Changing POV

dorothyd

A comment on another thread that I am busy changing the current WIP from third to first, having already changed it from first to third, prompted PBW to say she had done the same thing during her rewrites. I wondered if anyone else has done this, and coped with the consequent problems?

The biggest problem, apart from missing the occasional him or he or whatever, is the tenses! Could has to become can for the most part but not all the time, context is everything.

Anyone else had this headache, and if so, how did you deal with it, apart from line by line, word by word ...

Stirling

I changed my WIP from third to first.

Unfortunately I do it word by word! :D I think the hardest thing I found is that I have to make my protaganist work harder for the pay-offs! He has to find a piece of information, overhear information, or trick a piece of information out of someone. I can't show something happening off camera as it were.

His wife is going to be in a car accident, but he isn't at the scene. I'm still pondering how I'm going to do this . . .

Hopefully that means it's a better book. :D

Chippy

In my NaNoWriMo I rewrote a scene in the POV of another character...which I know is not the same thing really but I did it in the same way that Stirling did it - word by word.

I haven't decided which version to use yet...but it helped give my word count a boost! :)

Nefertari

I've changed POV in a children's book , third to first. I just did it line by line.

Phots Moll

I often do it for short stories, but haven't ever done it with a novel (yet)

Not sure I understand you about the tenses, Dorothy.

dorothyd

this is a slightly different type of book, PM, it's a narration. Literally. The author is narrating his life story. So where he had 'he was' it is now changing to 'I am' and things like that. As in 'he was sure' - 'I am sure'.

Looks like it stays at line by line, word by word, then. I am 37 pages out of 49 done, so far. He had better not change his mind again ... or the book is going to be dumped!!!!!

pbw

[quote=dorothyd]The biggest problem, apart from missing the occasional him or he or whatever, is the tenses! Could has to become can for the most part but not all the time, context is everything.

Anyone else had this headache, and if so, how did you deal with it, apart from line by line, word by word ...[/quote]

Answer to Point One: yes the tenses are a huge problem and even with my training as an English teacher I struggle.
Answer to Point Two: how to deal with it? As you say, line by line, word by word...in my experience there is no other way.

pbw

[quote=Stirling]His wife is going to be in a car accident, but he isn't at the scene. I'm still pondering how I'm going to do this . . .[/quote]

I had a similar scenario. I had the death of a major character by RTA, and she had been in first person, - no sorry I changed the preceding chapter from first POV to third to pull back the psychic distance before she died, but of course she couldn't describe her own death retrospectively (and I wasn't writing The Lovely Bones), (nor was it right for the author to do it) so I reported it as a witness statement (or you could have a reporter writing the report up for the local rag, or you could have another character read it out to the husband etc). Anyway that's how I did it, if it's any help.

dorothyd

I have just finished the changeover. We are at something like 44,000 words and it has been checked line by line, word by word. But I bet my editor finds some we missed when he gets this book (eventually).

Thanks for comments.

Red

The tenses are the biggest headache when writing first person. You really have to know your stuff to tackle a whole novel that way. They can easily trip you up. Many published first person stuff is littered with tense errors, so be viligent when editing!

dorothyd

My intention is - finish the pesky book (we are at 44,000, need about the same word length again) and then revise from the start, knowing where we made the change from one t'other. I should catch the 'horror' tenses that way. Being a narration helps, I can look for the interrupted flow of his meandering thoughts. And they are - meandering, I mean, we divert and come back and divert and come back and divert some more ...

Rosalie

I did it both ways round with 'Low Tide, Lunan Bay'. First draft was 3rd person. Second draft was first person. Third draft went back to third, if you see what I mean. Couldn't just revert to first draft because I'd made lots of other changes by then (thank goodness second person never occurred to me!)

I started with a global change but it was more bother than it was worth - so many things to pick up and correct. Not just tenses but all kinds of other stuff too that didn't sound right (sorry, can't remember exactly what). I think painstakiingly, word by word is the only way to do it, though searches can help.

Good luck, Dorothy.

Phots Moll

[quote=dorothyd]this is a slightly different type of book, PM, it's a narration. Literally. The author is narrating his life story. So where he had 'he was' it is now changing to 'I am' and things like that. As in 'he was sure' - 'I am sure'.[/quote] Why doesn't 'he was' become 'I was'? Still don't get why you need to change the tense - or maybe you just mean you've decided to because you feel it works better that way?

I do agree that you've got to go through it line by line as just changing 'he' for 'I' won't always be enough. There might well be whole scenes that have to be re-written because what works perfectly well in 3rd might not in 1st and vice versa.

Dwight

[quote=dorothyd]So where he had 'he was' it is now changing to 'I am' and things like that. As in 'he was sure' - 'I am sure'.[/quote]

Dorothy, I don't understand this one. Surely 'he was sure' will become 'I was sure'?

I know what you mean about it being more complicated than switching he to I and him to me, but I had to read right through the novel on screen when changing from 3rd to 1st. It was a useful reminder of everything. I'm not sure I understand the tenses problem that Red sees, either. For me it was past tense throughout, with straight tense for tense changes whenever it was a future, conditional, etc.

My current re-write is a more far-reaching affair. My POV character is on every page and has three companions with him from chapter 6 to chapter 26. Two of them must now go, and the remaining one and my protagonist are to undergo character changes, bringing up the romantic will-they-won't-they issue. I'm also making more of the intriguing moments, but the biggest change throughout will be a serious increase in the motivation-causality trail of clues and decisions. All this means a lot has to go, to be replaced by improved writing. Virtually the whole dialogue in the book will be new. Probably the work of two months.

Anyone know a quick way? ;)

Red

[quote= Dwight]I'm not sure I understand the tenses problem that Red sees, either[/quote]

Perhaps I can elaborate. Some writers attempt a whole novel in first person, but are sometimes tripped up by the verb tenses. With first person point of view, you can have first person present tense or first person past tense. Most first person stories are past tense. This means the narrator looks back and tells his or her story, however they have a tendency to mix both of these in the narrative, resulting in a bit of a car crash. Some well known authors do this a lot and it's very easy to slip up. That's what I mean about problems with tenses.

Dwight

Okay, Red, thanks. I found myself narrating everything in the past, as you said, but slipping some direct thoughts in, in the present. An editor told me that that can work, but that there's no need since we are evidently in the POV character's head, so I've eliminated them all.

dorothyd

PM and Dwight, no, it doesn't automatically change - this is not only a narration of a life, it is a set of thoughts around that life. The diversions are often musings on current situations - for example, the security around President Obama, so it becomes present tense, rather than past. The book is complicated in that way. Even as a third person POV it was complicated. Sometimes he reverts to speaking of himself in the third person ...

PM, there is no quick way ...

I really wanted this book done by Christmas and here we are, only half way through ... wanted it done because I am aware of a) the unfinished third book for 2012 and b) the ghost writing work coming.

neil

[quote=dorothyd]wanted it done because I am aware of... the ghost writing work coming. [/quote]

I thought most of your work was ghost writing, Dorothy :)

dorothyd

oh, I had this ... my daughter told her boyfriend I was getting a ghost writing commission, he said 'I thought she already did that.' My editor said 'excuse the pun' when he asked if I would do it ...

neil

So I've joined the club. An unholy trinity, you might say :)

Stan2

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