If there is something that makes me click the back botton are POV shifts in the same sentence.
That's not to say that it's wrong. I believe, indeed, that an author must be very good to be able to write it without creating something sloppy.
Hannah couldn't believe her eyes. Neville just finished off twenty-three scoops of ice cream on his own and now his stomach hurt and he felt queasy.
In this sentence, for example, the reader don't understand that you changed POV, but think that Hannah knew that Neville's stomach hurt and he felt queasy. That's, for me, is sloppy.
I prefer to write from the perspective of a character and use scene breaks between POV switch.
The thing that bothers me about one of my authors is that she switches POVs from paragraph to paragraph in every scene. She used to do it in the middle of paragraphs and that drove me nuts trying to decypher who was talking/doing what... so I know wherefore you are coming from.
Anyway, I think that if you're writing a long and involved story/novel it's all right to write in multiple points of view because you can assign specific roles to each character to advance the narrative as well as experience how the characters are personally reacting to what's happening in the story. My rule when writing like this is to make sure I don't switch points of view in the middle of a segment because it would deprive the original character in that segment from his/her time in the limelight, so to speak. I think what I'm trying to say is that each segment/PoV is a ficlet within the whole and when all the ficlets are strung together, they tell a complete story.
Alternate POV is my favorite. I think it adds a layer of mystery to a story when done well. It works particularly well when the story is telling of the past and present. All those different interpretations of events highlight the individual personalities of the various characters; how their experiences influence their beliefs about others and about events, how misunderstandings impact interactions, the secrets people keep, how we never really do get at the truth, because it's what we remember and what we think about it, even when we're taking into account what we are told about it. That's very real life to me. For an excellent non-fandom example of this, Christine Schwartz's Drowning Ruth is well worth reading
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I don't think I'm saying anything new here, but my two penn'orth, for what they're worth:
I think there's a time for multiple POV and a time when it's overkill, depending on the story you're trying to tell. For example, as others have said, alternate points of view can be used to highlight the conflict and increase the reader's suspense (e.g. "Uh-oh, Ginny's really busy with Quidditch and she ain't gonna be happy when Harry tells her he wants to get married and have her babies. Which we know he's about to do, because we saw him showing Ron the ring in the previous section.")
Personally, I use multiple POV in two ways: 1) when I want to create a kind of symphonic effect, with both characters having equal voices and telling a story together and 2) when the characters' storylines are only loosely connected but are intended to create one overall story.
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That's not to say that it's wrong. I believe, indeed, that an author must be very good to be able to write it without creating something sloppy.
Hannah couldn't believe her eyes. Neville just finished off twenty-three scoops of ice cream on his own and now his stomach hurt and he felt queasy.
In this sentence, for example, the reader don't understand that you changed POV, but think that Hannah knew that Neville's stomach hurt and he felt queasy. That's, for me, is sloppy.
I prefer to write from the perspective of a character and use scene breaks between POV switch.
It's easier ^^
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Anyway, I think that if you're writing a long and involved story/novel it's all right to write in multiple points of view because you can assign specific roles to each character to advance the narrative as well as experience how the characters are personally reacting to what's happening in the story. My rule when writing like this is to make sure I don't switch points of view in the middle of a segment because it would deprive the original character in that segment from his/her time in the limelight, so to speak. I think what I'm trying to say is that each segment/PoV is a ficlet within the whole and when all the ficlets are strung together, they tell a complete story.
So no, I don't think you're over-thinking at all.
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I think there's a time for multiple POV and a time when it's overkill, depending on the story you're trying to tell. For example, as others have said, alternate points of view can be used to highlight the conflict and increase the reader's suspense (e.g. "Uh-oh, Ginny's really busy with Quidditch and she ain't gonna be happy when Harry tells her he wants to get married and have her babies. Which we know he's about to do, because we saw him showing Ron the ring in the previous section.")
Personally, I use multiple POV in two ways: 1) when I want to create a kind of symphonic effect, with both characters having equal voices and telling a story together and 2) when the characters' storylines are only loosely connected but are intended to create one overall story.
Hmm. Thanks for making me ponder this!
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