# Switching main characters



## Black Dragon (Aug 4, 2011)

Have you ever tried writing a novel in which the main character changes halfway through?

An example of this in film would be _The Village_, in which Joaquin Phoenix's character gets sidelined and the blind girl becomes the central character.

Have you seen an author do this successfully?


----------



## Map the Dragon (Aug 4, 2011)

In Sanderson's newest novel, The Way of Kings, the author hops characters quite a bit. This is done all the time in 3rd Person, but not so much in 4th.

Even in my own novel, I leave main characters to return to them after focusing on someone else far way for many chapters.

If you mean specifically in 1st Person POV, that would indeed be more rare and I would like to hear other ideas as well. In 3rd, one might argue that there is or isn't more than one protagonist, thus yeilding POV switches, but when this happens in 1st, I am sure this could be more challenging for bot the author and reader.

Some have falsely called this technique the 1st Person POV Plural, but that actually refers to the use of "we", "us", and so on. 

The only example I can remember from my studies would be the peice "Beloved" by Morrison. I'll have to give this some thought or research to come up with more.


----------



## Black Dragon (Aug 4, 2011)

Hey Map,

Actually, I'm thinking of something different than switching POV.  It's hard to explain, but it comes down to the main character essentially dropping out of the story to be replaced by someone else, who becomes the new main player.

In _The Village_, for example, Joaquin Phoenix's character becomes injured midway through the film.  Up to this point he was the "hero" of the story, so to speak.  Once he is unable to continue, Brice Howard takes his place as the film's central character.


----------



## Telcontar (Aug 5, 2011)

*shudder*

The Village blew.

Anyway, I haven't written one of these yet, but I've always wanted to try it. My current idea is that the main character will actually be killed very suddenly about mid-way through the book. For the sake of experiment, his replacement won't be anyone obvious to the reader from the first half, but rather a sort of admirer who we've met only a couple times.

Plenty of problems with this (why would we want to trade a character who we liked for one we barely know?), but I think I could work them out.


----------



## Dante Sawyer (Aug 5, 2011)

Telcontar said:


> *shudder*
> 
> The Village blew.


Haha! That's an understatement. Worst movie I've ever seen.

Getting back to the main point, however, I don't think I've ever seen an author really do that in the way you mean, Black Dragon. The closest thing in literature I've seen is the 1st chapter of The Sword of Shannara where you're led to believe Flick is the main character, when it is actually his brother Shea. Other than that... I can only think of POV changes.

Another movie that does this though (and is actually a good film), No Country for Old Men.


----------



## Black Dragon (Aug 5, 2011)

Yeah, _The Village_ was a bomb.  Unfortunately it's the best example of this that comes to mind.



			
				Dante Sawyer said:
			
		

> Another movie that does this though (and is actually a good film), No Country for Old Men.



_No Country for Old Men_ is terrific.  Although if my memory serves me right the central character isn't replaced until near the end.


----------



## Donny Bruso (Aug 5, 2011)

I actually am in the process of doing this in one of my many, many, incomplete projects. I posted a couple months back about the fact that I was killing one of my main characters and replacing him with another, formerly supporting character. Whether or not it will be successful depends on me actually finishing it and begging someone to publish it.


----------



## JCFarnham (Aug 6, 2011)

As long as the supporting character is equally if not easier to sympathise (in the sense of the relationship between character and reader) by the time you switch then I don't see any reason why a switch like this should be a problem. Sure people may get a bit pissed off/sad at there favourite character being killed off but maybe thats the kind of feeling you need to get across to your readership.

I say it could definitely work, as long as you put in some hard work in all the right places.


----------



## Dante Sawyer (Aug 6, 2011)

Black Dragon said:


> _No Country for Old Men_ is terrific.  Although if my memory serves me right the central character isn't replaced until near the end.


It's a long movie, but I could've sworn Tommy Lee Jones becomes the main character with a little over an hour in the film.


----------



## CicadaGrrl (Aug 8, 2011)

Bookwise--not fantasy but totally Secret Garden, and even as a kid it pissed me off.  Collin was so less interesting.  In general, when you are writing and you have a supporting character take over your book halfway through if you are on your first draft just roll with it, like everything else.  But when you go back, take a hard look at your story.  Your hijacker quite possibly was your main character all along, and you just didn't know it.  In general, for my books at least, I have two protagonists and occassionally the pov of a few other characters, but I always know who the book BELONGS to.  This one character owns the heart of the book.  When people do a bait and switch on me (more in books than movies) I tend to get pissed, and often feel the author has taken the easy way out.


----------



## Leuco (Aug 11, 2011)

Black Dragon said:


> Have you seen an author do this successfully?



How about Ray Bradbury? I think two very good examples of switching main characters in his short stories are "The Dragon" and "Kaleidoscope." Probably wouldn't work well for longer works.

I found this video online. It doesn't do the story justice, but it gives you an idea of how the main character shift can work for an intriguing twist. 

You can skip the first 30 seconds by the way. Sorry it's kinda slow, but you've probably already read this story anyway.


----------



## ScipioSmith (Oct 16, 2011)

I'd argue G R R Martin does this in Game of Thrones. Yes, there are lots of POV characters, but the action is so centred around Ned (its his actions that drive the story, he is the important guy politically, and he is related to all but two of other point of view characters) that you have to peg him as the hero. And then he dies. At the end of the novel yes, but the first novel in a long series, so it has the same effect. 

Now you could argue he doesn't get replaced, since there is no single main character after that (I'd argue the troika of Jon, Dany and Tyrion share main character status) but it comes to the same thing.


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne (Oct 16, 2011)

I actually can't remember a specific example, but I know I've read at least one or two books that are split into two parts, and the two parts have different POV characters. So, yes, it can be done.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 16, 2011)

ScipioSmith said:


> I'd argue G R R Martin does this in Game of Thrones. Yes, there are lots of POV characters, but the action is so centred around Ned (its his actions that drive the story, he is the important guy politically, and he is related to all but two of other point of view characters) that you have to peg him as the hero. And then he dies. At the end of the novel yes, but the first novel in a long series, so it has the same effect.
> 
> Now you could argue he doesn't get replaced, since there is no single main character after that (I'd argue the troika of Jon, Dany and Tyrion share main character status) but it comes to the same thing.



I was going to make mention of this, but I figured maybe I was kind of missing the point a little because it seemed kind of obvious.  I think the case of Ned is so jarring at the end of the first book that it he *has* be considered the main character up until that point.

With the other books (I'm not yet done with _Feast for Crows_), I've occasionally gotten annoyed because the action will center around a character I'm not as interested in (or is introduced completely).  Actually, I always hated the Catelyn chapters because she wasn't a very compelling character for me.  

But I've wondered about this whole topic myself on a more scattered level.  I have region of my "world" I want to set a story around but it has many characters instead of a central character.  The best I can come up with thus far is to actually break the story down into a handful of character-centric short stories and have a "sequel" to them later on?  I'm probably biting off way more than I can chew.  But I actually haven't "put pen to paper" yet because I haven't really nailed now an approach.


----------



## sashamerideth (Oct 16, 2011)

I am actually writing another story, science fiction, set on a multi generation space ship. So far I have three main characters, each from a different generation. I will have five, maybe six once the story is done. 


I may epublish this one in parts as each person occupies about 20 thousand words.


----------



## Queengilda (Oct 16, 2011)

I can see you are definitely looking for a challenge Black Dragon!  The reader would have to almost immediately find the new central character even more sympathetic than the original central character.  Unless you have a very loyal readership, I would think some readers might become very frustrated and put the book down.  In the movie No Country for Old Men, we had Tommy Lee Jones who is a fantastic actor and a great script to carry the movie through.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 16, 2011)

I was also going to mention Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series.  Every time I think I know who the hero is, they die.  Actually, that's kind of why I never bothered to finish _A Feast for Crows_.  I got a bit frustrated with it.


----------



## HÃ«radÃ¯n (Oct 17, 2011)

Mythique, I know what you mean, but I decided to power through it because I only have 150 pages left. When the red wedding occurred I was so mad at you know who for killing you know who. I even considered not reading the rest of the series because of that alone, but then I also loved dany, arya, sensa and tyrion and wanted to know what happens with them... with the way things are shaping up, I may have made the wrong choice.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 17, 2011)

> but then I also loved dany, arya, sensa and tyrion and wanted to know what happens with them... with the way things are shaping up, I may have made the wrong choice.



I loved those characters, too, and part of the reason I put it down was to avoid seeing bad things happen to them.  Was it the wrong choice when you wanted to quit or when you decided to keep reading? I've been thinking of picking those books back up lately, but might I regret it?


----------



## Elder the Dwarf (Oct 17, 2011)

mythique890 said:


> I loved those characters, too, and part of the reason I put it down was to avoid seeing bad things happen to them.  Was it the wrong choice when you wanted to quit or when you decided to keep reading? I've been thinking of picking those books back up lately, but might I regret it?


  Yeah you might not want to pick it up, especially if you haven't gotten to the wedding.  Can't remember the exact sequence of events and I hope I deleted my last post before you saw the spoiler, but after certain events I had to stop reading the series for a long time because of how pissed I was.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 18, 2011)

Yes, I got through the red wedding.  Pretty well past it, actually.  I got to where the girl knight (what was her name?) had been through a ton of crap and then was apparently about to be raped and gave up.  Don't know if she was or not, I just couldn't take it any more.  At one point I was reading only the Daenerys chapters because they were much more interesting and generally less dark.


----------



## ScipioSmith (Oct 18, 2011)

I read through all those books pretty thoroughly and don't remember Brienne ever giving up to rape. If it's the bit I'm thinking of she bites the guys ear off. I'd recommend picking them up again. It doesn't get lighter per se (and someone else I thought was the hero dies in an example of the topic, though with a resurrection back door built it) but there are enough good qualities to make it worthwhile; the dawn is not coming yet, but the sky is lightening a little.


----------



## DameiThiessen (Oct 18, 2011)

I can't think of one that kicked the MC to the curb entirely, but an example might be "Mistress of Rome", I guess. It's all written in first person. Although there is a clear main character (a Hebrew slave girl), sometimes an entire chapter will be written from the point of view of another, such as the gladiator or her owner. It was done well because there were clear breaks in between switches and the reader always knew which character was talking because of their clearly defined character. It can be done.


----------



## Seth son of Tom (Oct 20, 2011)

i think i'm reading such a book right now: the hammer by k.j. parker


----------



## Gryffin (Oct 20, 2011)

It's something that I am considering right now. I don't want to do it for my first novel though. I'm going to wait and make sure that I can do it correctly. I have seen it done really well and I've seen it done badly. The worst mistake I think you can make is choosing the wrong character to narrate.


----------

