Young Writers Society

Hi, everyone. I have a bit of a dilemma. I want to tell a story from two characters' points of view, but I also like the effect of first person. I would like to [s]cheat[/s] use both, but I can't find a good way to transition from one POV to the other since I can't say "Elliott said...." or "Hanna walked toward the door."

Any ideas?

Have one narrator per chapter.

Then you can:

a) Put the character's name at the begining of the chapter, alongside the chapter-number and chapter-name,

or,

b) Use a different font for each character.

Character transitions are easiest when you have something breaking up the narration--a chapter break, a page break--something the reader will really notice. If there is a break in the text, and you start going into the second POV, just be sure your reader can also figure out, immediatly, that this is a different character.

Honestly I haven't read too many books like this, because there aren't many of them? I've read this YA book when I was young, I forget what it was called, about a boy and a girl who hate each other than like each other? Yes! And I've also read Sam's Parking Lot Sparrows which has billions of first person section. You can kind of say Dracula is in this style too, because it has several journals, letters, etc in the text. It starts out with something like "Jonathan Harker's Journal Excerpt, part one" which might not be what you want to do.

If you can find something that will immediatly tell your reader that you've changed povs, the first time, and then keep the shifts consistent, it will work.

I also had the same idea. Although, it seems hard to pull off, doesn't it? Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl is a great example of a book which uses this. Every chapters starts with a different narrator.

It switches from the girls first person POV to the young mans third person POV. It's a great read, too. I'd recommend it. Again, I agree with Suzanne. Switching the POV at the beginning of chapters or with page breaks would work nicely.

I write with 3 different point of views. I don't find it intensely difficult. I usually switch from first to third person, but the key is to keep it consistent, and stay in one character's head for a good period of time. If you switch POV too soon, it starts to get jumbled in the reader's head, and they don't really stay attach to any character.

A change of view at the start of each chapter works best, and it's definitely a lot easier. I don't title any of my chapters, they are simply: Chapter one, Chapter two, etc. and then it includes the name of whatever character's head I'm in =) I've seen it this way in a lot of books too. The Named series is one that pops in my head.

Another thing you can do is that you can have the chance to experiment with different writing styles for your characters, and though it's subtle, your readers unconsciously can tell what point of view they are reading simply by picking up on the first sentence. For example, I have an introvert and an extrovert's point of views--for my introverted character, I tend to write more what she is feeling, what she's thinking, as she experiences new places, etc. For my extrovert, it could be the same scene, and I tend to write more descriptions, more dialogue, etc.

The fun thing about switching POV is that you can have a point of view switch at a particularly intense part of the novel, and leave a cliffhanger, so that your story would have more suspense and be more compelling ;P I love doing that. My beta hates me for it though.

It's also fun when writing ironic scenes xD For example I read this one story where I'm in one character's point of view, who is in /love/ with this one guy and she is stalking him and in her POV she is being really stealthy, etc. However, when we read from the guy's perspective, he notices EVERYTHING and is freaked out--which was hilarious

Play around with POVs. I say you should go for it, it's really fun =)

When you transition from one character into another, make the differences really clear. Use free indirect speech (also known as free indirect style) or internal monologues so that the reader can quickly get inside the new person's head.

I've read several books like this, but they all are in third person. However, Bronx Masquerade is like this with MANY (like, 10?) different first person POV's, and it's done wonderfully. Some are short; like, one page, and they're all poetry, but it could work without poetry, too. They put the name for the chapter, which helped.

Just make sure each character has a VERY distinct personality. I say go for it; it'll really help character development. (You could always try reading books like this for tips. The book I mentioned is amazing, and I hate poetry. It's just done so well, and it tells a complete story. A-MA-ZING. Really.)

~JFW1415

Hi! I remember reading a book that was doing two characters' point of views, it would change at every chapter. For example, lets say this is the page for chapter 19:

19

George



Then it would start doing it in George's point of view. Or, if your character gets about one paragraph, per turn of being in their POV, then do Page Break.


I hope this helps some, let me know if anything that I said didn't make sense!

~Fire

Although I'm repeating people, the easiest is to switch during chapters. If you do it right it works amazing. GRRM (George R.R. Martin for those who aren't in the know) does it really well with like 7 different characters in his Song Of Ice and Fire Series.

An easy way of getting this done, is first write a brief outline of the story from both the perspectives, then you can use that to base the switch on.