows us that Daniel is indeed watching that exchanged, so it "fits" in with the conceit of the dream.

This caused me a lot of problems, actually, when I was struggling with my story for the ficathon -- I actually hadn't *thought* about the limited-to-Daniel POV of the dream and so on, and for various reasons wanted to do the story from Jack's POV. (I wanted his thoughts, and also I felt a little more comfortable with his narrative voice right at that moment.) Then, with like 48 hours before it was due, I freaked out because I suddenly realized what a problem that was. How can Jack *have* a POV within the AP dream? aaigh.

But then I figured out a few ways to fanwank it, and readers haven't questioned it or protested it -- which is interesting, too. Not that I'm quite sure whether *I* would question it, as a reader, either. In fact I'm *pretty* sure I've read fanfic before set during the AP dream that was from Jack's POV and I didn't think twice about it. Now that, to me, would be an interesting thing to get people's thoughts on. Is their willingness to accept Jack's POV within that dream merely because they hadn't really thought about the POV issues, hadn't noticed consciously the way the ep itself is careful to stick to Daniel's POV? Or is it because they have a conceptual fanwank for it? Or is it because they are willing, for the purposes of fanfic, to treat the "dream" as more of an AU, with a life/reality of its own? (I came up with a fanwank for it, rather than just deciding to treat it as its own reality, but in discussing it with some people, they've indicated that they sort of think of it as the latter.)

The same thing sort of goes for "Changeling", actually -- at least, in that I have always felt that I would *LOVE* to see someone write a significant exploration of that as an "AU" (i.e. fireman!Jack/psychiatrist!Daniel.) Though I have read one story that is more set within the "dream" but that allows Daniel a POV because you can argue that he is a visitor *within* Teal'c's dream and therefore could have a POV of his own. Hmm.

[cofax7]

Actually, re: this discussion, I think you might find The Money-Changer's Tale interesting. It's on my site, and not particularly spoilery, since you've seen LatP. But it's an experiment in pov and narrative form.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Oh, that's right. That was phenomenal, that one.

Heh. Daniel POV, huh? That's awesome.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

All the episodes people are coming up with that had a tighter POV than others are among my favoritest ever. I'm wondering if it's a trend.

But here's a question: do performances need omniscient narration? A play or live performance can still manipulate what you learn by only showing you the scenes a particular character witnesses (a la Sherlock Holmes, I think this is very effective for mysteries) but every reaction on stage, even if that character isn't registering it, can be seen and interpreted by the audience.

In film, it's the director who funnels those reactions through camera frame, restricting and influencing what you as a reader see. They also have time restrictions and a lot to say in that time. Maybe omniscient camera narration is the only way to get enough information across?

In fanfic, an author can focus the vision of the story into the characters POV so tightly that nothing else matters. Is that a strength of fanfiction and written story that other mediums have to try ridiculously hard to emulate? If so, why so many novels in omniscient narration?

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

You have to remember that tv and film, for example, have 1-3 hours to tell a story. A book can span upwards of 1000 pages. With such a time limit, you need to find ways to move the story along as quickly as possible.

And I don't like omniscient narration in books so I don't read them ;)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

So up in Moonshayde's comments up there, I started talking about omniscience as a necessary evil in t.v. and film and live performance because so much has to be communicated in limited time. In the writing of the scripts, you can influence the scenes and whether the audience will see scenes that your protagonist doesn't, but within that scene, it's rarely shot from the protagonist's POV.

It seems to me that what happens is that you get a protagonist (I'm thinking of Elizabeth in the first Pirates of the Carribean movie because the writers did a very interesting commentary on that film) who introduces you to all the other heroes and villans. Once you've been introduced to that character, the film may switch off and show you a scene in which they are the lead for that moment. To actually use their physical, first person POV with the camera may be jolting if you're going to pull back repeatedly and show the more omniscient pov in order to record their reactions. I think it would need to be done with care, by which I mean, I would find it alarming unless it were done so bloody well that I didn't notice (my general reaction to first person.)

I don't DETEST first person, you know, I just find it jolting and wierd and alarming. It's a phobia! It's not my fault, it's a knee-jerk reaction. If someone's good enough to make that disappear as I'm reading, I'm all for it.

