/lit/ - Literature

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Just write it like wtf there ain't no rules nigga

>>23330471
you need to read more and pay attention

>>23330975
I've seen more than one editor talk about the perils of perspective hopping and I'm surprised none of the usual pedantic /lit/ fags have jumped to correct me on this.

>>23330471
Switching perspectives is an acrobatic dance move. If you do it with grace, it will happen so quickly and beautifully they no one will quite know what happened. Do it clumsily, and you’re going to break your neck.

Not quite the same thing, but I notice McCarthy switching between present and past tense, sometimes halfway through a paragraph. Typically, his trick is to have an ambiguous sentence act as a bridge between the present tense and the past tense sections.

From Blood Meridian: “…he hails up at the doorway of an old anchorite nested in the sod like a groundsloth. Solitary, half mad, his eyes redrimmed as if locked in their cages with hot wires. BUT A PONDERABLE BODY FOR THAT. He watched wordless while the kid eased down stiffly from the mule.”

All-caps emphasis mine. “But a ponderable body for that,” this sentence fragment creates a smooth transition because it isn’t really past or present tense. It’s like a gradation bridging two different colours.

You don’t need to do anything so extreme. Just make sure that there is some prose between the oblivious protagonist’s pov and the attacker’s pov that could ambiguously belong to both or neither of the characters, and that you don’t flicker between instantly like a light switch, or it will be jarring

>>23330980
What does this even mean? I know the bible is written using omniscient perspective and I know novels like Kafka's metamorphosis is written in limited. I want to be able to do both in a way that I can describe the character as an unreliable observer and yet be able to tell the reader what is actually happening.

>>23330991
Him having no idea what is happening and him being an unreliable observer are two different things I believe.

>>23330983
>Just make sure that there is some prose between the oblivious protagonist’s pov and the attacker’s pov that could ambiguously belong to both or neither of the characters,
This sounds interesting but risks falling into the same perspective hopping, I mean what else could be written if not from the perspective of another character. Its not like I am including the details of some cat trying to climb a tree in the midst of all this tension, that sort of thing will break immersion, its not as trivial as you are trying to make it, talking about anything else, from a different perspective will reduce the tension.

>>23331044
Show the reader the character is unaware via their actions/behaviour….. duh

>>23331044
You show something that could be from either perspective, or you show something the protagonist notices and then show the attacker noticing the same thing as they pass that spot afterward, or you go into general descriptions of the environment that either character could be noticing (if they’re in an alleyway you describe the alleyway without reference to a specific character’s pov). Try to make the thing you’re describing symbolic of the escalating tension if that’s your worry (a cat stalking a rodent, the lengthening shadows of evening overtaking one another).

>>23331043
No he does have an idea just not the right one, say for example, you want to write a story that describes a character who sees something, then the rest of the world is not convinced of this, how do you describe the truth here. Do you use limited or omniscient, you want to show the reader that the character stands alone in defiance and you don't want to fall into the usual consensus bias. The point is that at this point, nobody knows what's going on, you want to obfuscate the truth and leave it hanging and open to interpretation.

>>23330471
>the attacker's perspective towards the beginning of the attack

You don't want to do this. It's not going to work and even if you could make it work, you are overcomplicating things for no reason. Perspective shifts should not happen in action scenes and should happen sparsely in general not constant going back and forth.

>>23331056
I would experiment, create multiple versions and see what feels right

>>23331069
This is even more vague, if you have two characters fighting and these characters are protagonist and antagonist then it would serve you to describe the fight according to both perspectives, now what i am asking is whether you should use limited or omniscient here?

>>23331087
Yes but from whose perspectives? God or the characters below?

>>23331107
As the other anon said: just write there are no rules

>>23331104
>it would serve you to describe the fight according to both perspectives

Wrong again. Where did you get this idea? Maybe you can mention an example you are thinking of from some books you've seen where this has been done (effectively).

Generaly scenes are told from ONE point of view (the protagonist). You do not go around and keep retelling the story from everybody's viewpoint.

>>23330471
It's tricky if your main text is first-person. (I find it jarring in Treasure Island for example even though RLS starts a whole new chapter to do it.)

Third person omniscient is easy, though. You must have met it before; dunno why you're asking /lit/'s permission.

If you want another example, "Cujo" by Stephen King has a section pretty much identical to what you're describing. The book is third-person omniscient but follows a bunch of different perspectives. Near the end, when Donna is deciding to get out of the car, we're with her. She's deciding what to do, trying to look round, listen, etc. Then she gets the door open. Then we switch to Cujo's perspective, lying hidden, waiting for her. We get Cujo's thoughts (he knows she's coming out and he wants to kill her).

It's just a paragraph break, basically (maybe double space), but it works fine.

>>23331195
So what makes it omniscient if all it does is follow characters, the distinction btn limited and omniscient is vague if anything.

>>23331163
Scenes can have more than a single point of view. When two people are fighting and others are watching them for instance or have made bets on who will win, you seem to have a very limited perspective about this, a very rigid outlook on writing.

>>23330991
read more. you are a still a coward who is afraid to write. you need more input.

>>23331220
As I understand it, third person limited tightly follows just one person, usually the main character, and we never see stuff he can't. It's pretty much first-person perspective, just told in third-person grammar.

Third person omniscient wanders all over the place, following different characters, and the narrator's "voice" is often an independent presence in its own right (e.g. Fielding in Tom Jones).

Are there any other authors like Houellebecq out there? I’ve only read three of his works but I love him so much bros

>>23330471
>lets say i am describing something happening to the main character, so he is about to be clobbered. I want to be able to shift btn him having no idea what's happening and the attacker's perspective towards the beginning of the attack.
I have composed a helpful example of how to pull this off in modern fiction:
>As our young hero, carefree and gay, walked down the forest path, he spied in the bushes a flower so bright, and so charming, that he could not help bending closer to breathe in its scent.
>'Oh Flora!' said he, his head bowed amid the leaves. 'Sweet goddess of buds! What a gift you have placed in my way! Let me stoop further still; for a treasure this rare, deserves a closer devotion.'
>But at that moment, unbeknownst to him, a rogue stood watching from his den of dense brambles, a cudgel in his hand, and malice in his heart.
>Seeing our hero thus enraptured by the fragrant plant, and bent into a vulnerable attitude, the blackguard slipped from his shelter and approached his prey, as silent as long schooling in murder could make him.
>Like a fox after blood, he crept ever closer, and raised up his cudgel for the blow. Yet when the moment of attack came, the blow fell not.
>His arms, as if caught by invisible threads, still held the weapon aloft, and his murderous eyes began slowly to soften, as the words of this pilgrim to sweet Flora's shrine reached first his ears, then his heart.
>'I fancy,' said our hero, heedless of any audience but the bees, 'I fancy that if I now were struck down, and fell where I stood, I'd watch my blood flow from me with the tranquilest smile, and commit my bones gladly to the earth.
>'For though I should die, my body, dissolving, would nourish the roots, and lend strength to the stems, of this the most perfect of flowers. For a happier grave, I could scarcely hope, though I were sure of a gilded tomb such as princes and prelates might covet.'
>Here he paused, because on his neck he felt the light dew-touch of a drop, as of rain, which seemed a strange event on a day so fine.
>And raising himself, to discover the cause, he paled, and stood transfixed in terror, on seeing a countenance more forbidding than the most awful of storm clouds.
>'Do not shriek!' said the man. 'Do not flee, selfless youth. Though my features, I know it, are roughened and stained, and deformed and besmirched from my villain's career, yet the soul they enclose is of a new man, and he owes his life to your words.'
>'That drop you felt fell from my eye, and was shed in profoundest joy. For though my frame has roamed these woods for years, my soul, I now see, was a wretched inmate of a lightless cell, and could not guess, much less see, the beauty and goodness around it, until I witnessed your example.'
>To which the astonished youth replied:
>'Though by your club I see that your design,
>'Until just now, was to my skull bash in,
>'Your tear attests a changed and purer heart;
>'So let's embrace, ere we this glade depart!'

>>23330471
>rule
ngmi

>>23330982
Bro, those people say that because they want you to feel insecure and pay them to look at your work.

>>23330471
Who cares about literary precedents? Just try it out and come back to your writing at different intervals to get a different perspective and see if it works

>>23331254
It is difficult to show, instead of tell when you are using omniscient, isn't it, that's why perspective hopping is frowned upon. When you are omniscient, you risk telling too much instead of showing something from a limited perspective.