By invisible organising narrator, do you mean what David Hayman writing about Ulysses dubbed 'the Arranger'? It's a very useful - if not undisputed - way of thinking about what Joyce does, or his narrators do: like a puppet master playing events, points of view, characters on a string.
Oh, the dreaded head-hopping! It's one of those things that you think you're supposed to do, then when you realise you're not, it's actually freeing. Which seems contradictory, but I found it brought welcome focus to my writing, and I could just crack on!
PoV can get frustrating at times. You need to describe what the narrator looks like, but do it subtly. "She tucked her blonde hair under her felt hat," or something like that. But even then, I've had editors say, "why is she thinking about the colour of her hair?" It's very tempting to reply, "because how else will the reader know what the narrating PoV character looks like???"
It's also interesting that in popular fiction, there are house styles around PoV. For instance, one very famous romance imprint insists on alternating chapters between hero and heroine. And that can be quite tricky to write (despite how easy people who've never tried writing romance novels think it must be) when you're building in misunderstandings - do we want the reader to know more the characters? So we effectively end up with an omniscient reader, nevermind an omniscient narrator.
I agree it's not easy and there are real pitfalls, but all four of my published novels have multiple POVs (2,2,2, and 4). All in strict 3rd-person limited. No complaints from readers and reviewers.
I think my inclination for doing things this way goes back a long way. One of my first lterary influences, Arthur Ransome, does it and I loved seeing through different eyes. It didn't seem to hurt his popularity with readers of all ages.
Interesting, as always. Have any strong (or at least stronger) correlations between tense and PoV been documented, which might fit more naturally into a reader's mind? For example, between the present tense and first person, or past tense and third person.
By invisible organising narrator, do you mean what David Hayman writing about Ulysses dubbed 'the Arranger'? It's a very useful - if not undisputed - way of thinking about what Joyce does, or his narrators do: like a puppet master playing events, points of view, characters on a string.
Oh, the dreaded head-hopping! It's one of those things that you think you're supposed to do, then when you realise you're not, it's actually freeing. Which seems contradictory, but I found it brought welcome focus to my writing, and I could just crack on!
PoV can get frustrating at times. You need to describe what the narrator looks like, but do it subtly. "She tucked her blonde hair under her felt hat," or something like that. But even then, I've had editors say, "why is she thinking about the colour of her hair?" It's very tempting to reply, "because how else will the reader know what the narrating PoV character looks like???"
It's also interesting that in popular fiction, there are house styles around PoV. For instance, one very famous romance imprint insists on alternating chapters between hero and heroine. And that can be quite tricky to write (despite how easy people who've never tried writing romance novels think it must be) when you're building in misunderstandings - do we want the reader to know more the characters? So we effectively end up with an omniscient reader, nevermind an omniscient narrator.
I agree it's not easy and there are real pitfalls, but all four of my published novels have multiple POVs (2,2,2, and 4). All in strict 3rd-person limited. No complaints from readers and reviewers.
I think my inclination for doing things this way goes back a long way. One of my first lterary influences, Arthur Ransome, does it and I loved seeing through different eyes. It didn't seem to hurt his popularity with readers of all ages.
Interesting, as always. Have any strong (or at least stronger) correlations between tense and PoV been documented, which might fit more naturally into a reader's mind? For example, between the present tense and first person, or past tense and third person.