Elder the Dwarf
Maester
So before I introduce this idea at all, I am going to go ahead and say that I haven't thought this through very well and already several flaws have presented themselves. This is stream of consciousness posting, if you will. I don't know if this is original, has already been done, or even if it is feasible, and I am certainly not trying it in the near future. Maybe it will spark some ideas in our skilled group of writers, though. Ok, here we go:
What if you wrote a novel where each new chapter was written from a different person's POV, with the catch that at the end of every chapter, the POV character dies? Immediately flaws pop out: how will the characterization of the POV character be deep enough? What is the point of following the rest of the chapter if we know he/she will die? Aren't you going to run out of names for all of those characters? (Ok, the last one may have been a joke.) Still, think about it. The POV characters can be surrounding characters, and you can still focus on the characterization of the non-POV characters. Then, can you imagine the reader's feeling when a main character gets a POV chapter and they have figured out the method? Maybe every chapter isn't plausible, but I feel like this was worth mentioning.
Perhaps, if this wouldn't work, you could divide the novel into 3-4 parts, each with its own POV. Each POV character dies at the end of his/her section. I'm probably going to get yelled at... but I hope this is at least mildly thought provoking.
What if you wrote a novel where each new chapter was written from a different person's POV, with the catch that at the end of every chapter, the POV character dies? Immediately flaws pop out: how will the characterization of the POV character be deep enough? What is the point of following the rest of the chapter if we know he/she will die? Aren't you going to run out of names for all of those characters? (Ok, the last one may have been a joke.) Still, think about it. The POV characters can be surrounding characters, and you can still focus on the characterization of the non-POV characters. Then, can you imagine the reader's feeling when a main character gets a POV chapter and they have figured out the method? Maybe every chapter isn't plausible, but I feel like this was worth mentioning.
Perhaps, if this wouldn't work, you could divide the novel into 3-4 parts, each with its own POV. Each POV character dies at the end of his/her section. I'm probably going to get yelled at... but I hope this is at least mildly thought provoking.