Another POV Question

[Helleaven]

Hi there everyone!

After a few more chapters (precisely 5 chapters as I planned) my first book will be finished. However there are some problems which I couldn't solve by myself so I wanted to ask for your opinions.

- There is a city in which my main character is stuck. There are two lords. The city's former Lord has been living in sewers for ten years, planning a revolt against the person who stole his throne. The one who sits on throne is called "Merchant Lord" for he was once a just a merchant. My main character becomes a part of this rebellion because the lord in power (not the one who lives in sewers) has something my MC has to obtain.

-The riot's leader is the overthrown Lord which is the rightful and legitimate owner of the throne. From now on I'll call him the Viper Lord.

-MC has never been in a real fight or war before, and he isn't going to be on the frontlines of the upcoming war. He is son of the Viper Lord's friend so the lord would not risk MC's life by sending them to the frontlines.

-He and his friends will help the injured ones in a safer zone.

-But I have to tell how the war is going on and I can think of no way to do this since my MC's not fighting directly. So I've come up with this idea:

*For 3 chapters, I will tell what's going on from 3 different POVs. The rebellion forces are divided into 3 divisions: Infiltration Unit, Provocation Unit and Attack Unit. Every unit will be told from another characters viewpoints, but this will be the first and the last time those characters will be seen.

- The problem is, for circa 400 pages you have seen everything from my MC's eyes. What would you think about a difference like this for three chapters? Would it be good to read the war's different aspects from different person's views? Or would you prefer stick with MC's view even though he will not be a part of the main war scenes?

 

[wordwalker]

Call me a purist, but: I think if you haven't been splitting viewpoint before, you've lain down too firm a law that you won't do it now. 400 pages of single VP would stop dead if you suddenly changed over.

The closest thing to an exception I can think of would be shifting to newspaper or formal military reports, or whatever fits your world, something so specialized it makes a point of being a unique style for a unique moment. (Hmm, what would the bards write about the battle? Could there be things written from each side, to keep the reader in doubt of who's going to win?)

Otherwise, you have some tricky opportunities here, within the hero's viewpoint. He could get snippets of the progress from reports, or from a magical or flag/ smoke/ mirror-flashing communication system, and go crazy trying to follow the details-- with certain survivors coming back to tell the story of any especially involving skirmishes. This goes over better if what the MC *does* have to deal with turns out to be at least as exciting as the battle.

Or, decide that you've plotted up too much for the hero to miss out on, and find a way to drag him at least into view of the action.

But don't treat single viewpoint as a convenience to dump when you have to; once you commit to it it's much too useful. My favorite example (in my Viewpoint) is that Lois Lane is a terminally blinded character when it comes to Clark's secret, but that only makes it twice as fun to give her a scene watching him do something non-foolish and only think "How can he have moments like that and be such a wimp?"

 

[ThinkerX]

Either as in the post above, OR

...he hears rumors - lots of rumors because a mess of the sort you're describing involves lots of people ('I saw a huge mob fighting each other over at the statue!' 'Everybody in building 56 is dead!') and so on. Even if he thinks he's isolated and secure, refugees from this mess WILL find him. There WILL be hundreds of rumors flying around, some true, some false, some in between, and many irrelevant. If you need more detail, have one or more of these refugees be a low level officer who gives your MC a blow-by-blow.

 

[wordwalker]

Either as in the post above, OR

...he hears rumors - lots of rumors because a mess of the sort you're describing involves lots of people ('I saw a huge mob fighting each other over at the statue!' 'Everybody in building 56 is dead!') and so on. Even if he thinks he's isolated and secure, refugees from this mess WILL find him. There WILL be hundreds of rumors flying around, some true, some false, some in between, and many irrelevant. If you need more detail, have one or more of these refugees be a low level officer who gives your MC a blow-by-blow.

Right. I should have mentioned rumors and survivors more specifically, and also that anything that gets him to high ground lets him at least see the large scale of it from a distance. (If your world has any kind of telescopes, this can cover a lot of the basics to tease him just fine.)