Melanie
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POV Changes
The novel I'm working on right now has 4 main POV characters. I change POV at chapter breaks and always identify the speaker, usually by name, within
the 1st paragraph so it's not confusing to the reader.
Is that all you have to do? It seems kind of abrupt to me.
Or do you have to do some kind of "Meanwhile... back at the castle..." type of thing?
Melanie 
"Go forth boldly in the direction of your dreams." Thoreau
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Going Forth Boldly -- The Chronicle of Becoming a Professional Fiction Writer
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Michy
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No, I have a novel I'm doing now that has three main characters, and I actually am doing omniscient POV, so it's not seeing it from anyone's POV
specifically, but rather sorta from all theirs.... it's worked, though I did have to edit for some 'headhopping' when I was editing.
For the most part, I try to only change POV during a scene break or a chapter break - I don't think you need to transition it unless it seems really
akward and hard to tell who it is, but I think that even then it can be a good plot device.
For example, in this book I am editing (mine), I have a lead character who is really in some emotional turmoil... we end one chapter with him falling
asleep and in a bad place emotionally.
The next chapter starts with:
The polyphonic ring tone sounded out in the darkness.... blah blah blah (so it's not the right words, but you get the idea) and I used the word 'he'
several times, purposely not using the character's name. The reason is, I wanted the reader to experience the darkness and the fumbling and 'not
seeing' - they don't know who the character is until three paragraphs into the chapter, and it's not the character they will originally think - and if
I did it right, there should be a big sigh of relief when they finally realize - oh, it's not Brent.... it's Bradey!
So I think that as long as you're not head-hopping and making your readers dizzy, you can change POV in chapter or scene breaks without using
transitioning word/phrases (after all, that sort of makes it seem like you are 'narrating' and it doesn't sound like you are writing in that type of
voice), and you can even use the POV shift as a plot device when necessary.
[Edited on 2-1-2010 by Michy]
Love and stuff,
Michy
~~Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations~~
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." James R. Cook
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Melanie
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Yeah, mine's definitely not omniscient or 'narratory' at all. Definitely close 3rd POV for each of them. They are, for the bulk of the book, nowhere
near each other even.
I thought the 'meanwhile' technique didn't really work. I was just checking. 
My next problem is time-line issues, since some of the events overlap and others don't and, right now, things are a bit too temporally squished.
Melanie
"Go forth boldly in the direction of your dreams." Thoreau
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Going Forth Boldly -- The Chronicle of Becoming a Professional Fiction Writer
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Theresa
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I don't do this narrating stuff, either, although my current novel has even more POVs than three or four .... but normally I state during the first
one or two sentences from which POV I'm writing.
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Michy
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Quote: Originally posted by Melanie  | Yeah, mine's definitely not omniscient or 'narratory' at all. Definitely close 3rd POV for each of them. They are, for the bulk of the book, nowhere
near each other even.
I thought the 'meanwhile' technique didn't really work. I was just checking.
My next problem is time-line issues, since some of the events overlap and others don't and, right now, things are a bit too temporally squished.
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I was having that problem in the fantasy novel I was writing and it was ultimately one of the reasons I had to put it away - I was getting way too
frustrated over the timelines.
I'm working with two timelines in this novel, one is present moving forward and the other is the past coming up to meet the present - the past is
moving much faster, of course, than the present one, and the flip flopping was bothering me - so I figured it would start to bother a reader too.
When I was writing he said/she said, we had the same problem you're having - since the start of each chapter basically went back just a little bit in
time from the chapter that had just ended, and told the same story from a different POV. I think the readers for the most part (we were doing it live
on a blog) completely understood that we were going back in time.
I had a friend who published a book called Keeper of the Flame, and she had a lot of that going on - four main characters, the timeline going back and
forth with them from one chapter to the next. She made up a calender for that was for that world, and then she 'dated' each chapter for the reader,
making it very clear when there was 'time' bouncing. I really liked that idea - it worked for me, even though their calendar was different from how we
do ours in our world.
Can you do something like that? Of course, she also did a monetary system and defined a lot of 'words' that were universe specific and put all that at
the beginning of the book too - it was kinda neat. I edited that book for her.
Not trying to plug it or anything, but it really is a good book if you ever get a chance to read it:
Keeper
of the Flame
There's a new cover for it but I can't find the new cover - seems the publisher is now defunct - so I don't even know if you can get it anymore.
I actually have a copy of it. IF you want, I'll ship it with your free books for EofT when they come in. I think you'd like this book, maybe.....
Love and stuff,
Michy
~~Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations~~
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." James R. Cook
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Melanie
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Well, my timeline doesn't bounce. Everything is happening "now," if you know what I mean. It's just that when one guy is killing the guards, the
other guy is riding to the other city and the girl is hiding the letter, and then something happens with more than one of them in the same scene and I
have to fit it in time-wise.
It's more a matter of getting all the "three days later" type of stuff straight. I drew a big timeline and am using different colored blocks for each
character.
Melanie
"Go forth boldly in the direction of your dreams." Thoreau
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Going Forth Boldly -- The Chronicle of Becoming a Professional Fiction Writer
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LaurelHeio
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That's awesome! Mind if I use your idea?
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't
half so bad if it isn't you.
- Laurence Ferlinghetti
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Melanie
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No problem. 
Melanie
"Go forth boldly in the direction of your dreams." Thoreau
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Going Forth Boldly -- The Chronicle of Becoming a Professional Fiction Writer
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