Free Indirect Speech

[Hereford Eye]

a. He looked over at his wife. “She looks so unhappy,” he thought, “almost sick.” He wondered what to say.
b. He looked over at his wife. She looks so unhappy, he thought, almost sick. He wondered what to say.
c. He looked over at his wife. Yes, she was tiresomely unhappy again. almost sick. What the hell should he say? *

Wood calls a. direct or quoted speech; b. reported or indirect speech, and c. free indirect speech.
I suspect I would most likely use a. Don’t think I’ve ever done anything like b. or c.
All three are forms of 3d person omniscient POV. The thing about c. that Wood writes about is that it is what 3d person omniscient has become, a form where distinguishing between what the character says and feels and what the author feels about what the characters is saying and feeling become blurred. This is not only a good thing, it is damned near impossible to avoid. Accepting this, modern writers just dig right in. He cites examples from Robert McCloskey, Henry James, James Joyce, Jane Austen, V .S. Naipul, Anton Chekhov, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, et al. He cites as the progenitor of this style Gustave Flaubert.
Having watched several threads on POV over the years, Wood’s take on 3d Omniscient as free indirect strikes me as a useful distinction. Knowing there are far better educated folk on this forum than I, I wonder what you all have to say about this idea of Wood’s.

* How Fiction Works, James Wood, Farrar, Strauss and Ginaux, 2008, pp 8 & 9

 

[KatG]

Well I don't know the book or the larger context in which he's using the example, but none of the sample sentences are clearly 3rd person omniscient pov. They are third person pov, and it is a viewpoint that can be used in third person omniscient, but the text samples alone do not show the features of omniscient because it is only one character viewpoint. To be omniscient, you have to have more than one character's pov in the same section of text (internal thoughts,) and/or an outside pov (the omniscient narrator.) You would have to go outside the guy's mind, as well as inside it, to get omniscient. (The guy himself is not omniscient, he's just a character pov.) If the rest of the text doesn't have that, then it's third person limited format.

Both straight third person omniscient and third person limited viewpoint formats, as we've said before, are very commonly used in stories and novels today and certainly for the last 100 years or so. Before that, third person omniscient was used pretty exclusively, so most of the classic authors such as Austen, Dickens, etc., wrote in third person omniscient format.

It's interesting that you say you'd pick choice A, HE, because most writers will regularly use choice B or choice C. None of the samples involve speech -- they are all his thoughts, not spoken outloud. (I'm sure Dawnstorm can tell us whether such thoughts are still called forms of speech in academic parlance.) Quotations around thoughts are usually used to emphasize and identify that particular thought, as are putting the thought text in italics. But since a lot of most fictional narratives involve a fair amount of internal character pov, plus a fair amount of dialogue, mostly the quotations are reserved for spoken dialogue in modern fiction, not character inner thoughts.

So for me, choice A puts the emphasis on how the character looks sick, how the pov character is struck by her looking sick, because of the quotation marks used for that part of his thoughts, but not all of his thoughts. Choice B is essentially the same as A, but the quotation emphasis is removed, so now the focus is not so strong on how he is observing her looking sick, but on his general distress. Choice C changes the character voice -- his thoughts go from concerned to annoyed emotionally, because of the choice of words used to express the thoughts. So while it's technically the same thoughts in terms of content, the context changes and the interpretation becomes different through the character's pov.

Now Dawnstorm can give you a full rundown on how technically there is an omniscient component because of the statement "He looked over at his wife" and such, similar to the boat building discussion we had a couple of years back. And that is academically and linguistically interesting, but it's not going to help you much in a practical sense. The key issue with pov is how many pov's are in the pot, and whose are they. That's what you are working with, that and what sort of pronoun you've got going. These things define the focus of your text for the reader, and lead them one way or another.

 

[N. E. White]

I have absolutely nothing to add to the conversation other than to say I am learning so much from you all.

I lied, I do have a question in regards to convention: With sample A, because of the quotes, I would have read that as him stating his thoughts out loud, even though the dialogue tag says 'he thought'.

First reason why I think that:
That's what I was taught - that anything in quotes is actually said out loud.

Second reason why I think that:
Most of what I read seems to hold to that convention.

Am I wrong? Have I been 'reading' wrong all this time?

