Poll for Readers: POV Preferences

[zil]

So, I've been watching online writing classes, trying to ramp up for next year when I make myself a full time writer.  Among other things, there are, of course, discussions on POV.  (For this discussion, POV refers not to the character from whose viewpoint the story is being told, but the person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and tense (past, present, future) being used to tell the story.)

This got me curious as to whether people who aren't writers consciously pay attention to POV, whether they care about POV, and what they would think about mixed POV types in the same book.  So I've made a poll and hope you'll help me out by taking said poll.

If you have thoughts to express, feel free - I'm curious about pretty much whatever readers have to say on this subject.

NOTES: The first question is multiple choice; the others single choice.  I've set the poll so it doesn't show who answered how - just to protect the weirdos who prefer 2nd person future tense...

[Sunday21]

Oh good an opportunity to give my opinion on writing!  📣

I hate POV past. Makes me fall asleep. Like female main character. Please no incest used as plot device or otherwise. Please no young female writer growing up in small town. The main character should not be an anxious woman getting a second shot at love. In fact no anxious or guilt driven woman at all. Don’t have recipes stuck between chapters. Try to sneak in a young Lds person as the coolest and wittiest person in the book. We need good press!

Edited June 5, 2018 by Sunday21

[zil]

1 minute ago, Sunday21 said:

I hate POV past.

Fascinating.  Pretty sure the majority of genre fiction is past tense.  The norm for YA (and maybe literary?) is present tense (which I find weird, at least until I adjust - they say it only takes a few chapters to do that - but I read genre fiction, so it's all in the past).

Meanwhile, I'm thinking someone picked 2nd person future just to give me a hard time.  (For that matter, I suspect that may be true of all the 2nd person choices - I mean seriously, who reads Choose Your Own Adventure anymore? )

[Guest MormonGator]

I prefer unreliable narrators. Part of the fun is finding out what really happened and what is just their perspective. 

[Sunday21]

@zil How about present first person adventure? @Jane_Doe finishs Phd. Moves to ? Seattle! Unmarked package arrives in mail. It’s a chemistry set! For young wizards. She tries experiment #1, her hands turn invisible! Oops! Wears gloves till she can come up with antidote! 

[Guest]

We're all used to either

• 3rd person limited past OR
• 3rd person omnicient past.

Often, though 1st person or 3rd person doesn't matter much.  I tend to think that lighter reading is better when told 1st person.  Heavier reading in 3rd.

With limited, you also have the question of whether to follow the main character around or a minor character (observer).  That would be whether you follow Holmes around or Dr. Watson.

 

[Sunday21]

5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I prefer unreliable narrators. Part of the fun is finding out what really happened and what is just their perspective. 

Can you recommend? Murder of Roger Acroyde?

[zil]

Just to be clear, I'm not asking what POV I should use.  I've never had a hard time answering that.  I'm just curious how conscious readers are of POV and how strong their preferences are and what they are.

7 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I prefer unreliable narrators. Part of the fun is finding out what really happened and what is just their perspective. 

Have you read Patrick Rothfuss?  Apparently the series starting with The Name of the Wind features an unreliable narrator - I have it, but haven't read it yet.

[zil]

7 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

We're all used to either

• 3rd person limited past OR
• 3rd person omnicient past.

Apparently this isn't true anymore in some genres / categories.  But it definitely is for what I'm reading.  Omniscient is pretty much gone - new stuff is all limited.

8 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Often, though 1st person or 3rd person doesn't matter much.  I tend to think that lighter reading is better when told 1st person.  Heavier reading in 3rd.

To me it matters a lot - I like both, but it's a big difference.  I've read some pretty heavy stuff in 1st person, but I think it's probably harder to do.

9 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

With limited, you also have the question of whether to follow the main character around or a minor character (observer).  That would be whether you follow Holmes around or Dr. Watson.

You can switch between characters as much as you want with 3rd limited, in fact, that's probably its strongest point.  This is pretty much the norm for epic fantasy - when you switch chapters, you get a different character POV (still 3rd, limited, past).  Tom Clancy used this masterfully in The Hunt for Red October to make the end a real page turner.

[Guest MormonGator]

4 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

Can you recommend? Murder of Roger Acroyde?

That's the classic example of an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is one you can't trust. Maybe because they are lying, maybe because they are mentally ill, or maybe just because they see things totally differently than how they are. 

Some other examples:

Patrick Batemen in American Psycho

The main character (I forget her name) in the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman

Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye

  

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

The main character (I forget her name) in the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman

Call me strange, but I found this narrator to be weirder than the other two.

[Sunday21]

@zil So what POV do u favor?

[Guest MormonGator]

8 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Call me strange, but I found this narrator to be weirder than the other two.

You found her more strange than a wanna be serial killer? 

