# Showing both sides of a story?



## Amanita (Mar 7, 2011)

A, hopefully, short question from me.
If a story has multiple view-point characters do you prefer characters from both sides of your main conflict, or only those who are helping the main character, at least at some point of the story?

My story where this is relevant features a war between two countries and its effects on people's lifes. The enemies aren't "Orcs" but humans. Many of them only want to protect their own homes or believe their government's twisted views because they don't know anything else, a few are even forced to fight. 
The male main characters believe that their enemies are a "nation of evil", kill them in brutal ways and don't really see them as human beings. 
Nothing of that is unusual in real wars but I'm not sure how potential readers would react. I don't really want to make it seem as if the main characters were completely right either, though. 
What do you think?


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## Chilari (Mar 7, 2011)

It's a difficult thing, certainly. I try to have characters with conflicting views, certainly, but having characters on opposite sides of a major conflict is another matter entirely. Having said that, in the novel I'm working on at the moment, there are three major political factions, and my main character group includes people who either nominally support or outright fight for one or other of those groups; there's even some side switching. The characters who are undecided, indifferent, or simply don't want to get involved even if they did sympathise with one group, are treated in different ways at different times by each of the three factions. THe royalists, for example, help them by getting rid of a local bandit group, and ultimately recruit from them; later it is revealed that the royalist leaders (not actually a member of royalty) are not so honourable and really just want power, though the same goes for individual characters from each faction. Conversely, the revolutionaries (who wish to establish a meritocracy to replace the existing system based on a mixture of monarchy and oligarchy), while politically the group I side with the most, act like utter gits towards the main characters at more than one point, including a particular captain who becomes a main character.

I like to think that when it comes to actually writing it, I'll be able to demonstrate the good and bad points of each system of government, and still have different characters come to different conclusions.


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## Donny Bruso (Mar 7, 2011)

I have main characters on both sides of the major conflict, and I prefer to write that way, because it allows you more variety when writing. You aren't constantly writing the same person, or even a different person who has the same (at least short term) goals. It allows me to use different mindsets in my writing, and evade writers block a bit more, since I can always just switch to the other side when I get stuck.


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## Philip Overby (Mar 7, 2011)

I personally prefer novels with various point of views.  My fascination with this style came from reading the Dragonlance books when I was about 13 or 14.  I've always been interested to see what various groups are doing and getting their outlook on the same events that are happening.  I would say 90 percent of the stuff I write has multiple POVs.  Also about 90 percent of what I read has multiple POVs.  Right now actually, looking at a stack of books in my corner that I am going to read, all of them have multiple POVs.  Weird...

I think you should go with your gut, Amanita.  If you have the feeling that multiple POVs would work for your overall story, then I say go for it.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 7, 2011)

Most definitely both sides of conflict . I think it makes the story alot more interesting. And alot of people don't even bother giving the other side of the story LOL. And its fun to right from both sides of it.. that's my opinion anyway. My story has main characters on both sides of the conflict. The story is just alot more interesting and the reader can see the view points of both sides of the spectrum


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## At Dusk I Reign (Mar 9, 2011)

Amanita said:


> A, hopefully, short question from me.
> If a story has multiple view-point characters do you prefer characters from both sides of your main conflict, or only those who are helping the main character, at least at some point of the story?


I tend to write from multiple viewpoints. If my 'hero' does something mighty, I counteract any notion of heroism by allowing the imaginary reader to see the events from the viewpoint of those affected. It does tend to complicate things, but as a rather cynical individual I find it a uselful antidote to the 'there's no greater glory than to die for your country' philosophy which permeates so much fantasy fiction.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 9, 2011)

I think it is important to acknowledge the other side, and explain their motivations, but I don't really care for stories with multiple points of view (although I suppose third person omniscient is well enough), nor would I want to read a story that was going back and forth all the time. It works better in cinema. It just makes it annoying to read, for me. I want to stick to a character and understand them fully, and if they do grow, I want to watch that. Instead, I'm stuck zigzagging between people. Worst offender of this, for me, was some high school-gay drama, Rainbow Boys or something, a friend of mine made me read. We switched between the POV of three gay males, and I could never get into any of them because we never sat with one for more than a chapter.