 

[Hereford Eye]

Diane Hatcher * gives five reasons to use quotation marks:
a. Use quotation marks to enclose direct quotations.
b. Set off long quotations of prose or poetry by indenting – not by quotation marks.
c. Use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation within a quotation.
d. Use quotations marks around the titles of short works: newspaper and magazine articles, poems, sort stories, songs, episodes of television and radio programs and chapters or subdivisions of books,
e. Quotation marks may be used to set off words used as words.
She also specifically states: Do not use quotation marks around indirect quotations.

I don’t want to take sides with Diane unnecessarily but I do want to point out that here is a grammar book taking a position on direct and indirect quotes.
After church, he said he needed a drink. versus After church, he said: “he needed a drink.” I can see the latter is awkward and I would not write it that way because those quotes indicate to me a conversation. So, I ‘d have more than just his statement; I’d have a response from someone else in the conversation. But, I would write: After church, he thought: “I need a drink.” OTOH, I am not cursed with the confusion tmso expresses. If you are quoting what the person thought, e.g., Sammy thought: “Another 48 hour shift like this one and the drink won’t be a drink; it’ll be a bottle!” then you use quotations marks.

But the issue I wanted to address above is the idea that it is impossible to write 3d person without interjecting and blending your own thoughts and feelings into the works. Her Greatness seems to be saying she agrees that 3d person omniscient must perforce include authorial thoughts and feelings: “To be omniscient, you have to have more than one character's pov in the same section of text (internal thoughts,) and/or an outside pov (the omniscient narrator.) You would have to go outside the guy's mind, as well as inside it, to get omniscient. (The guy himself is not omniscient, he's just a character pov.) “
But Her Greatness also believes it is possible to write in 3d person withouth interjecting yourself: “If the rest of the text doesn't have that, then it's third person limited format.”
Take example a., above: He looked over at his wife. “She looks so unhappy,” he thought, “almost sick.” He wondered what to say.
From whose pov is that last sentence? Is that the author exercising omniscience by letting us know the character’s mental reaction to his wife’s apparent sickness? Or is that the character continuing to think? If so, why not put it in quotes and write it as he thought it? Wood makes the case and I find myself wondering along with him about the ambiguity involved in that last sentence.


* Rules for Writers, Fourth Edition, Diane Hatcher, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000, pp 303-308

 

[Taramoc]

Ultimately these conventions are meant to facilitate the reader, so if you use double quotation for speeches (in the sense of said it out loud), I'd stay clear from them to write down thoughts.

I, and it seems to me a lot of books I've read lately, use italic for thoughts.

 

[KatG]

You're going to drive me insane, wise man. We've gone over the difference between third person omniscient formats and third person limited formats about 300 times in the past.

Okay, first tsmo's question: No, it is not a thought spoken out loud if the thought is set in quotation marks. It's a thought framed linguistically if the thought is set in quotation marks. But if the author is using "he thought," the author is telling you it's a thought the character has. The character is engaged in the act of thinking, not speaking. Thoughts are exposition, dialogue is scenic description because it is heard. Quotation marks put around thoughts used to be used a lot more than they are today. It's rare that you see quotation marks put around character thoughts as opposed to spoken dialogue in modern fictional texts, especially in the last twenty years. When you do see it, it's usually only around one part of the character's thoughts, not all the thoughts, which are exposition.

In terms of point-of-view, an author has two options -- character pov: anything that you have thinking and feeling internally, including in fantasy, characters such as thinking inanimate objects like spoons -- and omniscient pov. Omniscient is not just using an "author" perspective. It's more flexible and versatile than that. And it certainly doesn't involve the author's feelings unless the author wants to interject them. But omniscient viewpoint is information, observations, descriptions, etc., that do not come from a particular pov character. It's also considered omniscient to use more than one pov character's internal thoughts in the same section of text.

Some authors don't want those omniscient features. So they don't use them. They only use character pov's and only use them one at a time and if they decide to switch from one character pov to another, they insert a section or chapter break (blank spaces) to signal the potential shift to the reader. This technique is considered a format -- a way of structuring pov, and it's called third person limited because, once again into the breach, the author is choosing to limit perspective to character pov. It is also sometimes called third person tight because it stays tight on the character pov.

