sorry if this is a really stupid issue.
Jan. 5th, 2010 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribalI'm about 20% done with Under The Dome. It is over 1000 pages, for serious. So far I can definitely say that it is not as good as The Shining or Pet Sematary, but it is of a similar vein as - ok, it's almost identical to - Storm of the Century, which I like for totally different reasons... and anyway, it's fun to read, but the good guys and the bad guys are carved in the fuckin' granite, man. I read a description and I'm like, "Good" / "Bad" / "Expendable." Very politically-tinged. King's always been dead-on with his Big Bads, though.
ANYWAY.
Under The Dome has been "inside the head" of almost every character it's introduced (which is like 30). Including people that are introduced/get killed within two paragraphs. And woodchucks. The Godhand of Stephen King is pretty heavily felt here, but it alternates with what's got to be Deep POV, or something close. He even headhops sometimes (which is not really what I'm talking about here, because I don't do that anymore).
And I was talking to my mother about this, and my mother says the last book she read - Snow Falling On Cedars (not something I would have chosen, but whatever) - was all over the place in terms of perspective too.
And TBH, I don't mind it. To be sure, there is overkill. But I get it, it doesn't bother me, and it's the style I write in most naturally. Or, um, used to. It's been a long time since I sat down and tried to write anything over 5,000 words. I probably picked it up from King and Michael Crichton (RIP). When I first started writing longish stuff, I was reading Jurassic Park. I have been culling multiple POV like hell from short stories, but I don't think I can cull it from The Novel. The story would literally not get told.
OTOH, I've read blogs that tell writers to be super-duper careful about multiple POV, let alone Cast of Thousands POV. And they always say, well, you can try having three or four, but only if you are a uranium expert like Faulkner, or only if you clearly label each chapter with the name of the character whose perspective you're following for that chapter (like ASOIAF). One argument I've read against multiple POV is that readers who don't like a particular POV character will want to skip that character's sections, and I do indeed want to skip a certain character's sections in Under The Dome... but honestly, I'd dislike her even if I wasn't inside her head. And shit, isn't it supposed to help you empathize with the character to see things from their perspective?
OTOOH, I can think of more books I like that stick to single-person perspective. I can definitely see why it's tried-and-true, and recommended. It works.
So WTF, here. Is using Cast of Thousands/Multiple POV really unrecommended? Thoughts? Preferences?
ANYWAY.
Under The Dome has been "inside the head" of almost every character it's introduced (which is like 30). Including people that are introduced/get killed within two paragraphs. And woodchucks. The Godhand of Stephen King is pretty heavily felt here, but it alternates with what's got to be Deep POV, or something close. He even headhops sometimes (which is not really what I'm talking about here, because I don't do that anymore).
And I was talking to my mother about this, and my mother says the last book she read - Snow Falling On Cedars (not something I would have chosen, but whatever) - was all over the place in terms of perspective too.
And TBH, I don't mind it. To be sure, there is overkill. But I get it, it doesn't bother me, and it's the style I write in most naturally. Or, um, used to. It's been a long time since I sat down and tried to write anything over 5,000 words. I probably picked it up from King and Michael Crichton (RIP). When I first started writing longish stuff, I was reading Jurassic Park. I have been culling multiple POV like hell from short stories, but I don't think I can cull it from The Novel. The story would literally not get told.
OTOH, I've read blogs that tell writers to be super-duper careful about multiple POV, let alone Cast of Thousands POV. And they always say, well, you can try having three or four, but only if you are a uranium expert like Faulkner, or only if you clearly label each chapter with the name of the character whose perspective you're following for that chapter (like ASOIAF). One argument I've read against multiple POV is that readers who don't like a particular POV character will want to skip that character's sections, and I do indeed want to skip a certain character's sections in Under The Dome... but honestly, I'd dislike her even if I wasn't inside her head. And shit, isn't it supposed to help you empathize with the character to see things from their perspective?
OTOOH, I can think of more books I like that stick to single-person perspective. I can definitely see why it's tried-and-true, and recommended. It works.
So WTF, here. Is using Cast of Thousands/Multiple POV really unrecommended? Thoughts? Preferences?
