I’m a big fan of this one! I know there are popular (VERY
popular) writers who shift POV within scenes, within paragraph, sometimes
within sentences. For the life of me, though, I can’t figure out how to read
those writers.
I have to use clean POV for my own sanity. If I’m in Mary’s
head, there has to be a break before I hop over to Jane’s head. It can be a new
scene. Or it can be the same scene repeated from an alternate POV. I kind of
like to do those when I can manage them.
I like reading stories told from varying POVs--The Poisonwood Bible and Falling Angels come to mind. And Fried Green Tomatoes. Trying to follow a scene or a sentence that hops from head to head is another matter. E. M. Forster performed a minor miracle in A Passage to India, seating five or six men in a parlor and then going around the circle, recording the thought of each on the topic under discussion. It was beautifully done. But he didn't do it again. The key, I suppose, lies in doing it right. When I change POV, it's usually a mistake, and a critique partner or an editor calls me on it. Sometimes they call me on it when it isn't a mistake. Sigh.
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