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Re: 1st, 2nd, 3rd - 4th person POV??

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Friday, September 24, 2004, 16:25
Rodlox wrote:
> growing up, I learned how to write...I learned about 1st Person POV (I, > singular, only writing the thoughts of the narrator) & 3rd Person POV > (writing the thoughts of everyone in the story) & 2nd Person POV (I've > been a bit hazy about how often this delves into the thoughts of others). > > BUT, more to the point of this thread, I've lately been hearing about > another -- a "4th Person POV". > > anybody have any ideas or theories about what it might be? >
I don't think the question has to do with "4th Person" as linguists use it (but I could be wrong....) When you say "learned to write" I take that to refer to the writing of fiction. If that's the case, then your statement of "3rd Pers. POV" is phrased incorrectly--- in 3rd Pers.POV, you're restricted to the thoughts/actions/views of a _single_ character. Sometimes one chapter/section will be from one character's POV, another chapter/section from another's and so on, thus A's clueless behavior in Ch. 1 is explained by B's comments on it in Ch. 2, while C's comments in Ch. 3 may show that B was totally off-base etc. etc.; but each chapter is written from a single POV. There is another method-- and authors using 3d POV sometimes sidetrack into it :-) -- namely, the Omniscient Narrator, which/who _does_ know the "thoughts of everyone in the story". This may be what you mean by 4th Pers. POV. (I stopped trying to write fiction long ago, but as I recall, Omniscient Narrator is easy, but sort of a cop-out; good writers are supposed to develop characters and illuminate their actions/motivations without resorting to Playing God. Though I hasten to add that O.N. can be a useful and legit method sometimes.) In the various creative writing classes I took waaaaay back when (with a deliciously bitchy teacher) we had to do exercises in all these methods; 2d Pers. is the hardest, rather weird, and uncommon in Engl. prose probably for good reason.

Replies

H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
John Cowan <jcowan@...>