Young Writers Society

For my current project, I started out my prologue in third person and was planning on switching my chapters to first person between two main characters. Now... I really don't know if that was such a good idea, because in order for everything to make sense I have to add in something else from an outside character for half or perhaps the whole first chapter.

My questions are...

1) Do I have to stick to third person?

2) If I don't, how exactly could I go about my first chapter?

Thank you!

Jumping between persons is tricky, tricky business, especially within a single chapter. I know. I've tried. And got mixed results. While I've moved away from using the different persons for that particular work, I still want to try it again and actually make it work.

Unless the piece you're writing is experimental, you'll want to stick to one person. From the description you've given, I'd recommend sticking with third limited, with occasional sections in third omniscient, but the best way to figure out which person is best to use overall is to write out the story in different persons. You'll run into different issues in telling the story in all the different persons, but I think you'll find that the issues plaguing one person are far easier to solve than the other persons.

In my case, the story I started writing out in a mix of first, third limited, and third omniscient wound up being best told overall in third limited with multiple viewpoints, simply because third limited allowed for the best balance between characterization and providing information about the world/other characters in the narrative.

Oh how I love the chance to disagree with Kyll. It doesn't happen often. It's sort of a rare treat to savor.

In regards to your first question, you don't have to stick to one POV. Traditionally, you would stick to one point of view, of course. Lots of great works of literature are written from one perspective, or one perspective style. I'm a fan of doing things unconventionally. This does not mean doing things unconventionally for the sake of doing them unconventionally. it means doing what's best for your story, the heck with tradition, convention, normality, and perhaps most importantly, difficulty.

Sticking to one person, as Kyll mentioned, is probably the best for the sake of your sanity. Not to mention, in some cases it just simply wouldn't make sense to switch persons. In such a case your poor reader would be confused as to why you were using both first and some of these readers would see it as some sort of gimmick. Only it's not really a much of gimmick anymore, since it's not unheard of in the literary realm or the narrative realm in general.

But. If switching persons enriches your story, adds something significant, isn't just a gimmick or an attempt to make your writing life easier--or worst of all, an attempt to blind your reader (that would be cheating)-- then go for it.

This brings us to your second question.

I don't think switching persons within a chapter will do you much good. It could be good. I imagine there are plenty of ways to do that well. But readers are smarter than most give them credit for, and an experienced greater might just see a switch within chapter is exactly what it is in this case: a copout because the author couldn't figure out how to do it otherwise. Of course, if the switches happened consistently, then you might be able to get away with it. "Getting away with it," however, is a far cry from knocking it out of the park.

If you've decided that having that prologue in third person has to be, that it adds all those things talked about earlier, my suggestion for the first chapter would be to find a way to do it without switching. And without info-dumping. Without cheating. perhaps consider starting somewhere else in the story so that the reader can be worked in along with the character.

Or also consider the point that readers are smarter than they get credit for. You don't have to explain everything right away. Some things you don't have to explain period. Successful first chapters, and opening chapters, and first halves, and whole novels, are all about getting that ideal balance of information out to the reader, keeping some things in reserve, dolling out suspense (what the reader knows has to come) and surprise (what the reader isn't expecting). Frontloading information makes for a boring story. Personally, I'd much rather not have a clue what was going on.

Hope this helps,
Rach
(Please excuse any errors. I typed this with voice-recognition)

Thank you both! I think I know what I'm going to do now. Thanks again for the help!