Young Writers Society

Okay guys, I've run into a problem. In the novel I'm writing I am starting off going as first person through the main character, but then another character in the story will have such a big effect on the outcome that to truly display the character to its fullest, I will need to switch away from first person and into third person.

Sooooo...my question is, has anyone read a really amazing book that does the first person to third person switch constantly throughout the book? And if you have, whats the title? I've been looking for one of these for a while, but they are not very common.

My next question is, do you guys have any advice on how to do the switch really well?

Thanks in advance for all help!

-Aero

They certainly aren't common. I've only seen one myself and that's Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson. He switches viewpoints a lot, and I thought it worked out quite well. As to advice on how to do the switch, I can only sugest what Patterson did, and that's switching only at chapter breaks. Then again, he had really short chapters, more or less, so it wasn't too hard to keep switching viewpoints. Sometimes he'd stick yo one viewpoint for two or three chapters, but he usually didn't stay in one place for too long. There's more switching early on in the book, but I think it's present throughout the whole thing if I remember correctly.

And that's all I've got on the subject. Hope I helped. Oh, and Maximum Ride is a really good book, in my opinion. You should really take the time to read it.

do you guys have any advice on how to do the switch really well?

my only suggestion would be to make sure the readers know what your doing, so they aren't left in the dark for 35 pages and then go OH, and realize they've been lost this whole time. Maybe start in third person (with maybe some description of goodness knows what) then go into first person in the next chapter. That would be easier to follow than going from first to third.

Make sure you do it between chapter breaks, otherwise they'll be really confused! I've never done it before, so I wish you luck

Gazza asked the same question a while ago and here is my reply:

Myth wrote:Have you read The Bartimaeus Trilogy? It starts off in first person with endnotes (which I love!) and is in third person for the character Nathaniel.

It worked for Jonathan Stroud so I don't see why you can't try it too.

Try writing a few chapters and posting it on here, then you and readers can see whether it goes with the story or not.

It’s definitely something I've done before, most of the time it works.

I'm doing the same for a project called The Eclectic where it is in third person most of the time but every few chapters is from the Eclectics point of view.

Ugh. This usually doesn't work. It's way too confusing. Are you sure you can't switch it to one or the other?

Holly Lisle - Talyn. She switchs perspective throughout the book, and it works quite well. However, I prefer just one tense.

Quotes from Amazon review:

Two-time Campbell Award–finalist Lisle (Midnight Rain) tries to show she can handle shifts between first- and third-person in her latest fantasy, but the mental channel-flipping only serves to distract from an otherwise extremely well-written story.

Anyone who can get past "I thought about him" suddenly turning into "he thought about her" in the space of a paragraph and the plot-spoiling that inevitably stems from head-hopping will likely be captivated by this stern and stirring treatise on the dangers of enforced peace and the virtues of paranoid preparation for the worst.

The book was great, but she would have been served better to have used only one tense, to be honest.

It doesn't really work that well.

Have you read The Bartimaeus Trilogy? It starts off in first person with endnotes (which I love!) and is in third person for the character Nathaniel.

Exactly what I was going to say! Those books were fabulously written, and the switch didn't bother me at all.

It's an iffy task though, so I wish you the best of luck! If you posted what you're working on here, I'm sure we could all help you out as well.

Switching point of views is my belief to be as subtle as possible, if you can sucessfully pull it off.

However, with Bound for Glory, it starts off in the third person, and then it's purposally switched to the first person. I was never subtle about it, and it's very obvious in the change but going into a year with "Bound," I haven't heard complaints at all about the tense switch, just minor errors with character developement.

I guess it's all in style, finding the right "opening," and just going for it. If the tense doesn't work, well then a complete overhaul is required. Yay, for editing! LOL!

EDIT: In the UG, Character Developement, Snoink wrote an article about tenses, and which should be used, the purpose of them, and how they will directly affect the plot. There's a lot of good information in that usergroup if you feel like digging around.

Yeah... and the article fishr is talking about (I think) is here!

viewtopic.php?p=127940#127940

The Pendragon books switch perspective throughout the book. I think it works well and the books definitely keep me interested.

At first it was kind of confusing for me trying to figure out when the POV switched from first person to third, but once I got the author's general pattern it became pretty cool to read. I like that the reader gets to see both sides of the story and I think it fits especially well with the plot in Pendragon.

Just my two cents