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Q&A Writing differently when following different character POVs - mainly age difference. (3rd Person)

Am I free to change my descriptive language when changing POVs? Absolutely (leaving aside the fact that you are free to do whatever you wish–it is your story), and I agree with Lauren Ipsum, t...

posted 7y ago by Lew‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:20:04Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27538
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Lew‭ · 2019-12-08T06:20:04Z (almost 5 years ago)
> Am I free to change my descriptive language when changing POVs?

Absolutely (leaving aside the fact that you are free to do whatever you wish–it is your story), and I agree with Lauren Ipsum, that it might help you achieve the desired effect if emphasized properly (the text excerpts you have given are neither a miss nor a hit–at least for me–they could belong to any of the characters you describe, and saying _mom_ instead if _his mom_ could be attributed to a just a matter of personal style).

I also happen to agree with Mark Baker, who seems to think that it is not necessary. Using artificially impaired language (especially in a 3-rd person description) can have an exactly opposite effect and distract your readers instead of helping to engage them.

I would start with trying to make your narrative language coherent and neutral–you can always spice it up in revision.

The dialog is where you should watch the vocabulary, sentence structure, and such (once again to a certain degree, because people in fiction tend to communicate more eloquently than in real life). Fourteen years of age difference will have a very noticeable impact on how your two characters would talk.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-04-14T14:47:37Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 2