But other authors don't want to structure the character pov just to one character at a time or just to the characters. These authors may write in one character pov for awhile -- a chapter, several chapters, most of a book even if the author wants to -- and they may switch from one character pov to another at a break, just like with third person limited. But in addition to that, authors using the omniscient format techniques also use omniscient text (text not attributable to any character pov,) and/or more than one character's internal pov in the same section of text. So you could say that third person limited format is the stripped down version of third person omniscient without as many features utilized, but authors don't always want those features. Sometimes they don't want the third person techniques at all and they'll use first person instead.

I don't really understand why HE is obsessing about quotation marks. The use or not use of quotation marks for the character's thoughts in the samples from Woods do not change the fact that the character is thinking and we are getting the scene through his pov in all three examples. "He wondered" is the same as "he thought." The use or not use of quotation marks here has nothing to do with character pov or the viewpoint format used for the text.

So the first sentence: He looked over at his wife -- that's the observation of the wife from the character's pov. (That's what pov characters do -- they observe, assess, react, analyze, judge, feel, and decide, all of which provides the reader with types of information.) The second sentence: She looks so unhappy, he thought, almost sick -- that's him assessing, reacting, etc. to what he sees of his wife, giving us information about her. The third sentence: He wondered what to say -- that's him trying to decide what to do, showing a feeling of distress.

Option C changes the language of the last two sentences -- a different pov having a different reaction, judgment, feeling to the same situation. But it doesn't change the fact that it's still in the character's pov.

I'm reading a novel right now that is in third person limited, and I'll try in a later post to go over a bit of that to show omniscient/limited if wanted. I can go over the basic viewpoint formats again, including the more complicated ones like first person omniscient where things get a bit weird. If you really want, Dawnstorm can even take you through the 450 linguistic loop-de-loops of sentence parsing on pov dissection, but again, I'm not sure how much practical use that's going to be for you.

But authors use characters' pov's or not and the authors can use them in any way that they want. So I really don't see what HE is going on about on this topic, as usual.

 

[Dawnstorm]

Okay, so here I am.

First the quote:

I was a bit surprised at b., and sure enough you made a quotation mistake (as to amazon's sample text). b. should read:

He looked over at his wife. She looked so unhappy, he thought, almost sick. He wondered what to say.​

If we're nitpicking terminology, that's important, as otherwise Wood would have used the term "reported speech" differently than anyone in linguistics, which would be odd.

b. as you quoted it, is a punctuation variant of a. It also exists, quite frequently, in mainstream fiction, while genre has taken to using italics (even with attribution, which is a recent development). Direct thoughts with quotationmarks were common once, but today they're almost extinct, coming up mostly in fairy tales and other books for small children.

Okay, next:

As far as I can tell from the amazon excerpt I read, Wood does not use the term "3rd person omniscient" in the way that we're used to on message boards. He approaches PoV via reliability:

The common idea is that there is a contrast between reliable narration (third-person omniscience) and unreliable narration (the unreliable first-person narrator, who knows less about himself than the reader eventually does).

Wood then goes on to deconstruct that difference, saying that first person narrators aren't necessarily (or even primarily) unreliable, and third person narrators aren't always reliable. So forget 3rd person omniscient vs. 3rd person limited. For Wood, there's only 3rd person and 1st person; and 3rd person is associated to omniscience. The preview ends to early for me to tell, but it looks like he's analysing 3rd person according to how the narrator subverts his omniscience.

This is a very different approach from what we're used to on writing boards. What's important in the context of the quote is: "omniscience" is an aspect of "3rd person narration". What he's basically talking about - in our more familiar terms - is the creation of third limited; but his take is different: rather than the "author" "hiding" behind the view-point character, the "author" is "merging" with the view-point character.

Note that Wood is - at least in the beginning - conflating the omniscient narrator with the author:

On one side, Tolstoy, say; and on the other Humbert Humbert...

Humbert Humbert is the first person narrator in Lolita.

He probably does so for convenience' sake. (At least I hope so, as this sort of conflation is pretty much out of fashion for ages, and it wouldn't work at all for the omniscient narrator in Jonothan Strange, to give just one example.)

What we're lumping together under point-of-view are actually two distinct things:

1. Focus: Through whose eyes do we see? Wose evaluation do we get?

2. Presentation: Whose language do we get? Who do we attribute the words to?

You'll notice that focus stays the same from 1.a to 1.c, but that the presentation keeps approaching that of the character. "he thought", "he wondered" are words we attribute to the narrator. 1.c has none of those left. The only hints at the narrator in presentation are: pronouns ("he" instead of "I") and tense (past instead of present).

