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So the reason why you want to do it, combined with the deftness with which it’s done, should probably be the driving factors behind using it; shifting POV, to my mind, should be a writing tool or technique like any other, used to accomplish a specific task.
yass yass! perfectly said.
the problem with questions about writing is that they are each supplemental to the main question of: is this working?
if it "works," you can do ANYTHING.
if you think it might work, do it, just for the love of all things writerly, do it. you dont know until you've done it, and if it doesnt work, you will have proved it to yourself so strongly that the question in hindsight will seem silly.
directly: how much notice to i take of changes in perspective in the narrative? answer: it COMPLETELY depends on how well it's done. meaning: the reader must have trust in the narrator, and to do this, the writer must largely be absent, and transitions must be done within the world that the narrator has created for the reader.
if i try to think of perspective changes that didnt work, they are ones that were confusing - the writer sometimes tries to lull the reader into the transition by focusing too much on setting, for instance, at the point of transition, so that the reader is conned into thinking he's reading the same point of view and then the subsequent pronouns will create a jolt in the reader - "oh dear the writer is using 'he' all of a sudden. i thought the main character was a 'she'. what is going on?" that jolt stops the reader, at which point the entire trick fails.
other things that usually dont work are, like as been said, chapters that serve no narrative purpose other than providing the writer a new window to the story. chapter 8, for example, going to another character for no reason than the fact that the writer couldnt figure out how to describe a secondary character's suicide (something where that character is the sole witness, for instance) except by shifting the narrative. and then never returning there. because that chapter is now out of place, and the jolt may come at the next chapter when suddenly the narrative resets itself. or the jolt may come 8 chapters later when it's obvious the writer has no interest in returning to that form.
must avoid the jolt at all costs. |
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