Writing Strengthen Your Prose with Narrative Distance

[Story_Marc]

I've noticed a lot of web novelists who could benefit from some lessons on POV and how it impacts prose, particularly with how often they use guide narration for reasons I discuss in this video. For those who are interested in digging more into this type of stuff, I put this together in as simple a manner as I could, on top of providing all kinds of examples throughout.

I do feel I'm going to have to make quite a bit to go with this, particularly a video on Show vs. Tell, but I'll get around to that whenever enough people vote for it in my community tab on YouTube. I've been letting people vote each week for what video I'll do next, based on the options I present. Either way, I hope this helps!

 

[ForestDweller]

Unfortunately, my story can't use intimate pov a lot of the time since I have to give information the pov character isn't aware of.

 

[Story_Marc]

Unfortunately, my story can't use intimate pov a lot of the time since I have to give information the pov character isn't aware of.

As I said at the end, you do you. There is no "right" way so much as all sorts of principles and techniques which achieve differing things.

I will say though it is possible to do that while presenting information to the audience the POV isn't aware of. It just requires juggling multiple POVs. It's a pretty simple solution, honestly.

 

[Iamnotabot]

Nice advice man, too bad you posted it after i wake up.

 

[Love4NovelGuy]

I learned of it but it’s hard to actually do sometimes. Distancing yourself from judging characters to tell a story using the characters rather than simply explaining characters.

My bad habits sometimes prevail.

 

[owotrucked]

What do you think about the subject of head hopping? Like using the shifts to be able to zoom into inside out level for two different character within a single chapter.
I heard it's jarring and Sanderson recommends only one character pov per chapter, but visual mediums shift pov use it so easily with great comedic effect. It feels such a shame to not try it in stories even if its written form.

 

[Story_Marc]

I learned of it but it’s hard to actually do sometimes. Distancing yourself from judging characters to tell a story using the characters rather than simply explaining characters.

My bad habits sometimes prevail.

Well, you can judge the character however you want, I just wouldn't allow it to interfere with how you present the narrative when it comes to prose. Your judgments of them are what come through in the themes of the story, if something works for someone, if it doesn't, how people react, etc.

...Assuming that's what you're talking about. I could write a whole thing on that, topic-wise.

If you just mean knowing how to immerse and how it feels easier to just tell people, I agree it is. That's why so many people do it out the gate because it feels more natural. It just isn't as powerful a technique for immersing readers.

Of course, it's easier said than done, which I totally get. I fucking hate when people just tell me to do something instead of teaching me more in detail how. This week will be one where I do go further into the how, so hopefully it can help.

What do you think about the subject of head hopping? Like using the shifts to be able to zoom into inside out level for two different character within a single chapter.
I heard it's jarring and Sanderson recommends only one character pov per chapter, but visual mediums shift pov use it so easily with great comedic effect. It feels such a shame to not try it in stories even if its written form.

So, first, what to keep in mind here is that visual mediums aren't head-hopping. Here's a visual mediums camera:

It's doing the same as outside-in/observer. It is observing things.


Head-hopping should be avoided. It helps to understand more what the difference between headhopping and omniscient is first.


OMNISCIENT HAS ONE POINT OF VIEW, HEADHOPPING HAS MANY

In omniscient, the story's eyes are the narrator. With headhopping, you're jumping between seeing through the eyes of differing characters. Most importantly, you're doing it without transition. You can have multiple viewpoints in a story, but you need a transition between them, hence things like chapter endings and so on.

What's going on with headhopping is more like this:

It's something that's way closer up with a character, bouncing between the two of them, without anything to signify a transition between the two perspectives, which is what's jarring, confusing, and makes things feel off. Hence why someone shouldn't do that without either ending a chapter or maybe having a page break. Something to serve as a hard cut, when using filming terms.

There's also the matter that omniscient voice is consistent in being an observer/guide. With head hopping, you're closer up, which means the prose will take on more and more of the voice of the character, so head hopping would have multiple voices, and get overwhelming and annoying there since you're jumping between the two.