Btw, that's the joke in American Psycho. Batemen makes it all up.  I'm not spoiling it for anyone. I'm fairly confident that 99.9% of people here will never read it. And for the one that might, I'm sorry I spoiled it for you. 

[Sunday21]

23 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

You found her more strange than a wanna be serial killer? 

Btw, that's the joke in American Psycho. Batemen makes it all up.  I'm not spoiling it for anyone. I'm fairly confident that 99.9% of people here will never read it. And for the one that might, I'm sorry I spoiled it for you. 

So Bateman did not kill anyone?

[zil]

25 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

@zil So what POV do u favor?

3rd person limited, past tense and 1st person, past tense are the norm and my preference for what I read and write.

I'd probably have to go pick up some books to find these (can't remember off the top of my head as they're rare), but I'm good reading 3rd person omniscient, past tense, and 1st or 3rd present tense.

If I've ever read future tense, I don't remember it - sounds distracting to me.  I haven't read 2nd person since the Choose Your Own Adventure series.

[Guest MormonGator]

3 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

So Bateman did not kill anyone?

No. Remember the final chapter? When he talks to the attorney? The attorney mentions that he (attorney) had dinner with someone Batemen claimed to kill. So that right there shows that Batemen has a weak grasp of reality. Batemen also claims to have been stalked by a park bench. So he's suffering from delusions as well. 

I've read that book 40 times, it's one of my favorites. 

 

[Sunday21]

1 hour ago, MormonGator said:

No. Remember the final chapter? When he talks to the attorney? The attorney mentions that he (attorney) had dinner with someone Batemen claimed to kill. So that right there shows that Batemen has a weak grasp of reality. Batemen also claims to have been stalked by a park bench. So he's suffering from delusions as well. 

I've read that book 40 times, it's one of my favorites. 

 

Thanks so much! I have never read the book! How interesting!

[SilentOne]

2 hours ago, zil said:

If I've ever read future tense, I don't remember it - sounds distracting to me.

The closest fiction book to me was a collection of stories by Jack Weyland. Here's the start of one (A New Dawn), rewritten to be in future tense.

Quote

It will be Saturday night, and Lisa Salinger will have a problem.

Actually three problems. The first will be her graduate research project assigned by Dr. Owens, her advisor at Princeton University. She will have already spent three months on it and will have gotten nowhere. It will be no wonder—Einstein spent the last twenty years of his life searching for a solution to the same problem, and he never found the answer either.

Her second problem will be that she won't be going home for Christmas. Dr. Owens will have asked her to stay in New Jersey over the holidays so they will be able to get some research done.

To top it all off, her roommate Kimberly Brown will be coming up the stairs with Hal. Lisa will not be able to stand him.

She will wrap the old sheepskin coat tightly around her in case Hal will come in. She will have picked up the knee-length coat the previous summer at a garage sale in her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota. She will wear the coat over her flannel nightgown to keep warm against the damp winter nights.

 

I think it would be hard to keep writing that way for an entire novel.

[SpiritDragon]

I think depending on the needs of the narration 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person all have their place in past and present tense. I find the idea of telling a story (past tense 'ing') in the future tense just plain odd.

I generally prefer 3rd person for most story telling. I don't mind 1st person with multiple narrators to get a more complete picture than one point of view while still lacking omniscience either though. It took some getting used to when I was first exposed to this POV reading Dracula, but I got used to it and think it's brilliant. I like 2nd person for books where a conversational feel is helpful, probably material that might be a little on the dry side otherwise, or for children's books because sometimes they seem to feel more involved when the story is speaking to them. I have been known to enjoy a good choose your own adventure story and look forward to when my kids are old enough to play along.

As for whether one is going to be changing points of view and or tense, well, I thought you'd have to be nutty to soon be reading @zil's story, about @Sunday21 hunting @MormonGator in the morning, last night anyway! I think I'd get confused and stop reading. 

[SpiritDragon]

3 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

So Bateman did not kill anyone?

Perhaps not, but Bates did!

[anatess2]

I checked all of the boxes.  POV doesn’t matter to me.  How the writing immerses me into a great story is the only thing that matters.  So, write it in any fashion you believe will get me in there.

[zil]

9 hours ago, SilentOne said:

I think it would be hard to keep writing that way for an entire novel.

So he switches to present or past after a while?  Either way, kinda weird and either the brain would adapt and not notice after a few chapters, or it would be really annoying.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, MormonGator said:

You found her more strange than a wanna be serial killer? 

Yes.

There's sinful, sinister, psychotic, and then there's just plain weird.

Of course, I'm saying this as a pretty insane person myself.  So, maybe I'm used to it.

[Guest MormonGator]

34 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Of course, I'm saying this as a pretty insane person myself.  So, maybe I'm used to it.

 

[zil]

2 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Hmm.  I was skeptical at first, but green is his favorite color...