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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: RodimusGT on February 25, 2011, 12:32:01 PM
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Being that I'm new to the writing gig I find it ten times easier to write a story in the first person. Even when reading books I tend to stick to first person novels I just feel more immersed in the story.
My issue is the one book I'm planning to write is impossible to write from just one persons point of view, and to really get everything in there I want I would have to write from three. I know it's possible to do, but in your opinion can it be done in a way that flows well? If adding that many POV's would really take the reader out of the story I'd much rather just give third person a try.
Opinions are appreciated, thanks!
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Read Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. Multiple first-person PoVs.
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Boy, I sure hope so! :D
Although I'm sing limited third, not first.
Here's a good thread on this very subject.
I thought good opnions were given all around.
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,18730.0.html
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Thanks for the quick responses guys! This helped a lot.
I feel like I should just write that story in third person, then I can have access to a lot of different characters' POV, but I feel my talent is with first.
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Boy, I sure hope so! :D
Although I'm sing limited third, not first.
Here's a good thread on this very subject.
I thought good opnions were given all around.
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,18730.0.html
Jim's own Codex Alera shifts between multiple limited-third PoVs.
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You can absolutely use multiple POVs, and to great effect. One thing I'd suggest is to note down before you start exactly who your POV characters will be and stick to that like glue. It can be very easy to accidentally slip into another character's POV without realising, describing things that, even in a 3rd-person narrative, your actual POV characters could not know.
This is also important when you have more than one of your POV characters in the same scene together. In those cases, I would advise choosing just one of the POVs to use for the duration of that scene. This helps keep the reader focused and avoids confusion.
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I tend to stick with one POV per chapter, if at all possible.
If the action or plot dictates that I change POV in the middle of a chapter, somewhere I pcked up the idea/trick to do a double return, followed by a single "*" centered in the page, then another double return before starting the first paragraph of the new POV.
This gives the reader a nice visual cue that something is changing.
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I tend to stick with one POV per chapter, if at all possible.
If the action or plot dictates that I change POV in the middle of a chapter, somewhere I pcked up the idea/trick to do a double return, followed by a single "*" centered in the page, then another double return before starting the first paragraph of the new POV.
This gives the reader a nice visual cue that something is changing.
Jim's method for in-chapter PoV shifting was a simple double return.
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Being that I'm new to the writing gig I find it ten times easier to write a story in the first person. Even when reading books I tend to stick to first person novels I just feel more immersed in the story.
My issue is the one book I'm planning to write is impossible to write from just one persons point of view, and to really get everything in there I want I would have to write from three. I know it's possible to do, but in your opinion can it be done in a way that flows well? If adding that many POV's would really take the reader out of the story I'd much rather just give third person a try.
Opinions are appreciated, thanks!
It's possibly to do multiple POVs in 1st, but it can be more difficult. The biggest thing you need to do is differentiate the voices of each character so that they don't come across as the same and so that the reader is able to tell that the POV has switched. Another obvious way is to label chapter headings with the characters name.
I would suggest trying both 1st and 3rd for about a page or so with each POV, not necessarily anything that'll be included, just to get a feel for each character, as well as to see which works better.
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Awesome feedback! Thanks again guys. Assuming I stick to first person I definately would agree that one person per chapter is the best way to go. I was kind of thinking each chapter could be called "John Smith and the something something". Next chapter, if it dealt with another character could be, "Jane Smith and whosey whatsit".
Star you make a real good point about making sure each voice is unique, thanks for that. I'll probably take your advice and write a page or two in both formats and see which works for me best.
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If the action or plot dictates that I change POV in the middle of a chapter, somewhere I pcked up the idea/trick to do a double return, followed by a single "*" centered in the page, then another double return before starting the first paragraph of the new POV.
This gives the reader a nice visual cue that something is changing.
That's also very much the sort of thing where any given publisher will have preferences as to how to do it and it's not worth worrying too much about how you do it in manuscript; if nothing else, the visual cues for that will be different depending on whether the change comes out in the middle of a page or between pages in the final object, which I doubt is predictable in manuscript.
I don't think I have ever done anything that did POV shifts which weren't also chapter shifts except for a handful of climactic scenes where there was a very tight structure to how the POV moved (like someone getting shot five times and there being a couple of paras from different POVs flashing in between each shot) and I tend to do that with italicising the POVs other than the one whose chapter it is.
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It's possibly to do multiple POVs in 1st, but it can be more difficult. The biggest thing you need to do is differentiate the voices of each character so that they don't come across as the same and so that the reader is able to tell that the POV has switched. Another obvious way is to label chapter headings with the characters name.
It's worth noting that if you do that last, I will throw the book across the room, and I know I am not the only one; because if you need to do that, you are admitting you can't make the voices distinct enough.
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I use different fonts for the different characters - which is kind of vital as in one case a character has multiple personality disorder, and it's the only way to tell which persona is 'upfront' and not all the other characters have worked out there is more than one of him.
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I use different fonts for the different characters - which is kind of vital as in one case a character has multiple personality disorder, and it's the only way to tell which persona is 'upfront' and not all the other characters have worked out there is more than one of him.
Dorothy Heydt's excellent The Interior Life did something like this with different fonts, but unfortunately the fonts in the final published version are not distinct enough to make this really clear, so I would not rely on that being enough.
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Dorothy Heydt's excellent The Interior Life did something like this with different fonts, but unfortunately the fonts in the final published version are not distinct enough to make this really clear, so I would not rely on that being enough.
My stuff is self published and on line, so I have a lot of control over the fonts, but I find using Arial for one and Times Roman for another does the trick. The different 'aspects' are achieved using the same font but in different colours (Black, dark blue, dark green, dark red)
Depends on what you intend to do with it in the long run.
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Yes, but probably not for a new writer unless you are looking at the work as a learning device. :-)
I don't tend to throw books, wait--just last week... well, book-a-cide aside. It's tough dude and do you really really know the differences between point of view, do your really know how to write different voices well enough that the reader can clearly tell who is speaking? Very advanced workshop stuff there.
Yet, it is your work and for your pleasure--do as you wish.
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My current ready-to-query work has one primary POV in first person, and a secondary, less frequent POV in third person, with a distinct (though hopefully not jarring) change in tone.
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Liz, I'm about 2/3s of the way through your Crooks Behaving Badly. I think you've got your finger on what works. *smiling*
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Liz, I'm about 2/3s of the way through your Crooks Behaving Badly. I think you've got your finger on what works. *smiling*
Ohh, I hope so, thanks! You had me a little worried the other day when you mentioned throwing a book across the room. ;D
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I'm doing something similar to Jim's Codex.... I've picked 3 different characters to tell the story from. I want one of them to be a villain but I'm worried that his POV will give away too much of the story. I'm still working on how to solve this actually.
But I'm sticking with the "one viewpoint a chapter" thing. Its worked well so far.
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Liz, definitely not yours. I will refrain from mentioning titles. I can say however that I've been a solid print book buyer since Borders continually sends me 40% off coupons. So often that I hold off buying until they show up in my e-mailbox. Yet, I feel so burned when a book doesn't measure up and I paid good money for it.
I'm oh so close to buying a kindle for authors that are new to me. Cheaper books, more free chapters, and then maybe I won't feel ripped off. I'm going through YAs with incredible speed to see what the market is. I can't tell you the number of times I get 1/3 to a 1/2 way through and then want to toss them away. Instead, I donate them to the library, which I hate since it promotes a book that I really felt fell way short of where it should have been. Let's face it, I EXPECT MORE FROM THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY when they want me to chug out 20 bucks after discount for a hardcover.
I can't believe I just admitted that I might, just might, get a kindle... *sigh* what is my world coming to...
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Be an actor for a day. Take a few scripts (or books from 1st POV) and read them out loud to yourself (or a friend who won't think you're weird). Try using different voices for the characters. Make your voice high or low, grovelly (did I spell that right); speak fast, slow, according to how you think that person might sound.
It will help you get some perspective on how you'd like your own characters to sound. I throw in accents on my own characters in my head.
This Idea doesn't work for everyone but it may be the thing you need to help make each character and chapter special. :)
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Before you do anything else, read the textbook example of this idea of multiple 1st Person POVs expertly executed:
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
59 chapters, each one labelled after one of the book's 15 Narrators.
15!
1 Narrator has Clairvoyance, since he can tell what other people are thinking and can see events in other places as they are happening
and 1 Narrator is dead....
It's also hilarious(if you can keep up with the language.) It has some of the funniest, most pitch-black humor involving a family from the Deep South I've ever read and it's not a shallow book. It goes over all sorts of social and metaphysical topics.
For what you are talking about doing, read this book. If you've already read it, read it again.
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Before you do anything else, read the textbook example of this idea of multiple 1st Person POVs expertly executed:
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
59 chapters, each one labelled after one of the book's 15 Narrators.
15!
Anyone else read Geoff Ryman's 253 ?
253 characters. 253 words each. All on a London Underground train. The action of the novel covers two and a half minutes. There is no way in hell it should work as having plot tension and revelation and pacing and so on like a more normal novel, but it does anyway. Astounding piece of work.
(It can be read online, but it's full of thematic hyperlinks and so forth, which while neat, kind of undercut the impact of the amazing stuff it is doing if you read it in order.)
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http://storiesonstage.org/larrypaulsen.aspx
Larry is a friend and I sadly missed his performance of 39 Steps, which is four actors playing tons of parts, at the Denver Center Theatre Company last fall. I can only hope we get another chance to see it, as it was a blockbuster and made money in a down economy. I ditto above. Books, shows like these help get your mind around voice that will help keep the three points of view distinct.
How is it coming, btw?
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George R.R. Martin did it in A Song Of Ice And Fire series.
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Martin's series is written in third person. My favorite explanation of 3rd POV (he, his, she, hers, etc) is that of a camera lens that looks over the shoulder, indeed even inside the minds if desired, of different characters, changing from one person to another with ease. Then you can pan it in and pull it out for differing views, for building and releasing tension, as well. This might be what Rod decides to use. It is the more traditional path. An example would be seeing a desert from above, like a bird, that then dives down toward a racing rider on horseback, floating behind as you feel the dirt and sand kicked in your face, then moving to inside the rider feeling the damp sweaty horse between his legs, hear the hoofbeats, smell the blood seeping from a shoulder wound. You've moved from unattached in the sky to inside the body of the rider. Actually as I re-read that first part, I envision the Firefly coming down for the Great Train Robbery. LOL. It's a well used device.
His question refers to using more than one 1st POV (I, me, mine) and alternating them, since Rod feels that is Rod's natural writing strength. 1st allows you ONLY to be in one character's mind, see what that character sees, feel what that character feels. 1st can be challenging as well. Notice how JB is limited to what Harry knows. The reader never knows anything that Harry doesn't--unless we're guessing. The difficult part is when you have two intensely internal story lines that you want to mesh at some point in the story. It ain't possible in 1st without a shift into the 2nd character. Thus the dilemma Rod must face.
Multi-1st POV is used far less frequently than 1st or 3rd.
Many writers struggle with POV issues, and making that decision is huge and not easily made. Errors halfway through (one author had to completely write from one POV to another for a publisher, which is not an easy task) are costly in time and effort.
Does that make sense? Hopefully, I haven't mis-read Rod's initial question.
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No Meg you pretty much nailed it. :) I was speaking of first person multi-characters.
I have found the posts very helpful though. From the day I originally posted this topic I have found some good answers and ideas on what to do with the book I was thinking of using multiple arcs on. It may just be best and less confusing for the reader if I keep it to 1 person. The story that I had which this problem occured has been placed on hold somewhat. It's a very large scale fantasy multi-story series and would require a lot of attention and detail, which I unfortunately don't have the time for.
The current ideas I have now, inlcuding the book I'm writing, are stars far more reachable. However if there ever comes a time I'm published and my books sell well I will return to it.
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It might be worth noting Robert Silverberg's <I>The Book of Skulls</i> as a rather excellent novel written in four 1st-person POVs.