Printer-friendly version
Author:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
I am working on an idea for a new story I intend on posting here, but, yeah theres a but, I think this would really work good in first person POV. But there are several characters that I would like to go into to that are quite important for the flow of the story.
So I am thinking of entering the main characters POV and then changing POV to another to show the scene from another
Is that Possible, WOuld that be too jaring? Has that ever been done before for a published noval
Comments
Done many times
It's been done many times... poorly done.
The thing you have to watch out for is not "hopping" around after every third paragraph. It makes it impossible to follow except for the author.
Make "chapter long" entries for each person...Let me clarify... three paragraphs does not equal a chapter (for the most part).
If you want to know if it works, sells, whatever... Stephine Meyer (Twilight fame) wrote this way in her latest Twilight book. So I'd say yeah.
http://lilithlangtree.tglibrary.com/
~Lili
Write the story that you most desperately want to read.
Chapters vs. Point of view changes
Chapters in general should be longer than a few paragraphs. Every story I have written has clearly defined start and stop points.
I've done storytelling where I jump from one separate character to another one very quickly. Take for instance my car chase in this chapter of Duty Honor Country Family. I told the car chase from the points of view of the person being chased, to the different people chasing her, to the chasee's husband, to the bodyguards who got separated from the person they were supposed to protect, to a innocent motorist who found himself in the middle of the action, and so on. Some of those chapters or point of view changes were just a couple of sentences in length. For instance-
*****
"Shouldn't we stop? Asked Alex Snodgrass.
Major Hollins shook his head. "Just call for an ambulance."
*****
That was it.(What happened next was the arrival of Yakuza personnel and this necessitated me having a new chapter/point of view change.) Other stories(or chapters of DHCF) have been told with conventional length chapters.
Hard inflexible rules can harm a story. The author has to find the right balance.
Einstein described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to change. Was Albert a reader of TG fiction then?
Daniel, author of maid, whore, bimbo, and sissy free TG fiction since 2000
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.- Oscar Levant
Even worse than "hopping around"...
...after every third paragraph is hopping around in the same paragraph.
>> "Hi, Greg!" "Hi, Alice. What's up?" He said. "Not much." "Well. How are you?" "Oh, Hi Edna!" "How're you three doing?" "Not bad, Ethyl." She sat down. He sat down. Alice stood up. "Well, goodbye."
Quick: How many people are there? Who left? Who sat down? Was Alice sitting all along? Did she leave?
The answer to all these questions, of course, is "Who knows?"
In general, every speaker and actor deserves their own paragraph, at least. Sometimes they need more space to move around.
In general, every speaker and actor needs to be identified, unless the scene is very constricted and the interaction stereotypical, ut even in that case it's polite to give the reader a clue every few paragraphs.
It's entirely possible to change the point of view in every paragraph, if each change is clearly indicated.
We see this all the time in film and on TV, with camera cuts filling in for what would otherwise be elaborated descriptive text, and we do it ourselves in actual conversation, since our brains mirror (we have special structures in our brains designed to do just that) the emotions and actions of the people we concentrate upon, shifting reciprocal viewpoints as our attentions wander from one person to the next.
Narrative that seeks the immediacy of film or TV will use these same techniques, but it's very dificult to get right in the first place, and to sustain for any length of time, because we have to replace or supplement long eons of brain evolution with words.
Most of us are quite used to third-person, essentially disembodied, narrative in telling stories: "A rabbi, a priest, and a lawyer walked into a bar, and the lawyer said..." We imagine a little stage on which the characters are arranged and then recite what happens/happened to them. It's easy to understand a story written this way, but it also leaves us "out in the audience," looking at the actors on the stage.
To truly sustain differing points of view you have to colour the scene differently through each set of eyes, so the readers, who are carried along willy nilly, can figure out whose eyes they're looking through at any given moment, and know what they feel like inside, and then *narrate* a believable narrative for each character whose view we follow.
This means that the characters not only have to speak differently, they have to think differently, and to feel differently, and we have to know it, and it also means that we have to follow the characters onto the stage. Instead of entrances in which a character suddenly appears on stage, we have to follow the character from the dressing room (or wherever) up to the stage entrance and then out into the action.
It also means that time becomes difficult to handle without needlessly describing that same moment multiple times:
>>> I drew my sword and headed through the secret passage behind the arras out into the throne room, vaulting over the banquet table before I stared into the pale face of the startled Queen and said, "Aha!"
>>> Suddenly, I saw some breeze disturb the tapestry on the wall, but then it was suddenly flung aside as a strange woman, dressed all in black leather and velvet, sprang into the room, a haughty sneer upon her lips, brandishing her sword -- aiming the tip of it toward my heart with barely-constrained menace -- and shouted, "Aha!"
Done well, it can say almost as much about the social environment in which a story is set, as Jane Austen does in Pride and Prejudice, as it does about the bare bones of the story, since the shifting web of relationships and competing desires, of which all the players must be aware lest they be taken advantage of or bested, can only be described coaxially, with multiple actions "going on all at once," despite the restrictions of the printed page.
But you have to plan your "camera" cuts in great detail, choosing your "shots" with precision, because a failure at almost any point will cause the reader to sigh and toss the story lightly away, or hurl it to the floor in fury.
Cheers,
Puddin'
---------------
Human nature is so well disposed
towards those who are in interesting
situations, that a young person, who
either marries or dies, is sure of
being kindly spoken of.
--- Jane Austen
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Peaches
Here is an example of it done very, very well. Of course it had two of the very best writers working on it.
Multiple First Person Narrative
If you pull a random sample of novels from your shelf you will find that about half are first person and half are third person. Most modern novel writing courses suggest writing in third person with a single point of view characters, but as Aardvark said, the rules are up to you.
According to Wikipedia:
Where multiple characters individually narrate from first-person POV --
Irving, Setting Free the Bears
Korman, No More Dead Dogs
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (novel)
Graham Swift, Last Orders
Julian Barnes, Talking it Over
Ana Castillo, The Guardians
Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
I found The Sisterhood quite confusing.
As the author of "Peaches" (thank you Jan and Grover -- Lilith, I love your writing and hope you will take a look at "Peaches" with an open mind), I can tell you that you can gain quite a bit with the multiple frist person narrator approach, but you also cheat the reader out of close identification with the narrator. You also prevent the reader from the fun of guessing what is going on in some of the other characters' minds. A good writer will give you a "wry smile" or a "knowing nod" to signal the state of the non-narrator's thoughts.
Good luck to you. I also wrote "Sky" and "Shannon's Course" in multiple first person narrators, if you want other examples.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Mrs Dalloway, Ulysses; Sound and the Fruy...
also do this, but I think "Peaches" is good enough for us to aspire to. I mean - you're good, Jill, but. . .
and I don't think we have to be certifiable geniuses to get get away with this writing thing, or this technique.
:)
Another Risk in Multiple First Person Narrative
Truthfully, it is hard enough creating a main character whose story (particularly one of substance) is interesting enough to hook the reader. It becomes even more difficult when you are trying to have multiple characters do so. And using similarly molded characters (tone / language / demeanor) for these different narratives is basically a cop out.
Of Angela's stories I see her mention, I think I delved into Peaches / Sky a number of years ago. From what I remember, Angela did not cop out, creating distinct voices with her different narrators; however, I was not hooked by each of those voices. I believe the central stories were enough for me to see them through to the end, but there were large sections that I quickly skimmed.
Going with multiple first person narratives is a very difficult task an author is giving themselves, even for someone like Angela, who is one of the most knowledgeable writers in this community
Another approach
Another approach that worked for me in my Heroes of Justice story was to slip into 3rd person at the end of each chapter. It has to be clearly separated and you have to be consistent to keep from confusing your readers. This let me portray events that were important to the story without giving up the first person point of view. This also gave those other views a side note like feel that did not subtract from the more personal first person POV.
No one called me on it and so I'll assume that it worked!
I was and am still in awe of Peaches. That many characters from a first person POV each with a very distinctive voice telling the story and making it move along in a way that kept my attention the entire time. Truly a great work.
Hugs!
grover
This HAS been done...
It's HARD to do well, but it can be. Professional authors that I've seen do it include: David Turtledove, David Drake, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey, David Eddings, etc. I've also seen it poorly done.
When WELL done, it can lead to a richer story, specially stories where things are widely separated. This can lead to a majestic feeling.
When poorly done, it can RUIN a story. When well done, it can still be difficult reading, for some people (My wife really doesn't like this style of story.) it just gets confusing.
One of the most difficult aspects is deciding WHEN to switch POVs. To soon, increases confusion. To far appart, and you allow too much to occur for one person while not for another (maintaining the timeline gets hard). Reading the same story from several POVs, can sometimes be interesting, but if there's not a lot of difference it can get tedious. If you want to try, go for it... But, before you go too far - try a segment of your story and have a few (trusted) people "beta" read it to see if it works or not, and if now what they suggest to "fix" it.
Good Luck.
Annette
Don't recall ...
... any professional book done in that way. Sometime an author can get away with different characters doing first person if they are separated by chapters, but it isn't commonly done, and I can't think of any professional books that use that style off hand. Most stories use 3rd person limited omniscient, which is pretty flexible and rather suited to that sort of thing.
You can do whatever you want, of course. There aren't any hard and fast rules.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi