Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How to switch pov characters mid-scene without jarring the reader?

Character jumping can be done gracefully, but it's important to master the concept of one character perspective per scene first. It's tempting to jump around, but you will find that your writing ge...

posted 14y ago by JMC‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T00:41:59Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/244
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar JMC‭ · 2019-12-08T00:41:59Z (almost 5 years ago)
Character jumping can be done gracefully, but it's important to master the concept of one character perspective per scene first. It's tempting to jump around, but you will find that your writing gets better when you slap a constraint of no head jumping mid-scene. The writing is better because you're forced to build intimacy with the current character instead of trying to show everything at once.

Head jumping jars the reader naturally because you're breaking the intimacy with the current character, and forcing your audience to understand the situation through a whole new perspective.

For your specific issue, try picking the most important character in the scene so it doesn't fall flat. The issues you ran into by staying with one character (short chapters or no impact) seem like a core issue in the approach toward the story. When the story requires so many characters to tell their thoughts in one scene, imagine the potential for reader confusion as they try to relate to the concepts.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2010-11-19T19:06:26Z (almost 14 years ago)
Original score: 3