I think lately, I've been watching for perspective/POV. The problem I'm having is feeling locked into the POV of my main character and really wanting to free myself of that, be more like the roving camera in a film, but genre fiction* is so stuck in close-third right now that I'm finding it challenging.

*all fiction has genre, I kind of hate this term

duuude same. I love POV and camera angles and narrative distance but my beta readers Do Not. I'm also expecting a dev edit back today and explicitly asked them to comment on that...

interestingly though, only the writer-beta readers. the non-writers didn't comment on it...

Not surprising! POV violation is a thing made up by writers--readers don't care nearly as much. I have a whole class on this stuff.

Most readers want to feel what perspective they are in, and that they are generally in capable hands regarding POV. But as long as the write signals shifts and readers don't get completely lost, they rarely mind jumping around or zooming in and out. If it's handled well, it's a plus instead of a minus. And many times, readers don't even _notice_. They only notice when they get confused.

Ya, despite being a POV iconoclast, I did once leave a comment about when there was a switch in the middle of the scene. I actually picked up on it just fine, my comment was that it didn't seem momentous enough. We finally saw into Mr. Tall and Mysterious Love Interest's head. You gotta make that a special occasion!

Ah! And you're pointing out another thing that readers like, which is consistency. If the pattern teaches them one thing, they will be slightly (sometimes subconsciously) unsettled by a hitch to the pattern. This doesn't have to be a bad thing! Sometimes--as you say--it just wants to be momentous. But you can also just establish a pattern of shifts and zooms, so it doesn't unsettle.

(Also, shifts to reveal go over better than shifts to conceal.)

Yes! This is it exactly! We essentially teach readers how to read our texts early on. If we establish that it's all in this person's head and then jump to someone else's, then readers can rightfully be confused. What I'm on the hunt for is, just like Nebulos said, techniques for *how* to signal to readers that my narrator is going to float a little, so I'm looking at how to make transitions, mostly.

The easiest way is just filtering. And also backing off that filtering when it's not needed to indicate POV. Otherwise, the reader learns to skip it and it won't work. (Which is someone counterintuitive to a lot of writers, so worth mentioning, I think.)

Explain what you mean by filtering? I don't quite follow you.

He saw, she thought, I felt, they heard, it knew, --phrases that tell the reader who is perceiving a thing, but also tend to detract from the immediacy/immersion of the scene.

It's called filtering by a lot of writers.

And many "experts" tell you not to do it very much. And they're mostly right. It's a tool with a specific purpose that loses its effectiveness (and distances the reader) if over-used.

Yes! I'm realizing this right now!

And then I said this elsewhere because I got lost...

There are three tools I think about the most for shifting POV.

Bluntest (but prob most important): Filtering

Medium (eases the reader between filtering): Zooming

Finest (makes a reader comfortable in a POV or distance one they're there and also builds credibility for the writer in taking them there): Sensibility

I may have said this before, but an ambition I have is to write a story (book) with lots of PoV characters but in first person, with no indicator of whose voice is whose besides the voice itself. Cos filtering doesn't work in first person. I am keen on readers having a role in the experience - through inference - and as a reader I am keen on not necessarily knowing what's going on at first. Otherwise it can be kind of boring.

I think filtering still exists in first person--it tells you the "I" is the one whose POV you're getting--it just doesn't necessarily tell you who that I is!

But, yes, to this sort of story!

And it could be clues and cues to tell us who is talking. But I would guess that sensibility likely plays the largest part in distinguishing the different voices.