POV
Making Sense of Narrative Mode (and Tense)
Sometimes writers talk about what “tense” they’re writing in: third-person past, first-person present, or whatever. This is actually called “narrative mode,” not just tense. The tense is the past, present, or future part of the narrative mode. And the narrative mode encompasses more than just person and tense.
Moving Between Characters in Omniscient Point of View
Remember when I read Spellbound by Nora Roberts? One of the things that threw me was that she wafted from character to character. Orson Scott Card in Characters & Viewpoint gives an example of this that actually works. Unfortunately, he doesn’t tell us why it works. Maybe we can propose a theory.