At any rate, it's just jarring since people prefer to focus on things from one set of eyes. If someone wants to do something like that which is more filmic (the approach is called Cinematic POV), they should use an omniscient narrator. The drawback still is that you're giving up all the strengths of actual prose to try and compete with something visual mediums can inherently do better.

Hope that helps to make sense of it! This is a bit of me doing it improv, so I'm a little worried it's not as focused as I am when I'm in scripting mode. Definitely going to add this to the video list though, when I do a big one on switching point of views instead of sliding.

 

[owotrucked]

What I meant by visual medium was more specifically manga panels where it's easy to slip bubble thought from any character and form a temporary biased narrator and visually zoom in on the character overthinking stuff, then switching to another character and do the same which expose misunderstandings.

The extreme of this tech is when the artist slips a panel of a character excedingly looking cool with flowery background when the temporary pov character is infatuated with them. Also adding speech bubbles with the note *he didn't actually say that*

Yeah I see it's not necessarily a good strength of purely written medium.

So you suggest that multiple voice is annoying to read. I guess it can be confusing yeah

 

[Story_Marc]

What I meant by visual medium was more specifically manga panels where it's easy to slip bubble thought from any character and form a temporary biased narrator and visually zoom in on the character overthinking stuff, then switching to another character and do the same which expose misunderstandings.

The extreme of this tech is when the artist slips a panel of a character excedingly looking cool with flowery background when the temporary pov character is infatuated with them. Also adding speech bubbles with the note *he didn't actually say that*

Yeah I see it's not necessarily a good strength of purely written medium.

So you suggest that multiple voice is annoying to read. I guess it can be confusing yeah

Oh, I get what you're saying! Even then, it's ultimately an observer. We're just able to observe their thoughts. With an omniscient POV, you could totally do this if you used direct internal dialogue.

So, like

Blah blah blah, X thought.

Y, meanwhile, thought, Blah blah blah blah.

That's how you could pull that off while avoiding head-hopping since it's a narrator reporting on their thoughts as opposed to us immersing into the characters. The narration itself has to be omniscient though. ...I kind of feel like I should do an entire video on things you can do with omniscient, to explore it even more deeply... Like, how to do it, why to do it, etc. Adding it to the list. -.- I'll just let people vote if they want it whenever it comes up.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

Yeah, my pov is weird as there are three narrators. The MC, the time god, and the the internal dialogue of characters. I don't think mine applies. But I liked your video and it seemed like we are of a similar belief.

 

[owotrucked]

Yeah maybe I suck at omniscient, my writing feels always dry with it. Coloring it with biased perception always make it funnier to me. Gaps between reality and perception is always fascinating and easy characterization since it indirectly hints underlying psyche like values, wishes, past experience or lack thereof, and preconceptions.

This deeply personal connection between reader and character is such a strength of written form. While moving around with clarity is a great strength of visual medium. That's why I would be tempted to find solutions to mix them

 

[Story_Marc]

Yeah maybe I suck at omniscient, my writing feels always dry with it. Coloring it with biased perception always make it funnier to me. Gaps between reality and perception is always fascinating and easy characterization since it indirectly hints underlying psyche like values, wishes, past experience or lack thereof, and preconceptions.

This deeply personal connection between reader and character is such a strength of written form. While moving around with clarity is a great strength of visual medium. That's why I would be tempted to find solutions to mix them

That's part of my logic for using Sliding POV and viewing things like jump cuts and all that. I view it can work, just when someone does it with intent and has the proper understanding of when.

Regardless, I agree that coloring things and just immersion is where prose's greatest strength lies. When visual mediums genuinely try to immerse into someone on the same level as prose can (see Hardcore Henry, for example), it often doesn't have the same power. Video games get it much closer since it's an interactive medium, though it has their own pros and cons.

I did consider explaining everything as differing types of shots, but I was worried it would get too confusing. I'm all about simplifying. If I did though, omniscient as a camera is more of a bird's eye view while immersive is the person holding the camera and we can hear what's going on in their head.

Real quick since we are on the topic of omniscient, I will say real quickly what I've learned is the keys to making it work.

1) A story that can't be told any other way.
2) A strong, unique voice
3) Awareness of the differences between omniscient and head hopping

With 1, I feel genre plays a whole factor in that. Well, genre and what you wish to convey. I own an entire book that goes way more into detail on that called "The Power of Point of View," which factors in stuff like genre expectations, if a story is a personal or social narrative, what each POV does, etc. I need to both review my research (across multiple sources) and think more about this for the specifics.

...And adding this stuff to the docket. I'll figure out some way to shape it into a simplified lesson and turn that lesson into a video eventually.

Plus side, it's insanely difficult for me to run out of material to cover. It just drives me crazy that I can't give every single thing faster. Or, well, faster with as much depth as I can. If I turned this omniscient stuff into a video, I'd give examples, point to other books, suggest things, etc. While I could do that this second, I don't like doing it on smaller platforms because it's time-consuming & the info often gets lost. I end up having to repeat it again and again to other people. Hence why I'm always making videos for these lessons as opposed to writing articles.

Yeah, my pov is weird as there are three narrators. The MC, the time god, and the the internal dialogue of characters. I don't think mine applies. But I liked your video.

I mean, internal dialogue of characters would just be the MC's internal dialogue, right? Or, I should say, the MC and the time god's. Unless the two can listen to other people's thoughts or something. I imagine it could still apply, it's just a matter of knowing the specifics and figuring out how it fits precisely.

 

[Tempokai]

I specifically write this way. I have a scene in my head like some movie, and I try to write it down. That's why my novel suffers from the headhopping sometimes.

Also, that's why my writing is in part hiatus, because I don't have a coherent scene playing in my head in that specific moment to write it down.

 

[Story_Marc]

I specifically write this way. I have a scene in my head like some movie, and I try to write it down. That's why my novel suffers from the headhopping sometimes.

Also, that's why my writing is in part hiatus, because I don't have a coherent scene playing in my head in that specific moment to write it down.

Hopefully, these tips given can help you focus on things to portray the scenes properly, like what I said about head hopping before and how to easily avoid it.

After all, the movie in your head doesn't matter as much as the movie you put into the heads of others. Or at least they don't if you're writing for people beyond yourself.

 

[ForestDweller]

What do you think about the subject of head hopping? Like using the shifts to be able to zoom into inside out level for two different character within a single chapter.
I heard it's jarring and Sanderson recommends only one character pov per chapter, but visual mediums shift pov use it so easily with great comedic effect. It feels such a shame to not try it in stories even if its written form.

Yeah. I would've drawn manga instead of writing novels if I could.

For example, you can't replicate ecchi camera angles in writing.

 

[Story_Marc]

Yeah. I would've drawn manga instead of writing novels if I could.

For example, you can't replicate ecchi camera angles in writing.

...A part of me wants to prove you wrong, just because of my challenge-accepted nature, but I shouldn't get caught up in that.

Still, while you can't, manga and such can't replicate things that prose is able to do. It just requires artistic skill. With erotica or sexual stuff included.

 

[ManwX]

I write in 3rd person like your watching the entire thing as a show
I dont like pov. I feel like my character need their privacy lol. I know it sounds stupid but pov feel restricted in a sense i can only precive the world through my characters eyes and senses. I dont want 10 different povs because my story is not built around the mc but the world itself. Mc just interacts with it. I usually just share what they think in a small segments.

 

[Story_Marc]

I write in 3rd person like your watching the entire thing as a show
I dont like pov. I feel like my character need their privacy lol. I know it sounds stupid but pov feel restricted in a sense i can only precive the world through my characters eyes and senses. I dont want 10 different povs because my story is not built around the mc but the world itself. Mc just interacts with it. I usually just share what they think in a small segments.

Whether you like it or not, it's still a POV. You just said you don't like closer POVs, so you write a more omniscient one.

But yes, FILTER narrators are more restrictive. That's their drawback. GUIDE narrators, as you described, are less immersive. This is because of how the brain works.

Regardless, what you described falls into Cinematic POV. To quote on that...

CINEMATIC POV
This is like a video camera, not a person. It sees everything—but only from the outside, not inside anyone’s head or heart, and it doesn’t judge or evaluate. This allows great plot flexibility, but may not bring great intensity or emotional involvement.

Or what I placed down in my breakdown as Outside-In.

 

[Love4NovelGuy]

Well, you can judge the character however you want, I just wouldn't allow it to interfere with how you present the narrative when it comes to prose. Your judgments of them are what come through in the themes of the story, if something works for someone, if it doesn't, how people react, etc.

...Assuming that's what you're talking about. I could write a whole thing on that, topic-wise.

If you just mean knowing how to immerse and how it feels easier to just tell people, I agree it is. That's why so many people do it out the gate because it feels more natural. It just isn't as powerful a technique for immersing readers.

Of course, it's easier said than done, which I totally get. I fucking hate when people just tell me to do something instead of teaching me more in detail how. This week will be one where I do go further into the how, so hopefully it can help.



So, first, what to keep in mind here is that visual mediums aren't head-hopping. Here's a visual mediums camera:

View attachment 17691

It's doing the same as outside-in/observer. It is observing things.


Head-hopping should be avoided. It helps to understand more what the difference between headhopping and omniscient is first.


OMNISCIENT HAS ONE POINT OF VIEW, HEADHOPPING HAS MANY

In omniscient, the story's eyes are the narrator. With headhopping, you're jumping between seeing through the eyes of differing characters. Most importantly, you're doing it without transition. You can have multiple viewpoints in a story, but you need a transition between them, hence things like chapter endings and so on.

What's going on with headhopping is more like this:

View attachment 17690

It's something that's way closer up with a character, bouncing between the two of them, without anything to signify a transition between the two perspectives, which is what's jarring, confusing, and makes things feel off. Hence why someone shouldn't do that without either ending a chapter or maybe having a page break. Something to serve as a hard cut, when using filming terms.

There's also the matter that omniscient voice is consistent in being an observer/guide. With head hopping, you're closer up, which means the prose will take on more and more of the voice of the character, so head hopping would have multiple voices, and get overwhelming and annoying there since you're jumping between the two.

At any rate, it's just jarring since people prefer to focus on things from one set of eyes. If someone wants to do something like that which is more filmic (the approach is called Cinematic POV), they should use an omniscient narrator. The drawback still is that you're giving up all the strengths of actual prose to try and compete with something visual mediums can inherently do better.

Hope that helps to make sense of it! This is a bit of me doing it improv, so I'm a little worried it's not as focused as I am when I'm in scripting mode. Definitely going to add this to the video list though, when I do a big one on switching point of views instead of sliding.

I’m currently trying to find a balance in telling a story rather than explaining characters.

My creativity back when I was a newbie was good enough to really sell scenes with the sheer emotive writing. Selling the horror, suspense, happiness, tranquility, etc. But the better you get at grammar the worse you get in creativity.

Good habits are turned into bad habits where you use the exact same tone for literally every scene and person. Each character explaining backstory elements lazily without foresight into what it’s building towards.

I’m currently fixing my habits via actually writing and judging if I’m doing those bad habits or not since my brain knows and understands, but my lazy mind not caring of it in the moment.

That’s the only way I know how to learn, anyway.

 

[Story_Marc]

There's a statement in that I must address real quick because of how potentially damaging it could be to others. "The better you get at grammar the worst you get in creativity."

It's wrong in the grand scheme.

I totally know how learning "the algebra" of things can interfere with one's ability to produce. I recently experienced that quite a bit back in January with YouTube. It's part of the struggle we all experience early on when trying to fuse what feels intuitive to us with the craft. However, that statement about grammar is scientifically wrong. I'm going to discuss this far more in Sunday's episode, but here's a small excerpt that both explains why it's wrong and shows it in action.

Of course, anybody is free to ignore me on this point. I don't like demanding anybody do anything. I just wanted to present info that goes beyond the subjective and an example that showcases exactly what I mean.