Still, it does come down to the story. Some stories benefit from having a greater perspective on the other side's POV, and though I still don't think you should actually have another entire POV character present, you can do something to convey it. I wrote a story once where the protagonist and antagonist were telepathically linked, making two (functionally corresponding) narrators. Of course, being telepathically linked eventually wiped them both of their personality and they went insane, but still...


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## Philip Overby (Mar 9, 2011)

I personally can't think of any fantasy novels that I've read without multiple POVs that I've enjoyed.  I guess I tend to like novels that have "ensemble" casts rather than just one main character.  Maybe it's just a hang-up I have, but single POV novels almost always seem to lose steam when I get about half-way through them.  This is in fantasy, mind you.  I've read tons of single POV novels outside the genre that I've loved.  

I guess the closest to a single POV fantasy novel I've enjoyed is _The Hobbit_ although it kind of lapses in and out of 1st, 3rd, and even 2nd (strangely enough) POVs.  It seems to work there without annoying me, but normally something like that would grind my gears.  

Of my favorite fantasy novels of the last twenty years, my top 5 all have multiple POVs.

1.  A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
2.  Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steve Erikson
3. The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie
4.  The Prince of Nothing series by Scott R. R. Bakker
5. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places?  But all of these books are excellent and have multiple POVs without becoming tiresome or confusing.  (well, Erikson can be very confusing, but that's another story...)


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## Ophiucha (Mar 9, 2011)

I'm not saying there aren't any good books with multiple perspective characters. My favorite book in the world has multiple perspective characters, _Iron Council_ by China MiÃ©ville. And that is my FAVORITE BOOK, and I still have one big problem with it: the third perspective character. Why was he important enough to follow around for a third of the book? :/ _The Name of the Wind_ was pretty much exclusively Kvothe, the first book in _Gormenghast_ is almost exclusively focused on Steerpike, and the later ones almost exclusively on Titus, Harry Potter is the same, and pretty much every fantasy book written in the first person focuses only on one character.

Also, multiple view points in third person is drastically favorable to multiple view points in first person. I can give a lot of leeway to the former, particularly since it MOSTLY is going to focus on one character, save a handful of scenes (which, really, makes it one viewpoint character with occasional asides), but multiple first persons? Pretty much only my absolute favorite authors could convince me to read a book written like that. And I do distinguish between a book like _Harry Potter_ where there might be a chapter or two where we're watching Voldemort, but the other 50 chapters are based around Harry, and a book like _Lord of the Rings_, where half the story follows Frodo, half follows Aragorn, and there are a fair few chapters centered around the villains. The former is a single perspective with a couple of random deviations, the latter has several viewpoint characters.


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## Philip Overby (Mar 9, 2011)

I left _Iron Council_ back in America.  Ugh.  I knew I should have brought it with me.  But it was hard cover and it was heavy, so I left it.  I did bring _The Scar_ with me though.  And _Kraken_ is on my to read list lying by my bed.

Multiple 1st person POVs would give me a headache.  Who wrote a book like that?

I think if a story has maybe two or three POVs (in 3rd person) I can deal with that.  Follow this group here.  Follow that one over there.  Fine for me.  Sometimes though when a book has 6 or 7 POVs it does become rather tiresome.  Usually there are only 2 or 3 POVs I'm interested in anyway and the other parts I'm just thinking "I wish so-and-so would shut up so I could get back to the characters I like and see what they're doing."

An example of this, (and I LOVE his books) is what G.R.R. Martin does with a viewpoint character named Davos.  I don't care about Davos.  At all.  But his storyline is jammed in somewhere in the 3rd book I guess.  Seems like the character would be great in another novel and he is mostly used to see what is going on in an important area of the world.  But I don't care about him.

