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Separation of characters...suggestions welcome! :)

C

Chessie

Guest
Hello everyone! There is a scene in my WIP where the protagonist and her sister are running through a forest for their lives. They are eventually separated (quite dramatically) and the fate of the protagonist's sister is unkown temporarily.

I am still deciding whether or not to write the story in 3rd person limited or omniscent. If written in limited, would it be best to bring the sister back towards the middle of the book (to give readers enough suspense over it) or towards the end? I am thinking that towards the end might be too late. If written in omniscent, how soon would anyone suggest bringing in sister's POV?

I know everyone looks for different things as readers and writes differently as well. So from the POV of a reader...which would be more teeth grinding for you? :)
 
It depends to some degree on what role the sister plays. If she's active in resolving the story's conflict, bring her back towards the middle. Otherwise, it might be better to keep her an object of worry until the end.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Yes! Great suggestion thank you. I'm not sure what role she plays yet as I'm still fleshing out the ending of the tale...but I will keep this advice in mind. :)
 
Building this kind of suspense is tricky. You want to drop the occasional hint that she could come back, so it doesn't feel like cheating, but various signs that readers shouldn't expect it. The pivot points of the plot ought to fit with that, and that can tell you something about the revelation they might lead to.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
Okay, i tackled something like this once. You're getting POV a little confused. Let's start there...

Third omniscient is where you're writing from the perspective of multiple people at the same time, like every paragraph, switching or something. Something like:

Bob sipped his tea. He smiled, the warm fragrance of chamomile reminding him of his grandmother.

Caitlin watched Bob from her seat, demurely pretending she didn't notice the gleam in his eye...

Okay in that example, we were privy to the inner thoughts of more than one person at a time. That's the omniscience.



A third imited is from the perspective of one person AT A TIME. So you could totally write a chapter as one sister and the next chapter as the other sister. That's what I did in my book. I had a pair of teenagers in love and the girl goes to the boy's house and finds he was dragged off by mounted soldiers. She thinks he's dead and while her portion of the story follows her journey, the other POV follows the boy as he gets propositioned, joins the army, and tries to make a new life for himself. Even though I'm showing both stories, it's still third limited, because I'm not showing more than one character's inner thoughts at a time. During Ayleth's chapters, the world is filtered through her perspective. In Aarin's chapters, the world is shown the way he thinks of it.

Now onto your problem... If you feel drawn to a particular type of POV, do it. I personally feel omniscience is really distracting, but I'm sure I've red books in it that I liked. I couldn't write it. It's too open for me, I'd never get to the end. :)
 
C

Chessie

Guest
^^ Thank you so much for that clarification. I also find omniscient to be rather distracting. The sister in this story is still being fleshed out far as her role goes. I'm kind of thinking that there's something about her that the main character can only live a short time without. Or I could just use her for suspense's sake since its something readers can connect to. Hmmm. I am considering writing either the majority of the story--or all of it--under the protagonist's perspective. If I do chapters with the sister I feel like it might give some things away. What do you think of that?

Thank you for all the responses btw, its nice having feedback!
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
You only have to give away what you choose to give away. But certainly if it's a mystery you want to maintain, then just stay with the main character. You could even have the MC imagine what was happening to her sister. Ooh, if they had a really fuzzy telepathy or empathy, she could even get vague images.

But the only reason to switch over to the other sister is if doing so drives the plot forward. Not just for updates, but for actual plot development. For example, if the other sister encountered something that changes her character AND if that change in turn affected the story arc of the MC, then you'd have to have a way to tell that.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
Often knowing what's happening and the characters NOT knowing is the best kind of suspense. Dune did this very well for example. Another example, you know "so-and-so" is looking to betray his friend and you, the reader, know this from "so-and-so's" PoV. The suspense comes almost entirely from watching how the cast plays through this deceit, and the plot.

I think reading the separate stories of these two characters of yours side-by-side would work well.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Often knowing what's happening and the characters NOT knowing is the best kind of suspense.

Thank you, this is what I was thinking exactly. I'm still marinating on a lot of things about this story (seems like it changes everyday) but I know as a reader, I like when I know what's up but the characters don't.
 
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