La Vie Boheme

POV and rewrite blues

Anyone out there know of a good book on POV? I am guilty of skipping or skimming the section on POV in nearly every writing book I've come across. "I know what the different points of view are," I scoffed. "I don't need anyone to explain to me what third-person omniscient is."

Well yeah. What I don't know, apparently, is when to use each. The Exile's Daughter is written largely in third-person limited, following several viewpoint characters--but it gets muddy at times. There are a few scenes that switch characters mid-scene, or that continue after the original viewpoint character has left the scene. It felt natural when I was writing it, but a couple of my readers pointed it out as a problem.

Now I feel like I need to know the "rules", so I can decide whether or not to fix my "mistakes", if in fact I've broken the "rules" at all.

I'm starting to get a clearer grasp of just how much work rewriting Exile's Daughter is going to take. Holy shit. This is not going to be a little "whip through it and change a word here or there" sort of rewrite. Major structural changes, possibly major plot changes---tons of minor plot and character changes. I'm actually kinda looking forward to it. I'm starting to answer some of my own questions about what's really going on in this world of mine.

But good god. This is a pile of work.