My thoughts: I found the piece by David Jauss very useful for helping with the POV rules. (Thanks Emma). Though, as David concludes, there are no rules.


But I don't get the analysis of the word 'reasonably', as used in Hemingway's story. And I don't think the average reader would get it either - or would care, because it is not a watershed shift in POV. It is so subtle that, in my opinion, if removed from the sentence wouldn't make a significant difference.

And I don't think it matters whose POV it is when Alice 'chased' the lime. I get it. I formed my own point of view of this action / gesture / detail.


Michael

Yes, the Jauss is fascinating, isn't it.

I think the point about the Hemingway isn't that Hemingway's trying to make the reader conscious of a switch of PoV, and failing because it's so small-y done. Non-writer readers aren't aware of PoV anyway, except in that when it's not working properly they're less involved in the story.

I think Jauss's point is that everything up until that word has been entirely neutral in its telling. Subjective experience - emotion - is latent, if you like: the text hardly even implies them, and what we "read" of the character's feelings is almost entirely what we infer.

So in a narrative which is uncoloured by any subjective experience, the very subjective "reasonably" suddenly brings strong colour - the particular reaction/thought/emotion of a particular character at that moment. And like a wholly white canvas with a single stain of red, the picture suddenly becomes all about red, and the tension between red and white, even though red is a tiny part of the total area. We may not articulate it to ourselves, just as non-readers don't articulate their experience of PoV, but just experience it. But that dot of red has an influence on how we read the painting out of all proportion to its size.

Emma

Emma
The red spot analogy is an excellent describer of the immediate impact that a tiny element can make to the whole.
Cheers

Yes, that red spot analogy is very useful. I think that sums up why I started this thread. On the whole, I was happy with what I'd written and I've since found that the number of words I had to change to re-set the point of view in the chapter that I described was very small. I just needed a magnifying glass to help me spot the red spot, as it were.

S

Blog post here (though TBH it doesn't say anything much that I didn't say on this thread):

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/06/the-red-spot-in-the-monograph.html

So thanks for the inspiration, SarahT!

Emma

Perhaps this is a bit late but you're welcome! D

<Added>

Sorry, random D!