tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post4568211056385511344..comments2024-03-09T05:53:59.542-05:00Comments on Oz and Ends: Writing Advice That Goes DeepUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-17166937257837396872009-12-15T16:36:22.812-05:002009-12-15T16:36:22.812-05:00I found a website from the Open Fiction Project th...I found a <a href="http://www.tofp.org/units/basics/pov/index.htm" rel="nofollow">website from the Open Fiction Project</a> that discusses narrative point of view with ideas that overlap yours and mine. Unfortunately, different people use different terms for the same things, or the same terms for different things. <br /><br />For instance, <a href="http://www.tofp.org/units/basics/pov/pov10.htm" rel="nofollow">this webpage</a> uses “audibility” for the quality I call “presence.” John Gardner coined “psychic distance” for what I call (though only in temporal terms, not necessarily psychological) “perspective.” <br /><br />The website author <a href="http://www.tofp.org/units/basics/pov/pov8.htm" rel="nofollow">uses “perspective”</a> to mean what I would treat as common combinations of Point of View, Perspective, and Presence. <br /><br />I tried to break out those parameters separately because I think there are more possibilities than the six listed there: Limited, Multiple, Subjective, Objective, Omniscient, and Reminiscient. <br /><br />For instance, the website says, “First person narration is Limited by definition.” But what about <i>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler</i> or <i>The Book Thief</i> or <i>Madame Bovary</i>? They aren’t “strictly limited to the internal world, thoughts and observations of one character.”<br /><br />I bet you’re right that “close” and “deep” are pretty much synonyms here, except that in “deep POV” Brockmann is <i>not</i> writing in the first person grammatically, but <i>is</i> writing very “close” to one character’s immediate experience in every other way.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-72874742398672118352009-12-15T11:26:33.775-05:002009-12-15T11:26:33.775-05:00i've always understood that the three main poi...i've always understood that the three main points of view (first-, second-, and third-) had degrees of distance, i.e. close (limited) or distant (reflective). "deep" sounds like another definition of close to me.<br /><br />i can't find it right now, but this come from john gardner. the distance is determined by how close to the events the narrator is telling them - did they just happen (in which case they would be close and fresh but lacking depth of analysis) or are they distant (having taken place in the past and are being told with a degree of reflection appropriate to the story).<br /><br />i haven't read brockman's book, but it sounds like she's writing from a (very) close first person, which can be tricky because writing a character "in the moment" means the reader has to make connections at the same speed as the narrator, and the narration cannot see beyond the what's directly in front of them.<br /><br />this is the first i've heard the term deep used. perhaps my pov has been limited.david elzeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16653215150526146224noreply@blogger.com