But here's the question: the fact that most movies or television shows don't hold to one characters POV exclusively, hopping from hero to hero or between members of the ensemble introduced by the protagonist (exceptions made for mysteries and psychological dramas with one clear protagonist), is that a failure on the part of film media? Or is it them using the strengths of film: strong visual memory and identification, the ability to show things like location and atmosphere quickly and efficiently with an image that would take a long time in print to evoke, while eschewing a limited POV because it's too limiting for a visual medium?

Is it just different strengths? Because as people are listing episodes where they think there was a commitment to a more limited single character POV, they are listing my favorites. So I'm wondering if sometimes the omniscient camera POV is a shortcut for a T.V. show with limited time and lots to tell us. Does the more intimate medium of T.V. better lend itself to more intimate POV because of the audience's location and size of the screen, but shoot itself in the foot with shooting shedules and production times requiring shortcuts to tell the story?

(I natter on about my dissertation behind flock mostly, and I pretty sure you're friended, so you'll likely hear more about it than you want to. Short version is that the subject is basic biophysical research, which, you'll note, has absobloodynothing to do with film or creative writing! LOL. I'm out running again tonight, but I got a reasonablish amount of sleep last night, and fell asleep pretty quickly after lights out.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I think detective stories, mysteries and psychological dramas must limit their POVs of necessity to drive the tension, mustn't they? Most of the examples people are giving to show that film and t.v. can do limited POV are mysteries of some kind.

As opposed to action, where sometimes I guess in order for the audience to anticipate the bad stuff going down and therefore ramp up the tension, sometimes a different POV is needed. Maybe?

I propose protagonist and narrator for the person who takes you into and out of the scenes, and first person for any time a camera takes the assumed physical location of your narrator and shows you exactly what he sees, not over his shoulder, but from his eyes.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I think it would take a lot of confidence, too, to write from an omniscient narrator POV and head hop, because a lot of us as beta readers would jump all over that as a negative thing perforce. You'd have to have an amazing beta and audience.

Which leads me to wonder if the list of classic writers successfully employing omniscient POV (although I think this is still default novel POV) doesn't to some degree reflect a different culture and different aims within it. Contrasting 18th century ideals about emotion and intimacy and how much a reader would want to know of find acceptible (or alarming) in a full length novel or WIP column in a newspaper, vs a livejournal fanfic environment in which sex can take a front seat to applause, emotion is key and we're looking for really revealing psychological character moments that set them apart.

Not a firm line, or a great divide, but I wonder if there isn't an influence there that might drive us as fanfic writers to choose very limited POVs where time was when an author could and would choose a more omniscient narrative tone for similarly relationship driven stories.

Also? I"m only on my second cup of coffee. Need more.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I had no problems at all with the idea of Jack's POV in Daniel's dream, actually. I think you totally got away with it, but it makes me happy that you considered the fact, and I don't think having it pointed out will detract from rereads of the story, either. Go you!

I'm wondering why Abyss and Grace aren't being discussed as often as the Changeling and Absolute Power, and I'm thinking it's because the limited POV isn't used to withhold information in a mysterious way in the same way. The Changeling and Absolute Power are somewhat unreliable narrators because we don't know why they are there and we only have their wacky, uncharacteristic behavior, which is fascinating, but is all driving us to an explanation of what, where, why, how. Abyss and Grace, on the other hand, give us a plausible set up from the beginning and explain clearly that Jack is in enemy hands and Sam is injured and left behind on a ship; while they both become increasingly unreliable narrators, those facts aren't likely to be called into question very sincerely. From there, there's some tension about will they get home and the details of how they got into the situation to begin with, but really the story is all character moments from the moment the set up is over on out. And we've been so well trained as an audience to have faith that everything will work out fine that the 'how will they get home?' question isn't nearly as driving as 'wtf is going on?' Despite cool use of unreliable narrators in all cases.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I R dumb and didn't register the title. I'm pretty sure I crooned about that story for days.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Which one was LatP? I'll take your word that I've seen it, though. Experiments, whee! Will check it out.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Certainly culture does influence narrative goals, but I think I'd still maintain that the cultural differences between an 18th century novel and a 21st century fanfic weigh a bit more on the end of content as opposed to narrative style. After all, I don't think I've ever read anything that beats Clarissa for psychological intimacy, even if, say, the sexual content has to be more muted there because of existing mores.

I do think there's a clear link between limited omniscient povs and internet fic culture, but I think it has to do more with the (usual) goals of fanfic than it does with the content of said fic. That is, the majority of fanfic (at least the sort that I am most familiar with) is character-focused: it just makes more sense to write the characters more intimately when the primary point of the fic is to explore characterization. We write about content like sex because there aren't cultural taboos about it anymore, but that content doesn't dictate the style, I don't think; rather, it's just another feature of this goal of intimate characterization.

I think it is possible to write fiction that does this intimate exploration of multiple characters--and again here I'd come back to someone like Virginia Woolf who, although she doesn't deal with issues like sex (cultural mores regarding content), certainly deals with her characters on an intimate level. But whether there are fanfic writers out there who would want to pull off such a narrative style (I'm sure there are a few who could, though I know I'm certainly not among them!), I have no idea.

As always with these sorts of discussions, I wish I had time to read more contemporary fiction--obviously the missing link between my examples of canonical English lit. and fanfic! One of the distinct disadvantages to reading for a living is that I too often neglect reading for fun.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know that I buy that about detective stories. Sometimes the fun and suspense is actually caused by US knowing more than the characters do, and sweating for them while they figure it out. Hitchcock might as well have invented that device, yes?

I reserve the right to adopt your terminology, but I want to root around in the film school databases first. *bg* I mean, why reinvent the wheel, right? I'm sure there are established names for this stuff if I would take the trouble to go look the up.....*rummages*

thanks again for the discussion

[denynothing1.livejournal.com]

Enjoy, enjoy. The Money-Changer's Tale is one of my all-time favorite stories, and the narrator one of my favorite characters.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Holy soap on a stick--- you wrote SECOND PERSON??? and limited third? And switched POVs and made it all work? Gracious.

I have to admit that I assumed that You at first was the reader, and figuring out who the narrator actually was by the end made me confused that he/You got the line about a woman yadda yadda and a man who found something he'd lost. Because, I could be wrong, or confused, or insomniac, but that part of the story hadnt' been written yet, had it? Ah, well.

I have to say that I loved the 1001 Arabian Nights feel to that narrative. I loved the money changer and the subtle, fuzzy descriptions of aliens with amazing motivations seeing Aeryn (and John, especially if Sebeceans are so rare to see) from such an outsiders perspective. I think I have a bit of a kink for when people turn my default on it's head and view the characters I most identify with as alien and wierd.

I found this Very Interesting, and enjoyed it immensely. Thanks so much for the pointer! *totally wants to be able to read your summaries of fic and read the fic*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I don't know that I buy that...

This is exactly why I frame these sorts of thoughts as questions, for lo, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

But now I totally want to go watch Rear Window again. Marathon! Normally, I"m not really a mystery or detective kinda girl, see...

I want to root around in the film school databases first

Good lord, you're going to do research??? Wow. That is awesome. I shall bow to the greater commitment! And attempt to get some sleep so my thought processes are more coherent when you come back...

[cofax7]

but that part of the story hadnt' been written yet, had it? Ah, well.

Ah, but the key line there is "you've been told"--John got a message from Stark, which is why he went to Drumbae.

As I recall, the pov sequence goes 2nd (reader/John)->limited omniscient (Keshik)->limited 3rd (Billix, Jendle, Indari)->2nd again. Wacky, no? I had so much fun with that, although it was very hard to pull it together and make it smooth. And I love my polygamous Indari, and the purple 4-armed gorillas.

So glad you liked it, I'm exceedingly proud of it.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

I had no problems at all with the idea of Jack's POV in Daniel's dream, actually. I think you totally got away with it, but it makes me happy that you considered the fact, and I don't think having it pointed out will detract from rereads of the story, either. Go you!

