Jumping Perspectives.

[Justin Miller]

I remember being drilled over and over again in school about keeping the perspective under one category 1st, 3rd ect. I sometimes find this hard to manage when I am writing out a story that has many many main characters, like when I am putting a D&D game into short story format for a recap. I want them all to be the main characters. I like how Margret Weis and Tracey Hickman accomplish it in the Dragonlance series, but even then, it can be confusing sometimes. Has anyone else ever had this issue and what did you do to clean up your writing because of it?

 

[Chilari]

before I talk about perspectives, first a note on having "many many main characters": I tried writing a story which has lots of main characters before, and that was very challenging. I think that ensemble cast stories are better suited to TV or film, since in a novel there is only a name to identify a character, whereas in a film or TV show, a character is quickly identifiable through just seeing their face, what they wear, how they move and talk, etc, so it's easier to make a strong impression with a character very quickly, enabling a larger cast of important characters. In prose, if you come back to a character who hasn't appeared for a few scenes, the reader might be left asking "who's that?"

In terms of perspective, I think it can be done, if you can handle it well. Different person perspectives can differentiate between the first person character, presumably the main character, and other characters who effect the story significantly, out of signt of the main character. But if you want to write first person POV for several different characters, I advise against it. It gets confusing, with readers wondering whose section they're reading, unless you differentiate very strongly with vastly different voices. With a large main cast, third person omniscient might work the best.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

There is a pov for what you are talking about, but only a few authors I've read have done it well. There is the omnipresent, point of view. There isn't a fixed rule to change from one character to another, the pov jumps from head to head without a break or pointer it is happening. When done well (very rare) it works great...but when it isn't, it will pull the reader right out of the story and aggravate them. Book I'm reading now uses it to a more limited degree, but the transitions are too often jarring and I find it annoying.

It is better to keep in mind that you need to know what is going on behind the scenes, and what goes on in the other character's heads. The reader doesn't. To be honest, I would say that seeing the pov characters reaction to other characters is more interesting than hearing them from each in turn. if the character we are following is looking around watching the others, what they are doing, how they are coping with the situation, then that lets the reader see pretty much most of what you want to get across, but without having to go visit each one ourselves to get it.

As a reader, there are many aspects to a story I don't need, or even want, to know. To write the story well, you need to know what is going on outside the sight of the character we are following, but the secret meeting of the orcs to capture the character and their party is best a surprise for the reader to find out with the characters when it is sprung on them. Part of the job of the author is to control the information given to the reader to increase suspense and make things more exciting. (Note, this does not mean withholding information from the reader, it is controlling what the pov character finds out or sees.)

First person pov is normally only used in a single pov character story. While there might be exceptions, most people expect a first person pov story to be one pov only. For more than one use third.

 

[Justin Miller]

Hey Guys! Thank you for the feedback (here and my other thread Chilari), you are probably most definitely right. Doing multiple first persons will just muck up my work. Thank you for the input!