Retraining your writing: Ping pong POV

I recently talked about using the five senses to help you SHOW vs TELL in your writing. Now let’s talk about POV shifts. What are POV (point of view) shifts? That’s when a scene switches from one character’s POV to another. There are a few rules of thumb and I’m probably misquoting them but I believe the rule was that you shouldn’t have more than two POV shifts in one scene. What I’m specifically referring to is head-hopping or ping-pong POV shifts where the POV shifts back and forth between two characters like..well, a ping-pong match. *ggg*

So how are we going to use the five senses to help us to retrain ourselves not to shift back and forth with POV?

Ask yourself as you’re writing a scene…Whose POV am I in? Once you know who, then focus on the five senses. For instance, let’s say your scene is in Shelby’s POV and she’s talking to Jake in the scene.

What does Shelby feel? What does she hear, smell and (if appropriate) taste? Would Shelby be able to see her own hair? Or see that her own eyebrows just drew down in a frown? Would Jake know what she was thinking? The answer is no to all of the above (assuming Jake wasn’t a mind-reader ). So go back over your scene and use the five senses to make sure you didn’t hop OUT of your character’s POV into someone else’s. Also, keep in mind it’s all in HOW you phrase it.

For instance, instead of saying, Shelby’s cheeks turned red (going out of her POV), you could say, Shelby’s cheeks turned hot in her embarassment. She can’t see her “red” cheeks, but she can certainly FEEL the heat.

Another example. Instead of saying, “Jake knew she turned him down because she had other plans,” (Jake DOESN’T know this, he can’t read her mind), you could say, “Jake suspected she turned him down because she had other plans.” Once again, it’s HOW something is worded that keeps you in that character’s POV.

I will follow up what I’ve written above about POV with an exception to the rule about POV shifts…some authors do the whole POV ping pong thing so well you don’t notice as a reader. But as a writer, one needs to KNOW the rules in order to purposefully break them. *g*

In my own writing, there are certain scenes I may show more than one POV. Sometimes I have more than one POV during a “high emotion” scene like a fight between the hero and the heroine or a love scene…basically any scene where I feel it’s important the reader experience both characters’ POVs all at once.

If you absolutely must convey the heroine’s hair color or eye color and the scene is in her POV, then you can break the rules and go out of POV, or you could use things around her that would allow her to SEE herself–such as a reflection in a window or on a shiny elevator door…or if all else fails, the old cliche’ standby, a mirror.

Next up…retraining your passive voice.