Young Writers Society

I was thinking of writing my story in 1st person for the main character's POV and when it switchs to someone else, writing it in third person. A bit likt as if the character has written his own part of the story in and hunted down everyone else's accounts. Not sure if it would work though.

Any opinions?

EDIT: Ummm.... I meant 1st person.

11th person?

Um, the Bartimaeus trilogy - or, at least, the first one, which is the only one I've read - uses a 3rd person narration for one of the main characters (a young wizard in training), and a first person narration for the other (the sarcastic demon Bartimaeus).

Fantasyartist wrote:I was thinking of writing my story in 11st person for the main character's POV and when it switchs to someone else, writing it in third person. A bit likt as if the character has written his own part of the story in and hunted down everyone else's accounts. Not sure if it would work though.

Any opinions?

Something tells me that you meant 1st person. I can't imagine what 11st person would be like. Actually, I can...

He said that she said that he was watching when Jane said that they told her that he said that she said that he told her that they were there when he walked across the room and picked up the small blue stone from the cushion.

Yeah, I wouldn't advise that you write like that, and I hope I never read that again. But swapping between 1st person and 3rd person? I've seen it done, even in published books, and quite a few times on here. Quite often I'll see something where the prologue is written in one voice and the rest of the chapters are in another. Personally, I don't really enjoy it, but to each his own. I find it kind of distracting when things swap viewpoints because it's tough to re-engage with the characters every time the voice changes. Just make sure that the reader can discern within the first few words of each section whether they're reading something from his point of view or from from everyone else's. There's nothing worse than reading two paragraphs and then realizing that you're reading from Bobby's viewpoint and not Tim's.

I wrote a story like this. It was a novella about a school shooting and I would narrate in first person for the crazy messed up fiteen year old kid doing the shooting and then I'd narrate third person for the SWAT team and victims. It was really fun, actually.

A storytelling style like this is extremely useful, beacuse you can get an in depth view inside of your main characters head and then also get a periphial view inside everyone elses head. It adds an extra dimension and makes your story more thorough emotion-wise. It also gives you a chance to play with contrasting feelings and seeing things from another character's point of view.

And as always, with first person you can express more personality for your MC. I was truly able to get inside the head of a killer and construct a firm storyline using this storytelling style.

Hope this was helpful.

-Kylan

I think this would work. It's like East of Eden. (And, ack, I hate referring to this book...) One of the main characters narrates the story, but he doesn't show up ...well, ever. Okay, so he isn't really the main character. So far, he has only shown up in a few scenes, but most of the stuff is in 3rd person but in a 1st-person-while-3rd-person-kind-of-way, because he is the narrator... You know?

So it would totally work. So long as there was a very good reason for him to know what was going on with the other characters. Unless he isn't the narrator.

I actually started a story like this, and I've read other books (Bartimaeus trilogy) like that as well.

It actually works really well because it gives you more scope for viewpoint and stuff. We can see into the minds of more than one character, which is really helpful, you know?

~Kool

Sureal wrote:11th person?

Um, the Bartimaeus trilogy - or, at least, the first one, which is the only one I've read - uses a 3rd person narration for one of the main characters (a young wizard in training), and a first person narration for the other (the sarcastic demon Bartimaeus).

W00t Bartimaeus!

The thing about 1st person is that everything that happens is filtered through the MC's brain, and that narrows it down. You can balance that out with the third person VP on another character.

1st person, when it's not Bartimaeus talking, drives me up the wall, because you only know what your VPC is seeing. And while that's cool for some stories, it's annoying when there are multiple things going on at once.

So yeah, go for it. It's a blank world so far. Let it be however way you want it.

If your narrating character and the other characters aren't much removed by time and space, you can set things up like "The Great Gatsby" -- Nick is the narrator, and he narrates mainly in first person, but since Gastby is the center of attention the story sounds more like third-person narration than anything.

Blast, everyone already mentioned the Bartimaeus Trilogy--I was going to say that! Anyway, yeah, as has been said, it can work, but in my opinion, only in the hands of a talented writer. The Bartimaeus Trilogy does it well (I Stroud) because only ONE of the characters is in first person, and he a very distincive character. Everyone else is in 3ed, almost making them secondary, so that is something to think about: whoever you chose for 1st per. viewpoint is going to be slightly "special" in the reader's mind.

Hope this helps, darling!

something euclidean wrote:If your narrating character and the other characters aren't much removed by time and space, you can set things up like "The Great Gatsby" -- Nick is the narrator, and he narrates mainly in first person, but since Gastby is the center of attention the story sounds more like third-person narration than anything.

Hallelujah. I love this book, and personally I much prefer this style of narration to "flip-flopping" between first and third person. But I'm weird. If it's what you want to do, go for it, but check out alternatives like this first if you haven't already. Great Gatsby is an amazing book - go read it if you haven't. All of you.

Yeah, plenty of authors switch between first person and third person. A rather good example of this is "Enders Game" by Orson Scott Card. I didn't even realize what he was doing until one day I went back and try to emulate the style.

So its definitely doable. Just depends on the strength of the writer.

sure it'll work. I did it myself. It actually makes it easier for you to develop the main character.

Yeah I think it would be a fantastic idea. I was going to use it for one of my stories until I decided it would be a two part which would take away the need for using both in one story.
It is perfectly doable though and I think it would work fantastically (: