Point of View Question

[Danny-boy]

Is it unheard of to write in first person, but to split the book between two or more characters. For example...say one is a vampire and is only awake at night...would it be too much to tell the story from that point of view when it is night-time and from another character's point of view in the day?

also what would be a good way of indicating which character was narrating at the time? One in italics maybe?

Danny-boy

[Roaram]

its very uncommon, but probably not unheard of. I think it might be a neat way to tell a kind of story, though its artistic license may not meet a publishers idea of cool. In my opinion though, italics for a whole chapter would annoy me. name the chapters after the characters, or make them totally different "voices" If you have to do a font change, just use bold. maybe I just have an unnatural dislike of prodigous italics.....

[CrazyGerbilLady]

Italics are hard to read.  I'd just indicate in the chapter name who is speaking.  One of my favorite authors switches voices between chapters ... I think it's Kelly Armstrong ...

[ballplayer72]

It all depends what kind of book it is.

If its military based, you could like CGL says, indicate it at the beginning of the chapter. 

EX

0229 zulu time  06/21/2888        Date
   Captain Xyz                            Person speaking this chapter
   1st Marine Expeditionary Unit   Unit Affiliation
   Battlespace Gamma    Location



The animorph series of books usually changed pov every book, but some of them had multiple narrators.  At those times a face and name would indicate who was narrating at the beginning of the chapter. You might do something like that

[Danny-boy]

thanks for the advice folks...


I think I might have thought of a way...

I am thinking of a symbol - maybe the first initial of each character - placed at the beginning of each chapter, indicating which character is narrating. maybe the first two have the full name of the character (it's just two different characters), but then all subsequent chapters have only the initial. (somewhat stylized initials...both in some way reflecting the personality of the character they represent)

[Shecky]

Heinlein did it in The Number of the Beast. Each chapter was headed by the narrating character's name in italics, followed by a colon (e.g., Zeb: ). Easy. It takes great skill to write each character in his/her own distinct but natural-seeming voice, however; if anything, I'd be very careful with it.

[Danny-boy]

Heinlein did it in The Number of the Beast. Each chapter was headed by the narrating character's name in italics, followed by a colon (e.g., Zeb: ). Easy. It takes great skill to write each character in his/her own distinct but natural-seeming voice, however; if anything, I'd be very careful with it.

Yeah...I haven't really dug into it yet...it might not even work...we'll see...

[Shecky]

It's really worth a look if you honestly feel that the story needs to be seen from multiple PoV.

[Lisa™]

It takes great skill to write each character in his/her own distinct but natural-seeming voice, however; if anything, I'd be very careful with it.

This is a good point.  I write several characters in a prose-based online RPG, and being able to distinguish between two or more different "voices", particularly when I'm writing a scene or a certain story on my own, is very important to me. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Heinlein did it in The Number of the Beast. Each chapter was headed by the narrating character's name in italics, followed by a colon (e.g., Zeb: ). Easy. It takes great skill to write each character in his/her own distinct but natural-seeming voice, however; if anything, I'd be very careful with it.

If you can do it, go for it.

Myself, I have always thought putting the character name at the head of the section is admitting defeat. (If necessary in a book where all the voices are as indistinguishably similar as Number of the Beast.  Distinct voices are not that hard, and particularly if you are using your different POVs in a repeating pattern I think there's no need for it.

[LizW65]

I'm actually doing this in my own WIP.  My primary narrator, the female protagonist, speaks in first person, and her narratives have regular chapter headings:  Chapter One, Chapter Two, etc.  My male protagonist's storyline is told in third person, and his narratives are headed by a date and time, eg:  October 17, Early Evening.  I also have a distinct "voice" for each, to further differentiate the two.

[Shecky]

If you can do it, go for it.

Myself, I have always thought putting the character name at the head of the section is admitting defeat. (If necessary in a book where all the voices are as indistinguishably similar as Number of the Beast.  Distinct voices are not that hard, and particularly if you are using your different POVs in a repeating pattern I think there's no need for it.

"Indistinguishably similar"? Truly? To me, there is a VERY strong distinction between the voices. I think any confusion in Number comes from the fact that all four narrative characters are of like mind on a number of essential things.

[KevinEvans]

The publishing industry seems to go through cycles in what they buy.

Right now the trend seems to be third person limited. If the authors are established and have a following, they can probably get away with what ever they want as long as they don't alienate their fan base.

As new authors (my wife and I) most our revisions seem to have POV as their root cause. In short we are still in the boat of having to write what the editor wants. Certainly if I expect to get paid I am going to write what sells, and if it was pre 1915 that would be third person omniscient....
(grin)

Regards,
Kevin

[kero319]

Books i would suggest to you while your writing would be
Nick Sagan's series starting with Idlewild
and Ender's Game
Idlewild series has the switch in first person between 3 or 4 characters and indicates which is speaking by a symbol for each at the beginning of the chapter (very good read from a fairly low profile author) and Ender's Game kinda-sort of has a italics thing going at each start of the chapter. its more just because its my favorite book lol.