Changing the view-point character?

[Amanita]

You probably noticed that I've been very quiet recently. That's partly because I'm rather busy with real life but partly also because I'm very frustrated with my story at the moment.

And that's mainly because I'm not sure anymore, if the main character I've been playing around with for the last three years really is the right one to tell an interesting and engaging story.
The main problem is, that she's from another country and the process of getting her where she's supposed to be for the story takes a lot of time even though it doesn't have that much to do with the actual plot. Than she gets there and is absolutely clueless and I end up in info-dump scene after info-dump and yet there's no real reason for her to feel the issues the others feel because she hasn't been brought up with them.

Another problem is, that I'm not really happy with the setup of her backstory anymore either. I feel guilty about having based it a bit around a real world event and maybe not treating it and the people involved there with the respect due to them and I fear that it doesn't make much sense with the things she's supposed to do later either. It also requires much setup and many people important and the beginning who don't turn up anymore later.
And yet, changing these too things isn't possible because than she wouldn't be her anymore and I'd have a completely new character, which is of course difficult to achieve after having become so familiar with her.

Do you think that letting go of a character for the sake of the story is the more reasonable thing to do in this case?

 

[Chilari]

It seems to me that if it's not working the way you have it, something needs to change. Whether that's the story itself or the perspective you're telling it from, you need to change something.

I've recently changed the perspective character in what I'm working, and, having so far written about two pages of the new version, it's not easy. I'm feeling my way with how much to reveal to the reader that isn't revealed to my new main character, how to establish information that is central to the story, and so on. Late last night things just clicked though, and i worked through a plot synopsis just looking at the key themes and the path the events take in terms of the key conflicts - barely any of the events themselves, just sort of the way my protagonist feels about the situation she's in, the other characters, and so on. I will now need to flesh out each stage with the details of the events that bring about these changes in attitude, but now I've got that down it helps.

Admittedly my situation is quite different from your's. I simply switched from one of my main characters to the other as the viewpoint character, making my former protagonist into the villain (at the start anyway). The two main characters remain the core of the story, I'm just telling it from the other character's perspective now. I didn't actually have to completely cut anyone. But if the story you're trying to tell is held back by a character who is not positioned to convey the story to your readers, then perhaps you should find the character who is in the right position to tell it.

 

[TWErvin2]

If you're trying to fit a rectangular character into a square story, and it'll never be a good fit, you'll need to alter the character, the story--or even both.

A story filled with backstory just to get the reader up to speed--and even that isn't working, indicates change is needed.

Only you know the right path to take. You know the story you want to tell. Choose the most effective way to relay it to the reader. Sometimes you have to cut loose characters or scenes or even dialogue that you worked so hard to create. Not fun, but part of the process.

Good luck moving forward.

 

[Amanita]

This character and her people have really grown dear to my heart, but there are just too many issues at the moment. The naked plot is a relatively common one, even though the stuff around it isn't. Group of people hate the way things are run in the world and want to put pressure on the people in charge/get power. There are artefacts that could give them a great amount of power and they try to get them, heros try to get them first.
To find out about them, the main character needs a healthy amount of interest in the history of the country where she's being taught, otherwise she wouldn't find out and wouldn't get involved either. My current main character doesn't really have plausible reasons to be so interested in this, besides all the other problems mentioned above.

 

[Chilari]

I understand what you mean about having a character you're fond of. I have one or two of those myself. Characters I want to write, who I enjoy writing, who are easy to get into the mindset of, but sometimes they're not the right characters for the story you want to tell, so you have to decide whether to tell the story you want to tell or stick with the characters you like. I think that's part of why it took me so long to switch main characters in what I'm writing now, and I've not even cut the former protagonist lose, I've just made him the initial villain, and that doesn't last forever because the story is about perspective.

As for a character who doesn't have enough justification to have that level of interest in the world she's meant to be viewing the story from, I guess the only advice I can give is to find a character with the right level of existing involvement in the way the plot develops in the early stages, and a suitable level of knowledge about aspects of the world you need to introduce your readers to. With fantastical concepts I know it's normal practice among fantasy writers to chose as their main character someone to whom it's all new - and it seems to me that's partly what you've done with the main character you've already got - so that as other characters explain it to the main character, they also explain it to the reader. But there are other ways of doing this. For a start, why not have the main character explain some aspects of life to another character - a younger sibling or a cousin visiting from far away, for example? