Printer-friendly version
Forums:
I can't find the entry now, but someone was asking a while back whether one could effectively have the protagonist telling his/her part of a story in first person, interrupted by parts from other POVs in third person.
Just wanted to mention that Dollar Runaways by Tiffany Shar uses that format.
Sections are separated by one line space and all begin with the first three words in BOLD CAPS. The POV always appears in the first sentence of the section, most frequently in those first three boldfaced words.
It works quite well, IMO.
Eric
Thank you for the point of view tip Eric
My writing POV wanders confusingly as it flows yet if I manage to write a story worth editing this seems a useful approach to bring it under some sort of control.
Rhona McCloud
Thanks
The sequel to my Bikini Beach story will be done primarily from the viewpoint of the protagonist of the original story, in 1st-person. However, if it goes the way I'm currently taking it, I will also have sections from the viewpoint of another character (a secondary protagonist, perhaps) in 3rd-person limited.
The formatting sounds like a good idea, and I might follow it if I remember.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
shifting POV
I used italics for the chiming in co-narrator of my story Domestic Partnership
Italics aren’t foolproof...
Quite a few people read the stories posted here offline, and it’s entirely possible for boldface, italics, and other stylistic text treatments to become entirely invisible when converted to plain text by cut and paste operations.
There’s nothing quite so plain as the standard English paragraph structure, which either includes specific attributions or is related to the surrounding text in such a way that the actual speaker or actor is obvious. multiple actors, of course, never share a paragraph, unless one is trying to portray confusion or madness...
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I think I should stick to my
I think I should stick to my original idea, separating viewpoint changes with something such as a line of asterisks. The poster's idea would indicate the POV change: the section begins with three all-caps words, and the first sentence has the POV character's name -- or "I" or "me" when returning to 1st person.
I admit that I am stuck on straight text, using either Notepad or Emacs to edit.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
OK, I'm giving it a try.
I've never used the forum before, but I read a blog that said it was a problem from Firefox, which is my browser of choice, so here goes.
As for Italics and Bold. I'm one of those who reads off line. An old habit I picked up when using a dial up connection. I've never had the problem of losing formatting, but then I always cut and paste into a word processor. If you're Microsoft phobic, try Open Office, which is free from Oracle. It will open Doc, Docx, txt and other popular formats. It holds cut and paste forms as well.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Turn signals
Havens Salvation depends on perspective shifting between characters, I am new at this and my methods are at time crude, but I bold face the person talking above where there speaking. Sam gives her POV;; then James both have there name labeling the section where they speak.
Huggles
Misha
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
POV shifts
I've used that before in some of my writing and still do, one example being Alex in Wonderland. People don't seem to have a problem with the shift as I usually make it pretty obvious, usually I use the person's name at the beginning of the first sentence to establish who's point of view it is and change the sentence style slightly so the reader's frame of mind is a bit different when reading first person compared to third person
*hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3