The sentence "He looked over at his wife," though, is neutral, PoV-wise. It's a representation of his actions. You don't think "I do this/I do that", you're just doing it. Generally, these words should be attributed to the narrator (both focus and representation-wise), but they don't break PoV; i.e. we don't refocus onto the narrators PoV, instead we focus on the happenings.

This is why I don't think the familiar three point-of-view model is very useful. It makes sense in theory, but in practice texts are more complex and can fall anywhere between the categories.

Basically, Wood's free indirect speech ("free indirect discourse" in narratology) is the key technique in what's usually called "3rd limited" in creative writing seminars and on webs; third limited is characterised by this method - other than PoV-neutral text, nothing can occur in limited than this. (This doesn't mean squat for writers - it just means that what they've written would be analysed under a different name.) Omniscient (in seminar-speak), however, also has access to that method.

So now we come to the difference between 1st person and 3rd limited: the first person narrator knows he's telling the story; the viewpoint character in 3rd limited doesn't. What this means is that the view-point character close presentation and focus in 3rd limited stays very close to the experiental level, reducing narration to a minimum. Thoughts are represented as they occur, and actions are described. Many techniques that both 3rd omni and 1st person have (such as flashbacks and comments) don't exist in third-limited.

In third person such extra-experiental would automatically be attributed to the narrator in focus. For example:

First person: I spent all my allowance on booze. I was so young and foolish.

Third person: He spent all his allowance on booze. He was so young and foolish.​

See? In first person, the narrator (old) comments on himself (young). In third person, the narrator ("author surrogate") comments on the character. See? There is no way that third limited can comment from a later PoV. All those sentences are different from either plain description (of action or perception) or free indirect speech (character thought in close presentation).

This is why so many people argue that 3rd limited is the "most intimate" of PoVs. But these people also usually are too strict with "no PoV-changes"; 3rd limited is still a subtype of 3rd omni, and PoV modulation is far easier to do well than they think. The problem, I suspect, is that often the terms take on a life of their own - as if "3rd person omni" and "3rd person limited" were actual points of view rather than crude terms used to think about very complex (= real) PoV constellations in actual texts.

So, to sum up the main point, yes, I think "free indirect speech" (I prefer "discourse" over "speech", but let's not be picky) is a useful concept. But please bear in mind that (a) Wood does not speak about what you would probably call 3rd omniscient, and (b) he orders the field quite differently from what you're probably used to, focussing on reliability as the key term.

As always, this is fiendishly complicated, so I hope it makes sense.

 

[Hereford Eye]

Thanks to both of you for the quick education.

So I really don't see what HE is going on about on this topic, as usual.

… and sure enough you made a quotation mistake (as to amazon's sample text.

That’s what old retired men do, you know: they obsess and make typos.

don't really understand why HE is obsessing about quotation marks.

Was an attempt to assist tsmo with his confusion. Evidently not well done. Ah, me!

He approaches PoV via reliability.

That’s part of what fascinated me, that and the idea that the author cannot help but merge with the character.

Note that Wood is - at least in the beginning - conflating the omniscient narrator with the author….At least I hope so, as this sort of conflation is pretty much out of fashion for ages, and it wouldn't work at all for the omniscient narrator in Jonothan Strange, to give just one example.

Out of fashion for ages! Imagine that and me being old and never encountering it before, thus the post.
Anyhoo, again, thanks to both of you for continuing my education.

 

[KatG]

I agree with Eddie except for maybe two points -- 1) an author using third person limited techniques can have the pov characters have flashback memories imagined as scenes. (This may be simply that Eddie didn't elaborate on what he meant so I misunderstood it.)

And 2) in my experience, the three format basic model is very useful for writers. It's based on focus -- how many focuses you want to have and when. If you start talking to authors about "free indirect speech" and author perspective absorbed into character perspective, you are going to get glazed eyes and confusion. But once they've understood how it works with the three most common, basic formats used for pov -- 3P omni, 3P limited, 1P -- then it's really easy for them to pick up on more complicated uses of pov technique like first person semi-omniscient or the very funky things that can be done with 3rd person omniscient narration. It's like the color red -- red is never just red, it's a shade of red, but if you start out getting the concept of red down, then shading is easy. If you start out with shading, they're asking you questions about what red is.

