How do you understand "point of view?"

[Gamblnluck]

Limited third person or close third person is when the narrator gets in close to one character's point of view, rather than be God-like. It can be done either exclusively, or getting close to more than one character on an alternating basis. The key is to clearly demarcate when the pov shifts, and don't do it too often. It can be just as intimate as first person.

Often those stories are hard to follow. They do not flow as a story.

 

[Gamblnluck]

but the point of view shifts from chapter to chapter depending on who the MC is in that chapter.

Several very good novels do that. But a chapter at a time, not paragraph at a time. I once listened to "Where the Crawdads Sing" while on a long road trip. The story was told alternating from twenty five years prior to present. Each timeline continued. At first, listening to it was a little disconcerting but then it fell in line. Then the epilogue/last chapter tied it all up. This not something for a short Lit story.

 

[Gamblnluck]

n The Number of the Beast, Heinlein switches between first-person POVs for every chapter, between each of the four main characters. Each chapter begins with the POV character's name, and picks up the story where the previous chapter left off.

It's been 35 years since I read it, but I remember thinking it was an unnecessary gimmick that didn't really add anything to a story that wasn't really going anywhere anyway.

Some of Heinlein's stuff was hard to follow. He'd also go off on tangents often. I was a young teen when I read his stuff.

 

[nice90sguy]

I just think of my stories like movies. The camera might track A, or B, or both of them talking together. I'm so obsessed with showing not telling, that I rarely reveal anything about a character that coudn;t be read on an actor's face. But the camera might follow one person exclusively in the story, i.e. only see what he/she is experiencing.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Some of Heinlein's stuff was hard to follow. He'd also go off on tangents often. I was a young teen when I read his stuff.

Love(d) Heinlein. Number of the Beast, not so much. When they got to Oz, I had to bail. Just couldn't take it anymore.
Felt like a dozen Piers Anthony books all crammed together.

 

[Gamblnluck]

hat eliminates and world building or history that would add color and expanse to the story.

Not at all. You use actions for world building. I started a universe where judicial slavery was legal in Slave Camp. That was 3rd person. I switched to first person for both Gotta Pay the Piper and My Mother owns me. In both, I explained the rules of the world or added to them by the interactions of the characters.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Great, now I have to read Bleak House...thanks.

Not that ambitious to read a Dickens novel. I remember reading the stuff as a kid and thinking great story, fun plot, but the way it reads sucks.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Not at all. You use actions for world building. I started a universe where judicial slavery was legal in Slave Camp. That was 3rd person. I switched to first person for both Gotta Pay the Piper and My Mother owns me. In both, I explained the rules of the world or added to them by the interactions of the characters.

That could work for some of it, but I also want to introduce a few different story lines that my main characters will not be privy to, and that's going to require the shift.
Basic idea is that my MC doesn't know anything. She's literally snatched up from Chicago and dropped in a mythical magical land full of elves and dwarves and such. her companions can help her with general knowledge, but none of them know about the subplot that wants her to fail in a quest she doesn't even now she has.

 

[MillieDynamite]

In epistolary style, you have different first-person narratives, newspaper articles, newscasts, or other outside views, and the first-person portions overlap, giving different points of view of the same event. There is a Western short story authored by a friend of my father's, called "Retribution." its tag is 'A Short Story of Old West Justice and Revenge.' And it is told in the classic style used by Bram Stoker for Dracula. It's a pretty good tale.

I see what you are asking. You want to explain what different people are thinking at anyone time. In that case use 3rd person, the omniscient narrator. That is the limitation of using first person. He only knows what he is thinking. He shows others actions but cannot know their thoughts.
Some authors like to go back and forth between first person narratives. "He said": then "She said" Personally I generally do not like switching characters. ESPECIALLY if the POV switches often like every every few paragraphs. You will also see stories where the first half is first person, character #1 and then the second half Character #2. I don't care for them either. I generally downgrade a story for that alone.

 

[StillStunned]

Love(d) Heinlein. Number of the Beast, not so much. When they got to Oz, I had to bail. Just couldn't take it anymore.
Felt like a dozen Piers Anthony books all crammed together.

I think I got as far as them meeting Lazarus Long. It all felt... pointless. Like Heinlein had fallen in love with the characters and was writing a collection of scenes that should have just played out in his head.