I recently even went through an old novel I'd been writing and chopped out three different POVs I had been using.  That was almost 70 pages.  Gone.  I realized these characters were cool and I liked them, but they weren't telling the story I wanted to tell.  In fact, their parts were rather superfluous.  Sure, I'd like to explore their stories, but not in that specific novel.  They were dragging the rest of the plot down.  So I axed them.  I wish more writers would do the same sometimes.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 9, 2011)

Off the top of my head, I seem to recall the _Bartimaeus_ (or however its spelled) trilogy having a few different first person viewpoint characters. I seem to recall some of the _Dragaera_ books having this, although I can't recall if it was all of them or just one or two. It might have just been _Orca_. Though, if you dare to read YA urban/supernatural fantasy, then about 30% of it has at least one book per series written in this style. And it is done as badly as you might imagine.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 9, 2011)

I personally like the stories that are told from more then one point of view.. They make the story better and a lot more interesting in my mind. AND you get the added benefit of not being one sided LOL I mean really even if the good guys are the good guys that doesn't mean everything they are doing in the story is good and just


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## Ophiucha (Mar 9, 2011)

I just don't think you need to have a few chapters from the villain's perspective to _convey_ the villain's perspective.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 9, 2011)

well no.. but who's to say you're story is even about the good guys? Maybe your main character IS the villain >.>


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## Ophiucha (Mar 9, 2011)

I never said it wasn't. The main character, and only viewpoint character, of my story is by far the closest thing the story has to being a villain, and that is very clearly shown in the text without me jumping over to the antagonist to get his thoughts on the issue. Every character in my story has a viewpoint that is clearly represented, but the only character whose thoughts the reader hears and whose actions we follow is Ambrosio.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 9, 2011)

Ophiucha said:


> I never said it wasn't. The main character, and only viewpoint character, of my story is by far the closest thing the story has to being a villain, and that is very clearly shown in the text without me jumping over to the antagonist to get his thoughts on the issue. Every character in my story has a viewpoint that is clearly represented, but the only character whose thoughts the reader hears and whose actions we follow is Ambrosio.


 Point taken and I've read countless novels with the singular viewpoint. I just think some stories need the duel or multi viewpoint to enrich the story a bit better. I dunno my story is like that LOL and I think I'd be lost if I didn't have chos' perspective on the events he's watching through his silver bowl of liquid LOL


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## Telcontar (Mar 9, 2011)

I certainly enjoy looking at the main conflict from both sides - though one side is usually the 'main' point of view, and the other just tries to provide an interesting foil. I think it is also a handy tool for building tension and foreshadowing, as one side can reveal points unknown to their opponents.


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## Ravana (Mar 10, 2011)

Ophiucha said:


> I seem to recall some of the _Dragaera_ books having this, although I can't recall if it was all of them or just one or two. It might have just been _Orca_.


 
From the _Taltos_ sequence, just _Orca_, apart from a couple chapters of _Athyra_ that are told from the POV of Rocza (and where only the beginning and the end are from Vlad's POV, the rest being Savn's). The "historical" ones use multiple POV regularly.

•

There's an important difference to be made between using multiple POV to display "different sides" of the story (e.g. protagonist/antagonist), and using it to display multiple aspects of the story or multiple concurrent actions (as with _LoTR_). I rarely see the former done… which I think was what the original question was about. The ones I remember offhand are Glen Cook's _Tower of Fear_ (an absolute masterpiece of multiple POV… you can sympathize with nearly every one of the many "sides" involved) and some of the later _Black Company_ books; Brust's "historical" Dragaera books; Howard's _The Hour of the Dragon_. _Gormenghast_ would probably count, though it's often hard to figure out who the protagonist is—if anybody—and even more difficult to identify anyone as a "hero"; the other two books are a bit more conventional in the matter.