The problem that developed with the basic 3-format model was that in the 1980's a bunch of writing teachers and various and sundry decided that the 3rd person omniscient format was evil. Their grounds for the evil label were that 3rd person omniscient was an old format (true,) and hardly ever used anymore (not true,) and that all writers did it badly (not true.) Head-hopping became a derogatory term, and I had numerous clients and students over the years who freaked out if I pointed out they were using omniscient techniques, as some stupid writing teacher had told them that this was forbidden. The fact that there were numerous third person omniscient works on the bestseller lists or getting awards seemed to go right over their heads.

And that's in large part because reader brains will happily process omniscient pov uses and non-omniscient text without an issue or them even much noticing. If you told the readers of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that it uses omniscient, I think half of them would be totally surprised, even though the thing is filled with footnotes for starters.

The other problem is that writers are constantly looking for magic formulas -- sets of rules they can follow to guarantee success -- instead of figuring out how they want to tell the story and building skills instead. So they look at the formats not as choices of techniques, but iron-clad rules, as Dawnstorm mentioned, and seem to feel that authors must bind themselves to a format in blood once they've started. But they're just techniques for pov -- authors use one technique or another as they chose. It does help if they know what they are actually choosing to use and that's more likely to build skills for using pov, but it's not always completely necessary if a story comes bopping out of their heads, as they may be using techniques instinctively.

 

[Dawnstorm]

I agree with Eddie except for maybe two points -- 1) an author using third person limited techniques can have the pov characters have flashback memories imagined as scenes. (This may be simply that Eddie didn't elaborate on what he meant so I misunderstood it.)

I agree. And, yes, I wasn't quite clear on what I meant.

But once they've understood how it works with the three most common, basic formats used for pov -- 3P omni, 3P limited, 1P -- then it's really easy for them to pick up on more complicated uses of pov technique like first person semi-omniscient or the very funky things that can be done with 3rd person omniscient narration. It's like the color red -- red is never just red, it's a shade of red, but if you start out getting the concept of red down, then shading is easy. If you start out with shading, they're asking you questions about what red is.

Well, you certainly have more experience working with writers, and I do tend to confuse people...

Still: I'm seeing a lot of confusion online, and a lot of that comes from people trying to make 3rd limited and 3rd omni different from each other in the same way that they differ from 1st, and that just doesn't work. It's as if they had to keep up prejudice lest the entire conceptual building come tumbling down.

There aren't 3 distinctions, there are either 2 or 4, depending on the detail level. And the distinctions don't describe texts so much as they describe sentences. You're watching someone hit their finger with a hammer and go "Ouch!" That, right there, is the seed of third limited - but before it's ever a seed of 3rd limited it's a component of 3rd omniscient.

It's no more difficult than the three-PoV-model; the problem is that it's too late now. It's confusing because you have to undo the three-PoV-model induced biases before you can even start to teach PoV properly. It's too late for that now (thus even I use the standard terms online).

My main point is, I suppose, that you need to have the distinction between first and third person down, before you can go into limited vs. omni, and you should balance that with a similar distinction in first person (narrating-I:experiencing I = narrator:viewpoint character).

One of the best articles on point of view I've come across recently is here. Juliette Wade did a great job there, I think. She does start out with the three big ones, but dismantles them effortlessly, transitioning into relevant questions. I'm impressed.

 

[KatG]

My main point is, I suppose, that you need to have the distinction between first and third person down, before you can go into limited vs. omni,

Absolutely agree. You're right.

The article makes my brain hurt. It's like reading Hal Duncan's blog when he's on about linguistics.

a lot of that comes from people trying to make 3rd limited and 3rd omni different from each other in the same way that they differ from 1st,

Hmm, I hadn't been seeing this, but then I'm not hanging out at a lot of writing sites. I don't know why they'd be thinking that. Is it part of the third person omniscient is evil idea?

 

[Dawnstorm]

Hmm, I hadn't been seeing this, but then I'm not hanging out at a lot of writing sites. I don't know why they'd be thinking that. Is it part of the third person omniscient is evil idea?

There's probably overlap, but I've heard people criticise PoV shifts in omniscient with the justification that in omniscient the entire story must be told from the point of view of the narrator. For example, an omniscient narrator cannot say "looked like", as he's supposed to know what it actually is. To me this looks like a desire to classify ruining reading skills, more than a dislike of anything.

