This is consistent:
Section 1: Joe's POV
Section 2: Joe's POV
Section 3: Joe's POV
Section 4: Joe's POV
Section 5: Joe's POV
Section 6: Joe's POV
Section 7: Joe's POV
Section 8: Joe's POV
Section 9: Joe's POV
Section 10: Joe's POV
Section 11-100: Joe's POV
This is not consistent...
Section 1: Joe's POV
Section 2: Joe's POV
Section 3: Joe's POV
Section 4: Joe's POV
Section 5: Joe's POV
Section 6: Joe's POV
Section 7: Joe's POV
Section 8: Helen's POV
Section 9: Joe's POV
Section 10-98: Joe's POV
Section 99: Fred's POV
Section 100: Joe's POV etc
This is consistent:
Section 1: Joe's POV
Section 2: Helen's POV
Section 3: Joe's POV
Section 4: Helen's POV
Section 5: Joe's POV
Section 6: Helen's POV
Section 7: Joe's POV
Section 8: Helen's POV
Section 9: Joe's POV
Section 10: Helen's POV
Section 11-100: Joe's and Helen's POV alternating
Section 1: Joe's POV
Section 2: Helen's POV
Section 3: Fred's POV
Section 4: Joe's POV
Section 5: Joe's POV
Section 6: Fred's POV
Section 7: Joe's POV
Section 8: Helen's POV
Section 9: Joe's POV
Section 10: Joe's POV
Section 11-100: Joe's, Helen's and Fred's POV alternating, with Joe having the majority of sections
I could do lots more examples but I hope you get the point: the pattern you set up at the beginning is the pattern you need to continue with. That's what being consistent means. You set the pattern in any way you like, but the reader will be disconcerted if you suddenly ditch the pattern and do something different.
Sometimes you might want to disconcert the reader, that's fine, but it carries the risk that the reader will go off and do something else. There is also the risk that the reader won't think you're being clever, but instead assume you don't have control over your writing.
The exception is when you're using what's called Omniscient POV. This is when there is a narrator/author/character who knows everything, the past, the present, the future, who can go into all the characters' heads and know what they're thinking. It's a legit form of POV - lots of the great C19th novels are written from an omniscient viewpoint - but it isn't popular at the moment and if you want to write using omniscient, be aware that you'll have to work extra hard elsewhere to win the reader over.
Consistency also means sticking to one person's POV for the entirety of any one section. Breaking this rule is often called Headhopping and I'm going to look at that tomorrow.
2 comments:
On the whole I agree with you but I think as long as you make it clear quickly who is doing the talking or who is being talked about you can be a bit more flexible than that. I’ve just looked at the book I’m reading just now and this is how the first few chapters pan out:
1. ALICE, 1st person
2. Mother (1977), 3rd person
3. CATE, 3rd person
4. CATE, 3rd person
5. ALICE, 1st person
6. ALICE, 1st person
7. CATE, 3rd person / ALICE, 1st person
8. Mother (1977), 3rd person
9. CATE, 3rd person
10. ALICE, 1st person
11. ALICE, 1st person
12. CATE, 3rd person
13. ALICE, 1st person
14. CATE, 3rd person
15. ALICE (1981), 3rd person
16. CATE, 3rd person / ALICE, 1st person
17. CATE, 3rd person
18. ALICE, 1st person
19. CATE, 3rd person
Later on we get an entire chapter from the perspective of the victim’s co-worker and we also get journal entries from the victim but as these are in a different font it’s obvious what they are. What is interesting here is that Alice talks directly to us whereas an omniscient narrator takes over to tell is what is happening with Cate and also what happened in Alice’s past, firstly talking about Alice’s mother and later, after the mother’s death, what happened to Alice growing up. But, as you’ll see, there is no clear pattern and the perspective even changes within a chapter. It’s not as disconcerting as it looks. In chapters 7 and 16 Cate asks Alice a question, we have an asterisk, and then Alice tells us what she told Cate.
I actually quite like the shifting between 3rd and 1st person narrators. It takes a few chapters to get into it but it works. As I recall this author’s last book used that technique too to good effect.
But the pattern you describe IS consistent - Alice in the present is always 3rd person, in the past she's in 1st, Cate is always 3rd, as is Mother. The pattern may be erratic, but it's consistently erratic. What would make it inconsistent is if it suddenly went into a more conventional pattern. Bit like Eddie Izzard suddenly changing career and becoming an accountant, we'd be waiting for the joke and confused when it didn't come.
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