I'm more familiar with multiple POV in science fiction, though here again it's most often used to provide different camera angles than different moral perspectives.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 10, 2011)

ooOooo The stories where you sympathize with everyone are my absolutel favorite! Okay not exactly our brand of fantasy, BUt fantasy none the less and a good example of Ravana just talked about is Watership down by Richard Adams... Hush.. so what it's about talking rabbits but omg it's an epic storyline! and there's at least parts where you have to remind yourself that the story is really about Hazel and the rabbits he's leading and not everyone else like Blackavar who end up crying over >.< gawd I need a new copy of that book >.<

An even better Adams book to go with on this topic is Shardik... which is about a rabid bear and a boy from a near by village. The entire story is told through both their eyes. the Bear, Shardik who's so sick from the rabies eatting his brain he doesn't understand why there are monsters chasing him.. and the monsters, the villagers who are trying to kill Shardik because they think he's just a crazed bear, they don't understand that he doesn't mean to nor want to do the things he's doing but he can't help it. It's hard to figure out in that one who the bad side is and you feel for both sides.. though I did cry at the end of it >.<


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## Ophiucha (Mar 11, 2011)

I dunno, personally, I don't WANT to read a book that jumps between the hero and villain (or protagonist and antagonist, in more gray stories). I'd rather only follow one side of the story, although I can deal with brief interludes, I suppose. I want to care about the antagonist, know why they do what they do, and what they are doing - but I don't want it to take up half the book. I want to be able to empathize with all the characters in a book, but I'd never want to read a book where each character got a chapter as the narrator. And I think any good writer could effectively convey the other side's POV without writing it, and more importantly, just because a story has 'shades of gray', I still think most books benefit from having one side we're meant to care more about.


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## Amanita (Mar 12, 2011)

I'm glad that my question has sparked such an interesting discussion.
Obviously, different people have different opinions on that, so I might give mine on the more general issues.

I think the number of view-point characters depends on the story you want to tell. 
If the story focuses on a single characters training/personal growth/ quest for revenge, I don't believe other view-points add much to the story. This was the problem in Trudy Canavan's Black Magician trilogy. The plot revolved around the main character Sonea but there were different narrators who didn't add much to the plot but took away the suspense in various parts of the story.
The same goes for stories were the main character is the one with the most influence on the story, the chosen one who has to destroy the Dark Lord or anything of the sort. That's how it's done in Harry Potter but in my opinion this only works as long as the most important things happen around the protagonist. If there are various events of similar importance in different parts of the country/world it might be better to have another view-point character with firsthand experience. That's what I've been missing in the last Harry Potter-books. The events at Hogwarts seemed much more interesting than most of Harry's actions during this book, but we only heard about it on a few pages. 
My story set in the "modern times” of my Fantasy world is one with a strong focus on one character and will be told from her point of view only. 

Stories where events that are equally important for the story happen in different parts of the world, require more than one view-point character. The only alternative are very contrived schemes such as telepathic connections to someone experiencing the things happening in other parts of the world. I don't think that these are better than multiple view-points, at least not if used too much.
If LotR had only been told from Frodo's point of view and the whole war for Gondor had happend off-screen it wouldn't have worked so well.

The story I was asking this question for also needs more than one view-point character in my opinion. After reading your responses I'm probably going to leave the enemy view-point character out and try to write her actions in a different way. I want the potential readers to be on one side after all and this probably wouldn't work if they had to switch between these two characters.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 12, 2011)

In regards to _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_, I think there is something interesting about having a story that is left untold. That is why I love minor characters who don't get some exposition. The prostitute with a scar across her arm who never tells of the pimp who beat her or her suicide attempt. She's got the scar, and we're left the wonder. The mentor who is missing an eye, who we know fought in many battles against many foes, but we never know who managed to make the mark. Not every story needs to be told, or even should be told. We don't get to learn every mystery of our lives, yet in fiction - fantasy in particular - every twobit character gets to tell a tale of woe, every tree has a history worth sharing, and no statue can be passed without reading the epitaph. 

Also, it would seem odd to have half the book from Neville's perspective or something after six books near exclusively in Harry's.


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