Thanks. :) Once I thought of it, it bugged me a lot, because I *don't* really regard AP as a sort of AU. The work-around I decided on that allowed me to go on writing it was that since it was a teaching dream given to Daniel from Shifu, it's possible that Daniel could have been shown others' POVs within the dream itself. Because it seemed as if the Daniel in the dream wasn't aware of anything going wrong with himself. It struck me that it would have been effective of the dream to show real-Daniel others' perspectives on dream-Daniel.

I don't think that's what the ep intended, though. I think it intended real-Daniel to derive lessons from the dream only upon waking and being able to remember the dream, and thus getting an "outside" perspective on evil!Daniel that way. I think the ep is still just a very limited-POV while Daniel's within the dream, and there's no suggestion of other POVs in canon. But the idea was enough to work for me. :)

I'm wondering why Abyss and Grace aren't being discussed as often as the Changeling and Absolute Power, and I'm thinking it's because the limited POV isn't used to withhold information in a mysterious way in the same way.

*nods* I think you're right. Unreliable narrator can have many uses. In Abyss and Grace, there's no mystery; the POV is still very interesting, but the audience never questions its unreality.

Whereas, with both AP and Changeling, on first viewing the audience spends time going WTF? Is this "real" in some way? Especially since the show has already established ways for what we are seeing in those eps to sort of be "real" -- AU, reality-warping tech, future-glimpse (or possibly something we hadn't seen yet).

In the case of AP, the mystery of it, the possibility that what we're seeing is real, is bolstered by the previous example of "2010". While it would be a weird narrative technique to advance the story so quickly (the show never does "one year later" in reality), even then it was possible that we were seeing a possible real future that had to be fixed in a way like the 2010 future was fixed.

With Changeling, I think there's much less scope for thinking "this is somehow real", and it's more just *WTF*??? But the nice thing about Changeling is how it strings the viewer along with regard to expectations about what is "real" (i.e. there's an SGC-dream as well as the fireman-dream, and then there's reality). It *ought* to be obvious that the fireman-dream isn't real -- even if it was an AU, how do you get a human Teal'c in there? But it's not like Sam's dream/hallucinations in "Grace", where they are just overlays on a recognizable reality and where in various ways they are clearly dreamlike (occasionally dream-versions of characters act in ways they wouldn't, or probably wouldn't, in real life). The fireman-dream is its own self-contained reality that doesn't really involve its analogs of familiar characters acting weird or OOC (with the exception of Teal'c himself, perhaps). Therefore, I think that because the viewer starts out granting it the possibility of reality, even though that is soon dispelled, and due to its structure, it's easier later to think of it as having its own "life", as it were.

I think that "2010" is another interesting example of WTF, along with "Beneath the Surface". But I feel as if those aren't good examples of very-limited POVs like the above four eps are. The only limited POV in them is that of the audience, actually, which is being constrained as to the information it receives, with which to evaluate what it's seeing. The audience becomes an unreliable POV, in other words, and I think in both cases is "stranded" along with the characters, to follow along as they figure things out. (Well; in "2010" the characters are less stranded than the audience, actually; and I have other rants about "2010", but that's a different discussion.)

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

By the way, in reference to a comment above: I can think of one other rare example of a writer using second-person narrative, in SG-1 fandom this time. The writer is Delilah, and she wrote the short (5-story) blind!Jack series, that switches off between Jack in second-person, and Daniel in first-person.

http://brothersinarms.tvheaven.com/delilah/sgslash.html

Weird. But I've always liked it. I don't think it's something I would like to read a *lot* of, but I could handle it in those. (Something else you were saying above: I don't have a phobia about it, but I'm not *fond* of first-person. I prefer tight-third.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

You know, I might have to stop joking about that quite so fascetiously, people seem to be actually listening to things I say... As it is, it's not genetic or anything, just, as you say, a strong preference.

That said, I'm finding some fascinating uses of second person now we're on the subject. Firefly, Inara/Simon (which I never thought about before but worked seamlessly) in second person: Planetfall (http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/0/planetfall.html) by dirty_diana. Maybe PG-13.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

ooo, a scientist. coolness.

i don't think it's a weakness of the tv/film genre. i don't know a whole heck of a lot about film, just what i've picked up as a fan, plus i am trying to write a screenplay for some reason, and i remember reading a book by david mamet which was highly critical of the way western film simply tells a story by following a protagonist around. he felt, ims, that the genre was not exploiting its power of expressing meaning through images, like, say, photography or painting. it was leaning too hard on its roots in fiction and theater and not truly going where it could really go by using the image as a way to convey meaning. he used to challenge his students to make silent films, in fact.

so i dunno. most movies and tv i've seen do in fact jump around alot through all the points of view to a degree that i've seen criticized in written fiction. so i don't know what's considered "correct", and that may differ depending on who you ask. still have the terminology review on the "to do" list, btw... real life. feh.

[bugchicklv.livejournal.com]

I read each and every one of your flists' replies because I am always on the look-out for ways to make my stuff better, technically. And this is a subject that actually interests me.

I've written in first, second and omniscient POV and can tell you I HATE First. IMHO, that smacks of Mary-sueism no matter the character or fandom--especially if it's pr0n. (Thus, only one of those by me) Most of mine have been omni because I *AM* an avid book reader and that POV seems to be the most acceptable and easily read.

HOWEVER, you miss out on character's feelings or observations (unless you make it dialogue or italicize to indictate thought--which ALSO bothers me, even if I have done it!). That kind of detail is best brought out in the "hard POV" as you call it (i've always thought of that as 2nd but whatever---I probably have it all wrong).

UNFORTUNATELY, some of us can't do "in character" this way for a longer piece. It is exhausting. And sometimes you are tempted to write/say/do something OUT of character--and I don't like that either.

And one more thing, which will make me sound like a snob and/or asskisser: Sometimes the people that read your work won't pick up on the details and such in a "hard" POV. And it's kind of frustrating because it makes you wonder if you missed the boat or if your readers are just idiots. *ack--again with the snobbery* Some fandoms/pairings *cough*Rayne*cough* don't seem to pick up on the subtlety--and since it's the most reviled Firefly pairing and never read by the "readers that count" I've given up on trying to do that with them.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Hey, cool! I always get a kick out of the witty and smart things they say, but they (you) don't always reply to each other, so it's nice to hear that you're reading the comments.

First, second, omniscient... man, I know it can be done well, I know it can, and it can be done to great effect too, but tense is a kind of tool that you really need to be good at before you start messing with it. Me? I'm not there. If I ever have used or done it well, it was an accident.

I don't like the notion, though, that fanfiction has to be written in a particular way or for a particular audience or otherwise be subject to wierd external rules. Sometimes I express opinions and am crazy alarmed when people take them as a judgement larger than just a personal opinion, like some kind of final word on what is worthy. I mean, if you are hitting a kink for people, and filling a niche no one else is, who is to say that is better or more worthy than the most lauded, heralded, recc'd, gen, novel-length story? I love the idea that you're writing for yourself first and foremost, and that you're reading my lovely flist and getting ideas on how to procede. I love the idea that fandom has a place for everyone.

I also have burned the DVD and am heading to the post office this afternoon. Christmas address is still accurate, right?

[bugchicklv.livejournal.com]

Ok, so now I have two done in first person as I just wrote a fic from Vera's POV. *face/palm* And I'd say she doesn't count because she is a gun but I re-read it this morning and realized people could easily think I might have written a Vera-Sue. *cringe* Which I didn't. But still...

TENSE! Don't get me started on tense. I have ginormous problems with that in my own work and sometimes wonder if I should just say "F*ckitall" and write in the present. After all, you can't really accidentally drop in, or be forced to use, past participle if you write in the present.

But I can't bring myself to do it. Because I'd rather be mediocre writing in past tense than really good at writing in present. *ack!!!* I don't mean to sound like Mrs. Judgy again, but something about present doesn't sit well with me and seems less...educated? Refined? Literary? Hell I don't know what it is I am trying to say except that SOME THINGS written in present tense sound like a High School drop out wrote it.

I am going to hell for being a snob, aren't I?

I know there is work written in present that IS PHENOMENAL and should grace the shelves of Barnes and Noble as far as I am concerned, but when present is done badly, it makes the whole thing suck and makes me want to run away screaming when I open a fic and read that so and so "thinks this might be a bad idea" or somesuch because OMG!PRESENTTENSE!NOOOOOOOOO!

And yes, addy is the same.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!