The article makes my brain hurt. It's like reading Hal Duncan's blog when he's on about linguistics.

Really? I thought that was a very accessible article...

 

[KatG]

There's probably overlap, but I've heard people criticise PoV shifts in omniscient with the justification that in omniscient the entire story must be told from the point of view of the narrator. For example, an omniscient narrator cannot say "looked like", as he's supposed to know what it actually is. To me this looks like a desire to classify ruining reading skills, more than a dislike of anything.

Okay, that makes sense. It's part of the confusion over "what is omniscient" and omniscient techniques that's been going on. I've run into a lot of people who believe that omniscient pov is only the omniscient narrator, no character povs, and others who have one version or another. I think it was a shift in the "omniscient is evil" tactic. Or just the endless need writers seem to have to define and redefine their terms for things.

The viewpoint formats are not sets of rules. They are sets of techniques that an author chooses to use in handling pov, which shapes the story. You can use quotation marks around thoughts if you want, for instance.

Really? I thought that was a very accessible article...

I tell you what, people can check it out and then take a vote.

 

[Hereford Eye]

It seems to me it becomes more and more important/defined/annoying the more you seek feedback on your writing. As a member of a very good crit forum, I discovered that many of the crits of my work took me to task for a PoV violation of one sort or another. When there was nothing else to say, there was always PoV. Haven't been on that forum for a couple of years now so I don't know if that is still the crit-du-jour or not.
I have this favorite day dream where the judges for the Pulitzer, the Mann, and the Nobel are sitting around deciding who to honor and the crux of the decision becomes PoV. The day dream includes discussions of what PoV means, how many kinds there are, and which are Politically Correct, which are more prize-worthy, and which wasn't used this year so that next year we should look for a work employing the unused PoV..

 

[N. E. White]

Yikes - I've been trying to follow along (and learn) but my goodness, this is all so complicated. Should I worry about any of this or should I just try to write? FYI - since I'm new to writing, just getting something out is a major achievement for me.

 

[Dawnstorm]

Yikes - I've been trying to follow along (and learn) but my goodness, this is all so complicated. Should I worry about any of this or should I just try to write? FYI - since I'm new to writing, just getting something out is a major achievement for me.

As I said, this stuff is really harder to analyse than it is to write. So, just write.

Alternatively, you could fool around a bit with a scene; write it from various points of view, try out stuff, compare. More fun than dry theory.

Also, if you have an idea, go for it. It doesn't matter if it works or not. If it doesn't, you're one experience richer, and you may get another idea on how to make it better next time. Never be afraid to try stuff out.

 

[NickeeCoco]

Alternatively, you could fool around a bit with a scene; write it from various points of view, try out stuff, compare. More fun than dry theory.

Also, if you have an idea, go for it. It doesn't matter if it works or not. If it doesn't, you're one experience richer, and you may get another idea on how to make it better next time. Never be afraid to try stuff out.

There's also a book called The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform Your Fiction by Brian Kiteley. It gives you 200 different writing exercises that force you to try different things. There are exercises such as having to write only a 500 word scene in the first person POV, but is limited to a mere 2 personal pronouns. Or, write a story in which two characters are concerned about an absent third character, and move through at least three locations. Oh, and it can only be 50 words long. So forth. A lot of them are about different POVs, tenses and all that jazz. He also has another one called The 4 A.M. Breakthrough.

EDIT: These are also good for when you're not in the mood to write. By doing one or two short ones it forces and breaks you into it.

 

[Dawnstorm]

Ooh, thank you for the recommendation. These books look great.

 

[N. E. White]

Ditto - I'll have to look those up! Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[KatG]

Sounds like my kind of writing book too.

Tsmo -- all you have to worry about is -- whose pov do you want to give when in the story. The pov -- omniscient or character -- is the window through which readers see the story or parts of the story. It allows you to direct them to key information, character development, emotion, theme, etc. But it is infinitely flexible. There's no one right way to do pov.

HE -- Should you run into that sort of thing in critiques again, ignore the rule-mongering, and ask questions about the reaction instead, like: whose pov did you like better and why? Did the pov shift seem abrupt to you or did it just cause confusion? Get a critiquer away from telling you how you should write and into how they experienced your actual text, and you'll get useful information.

Remember when Fung Koo had you do those exercises with doing the same bit many different ways, and you found out which things worked better for you? That's the same sort of thing we're talking about here.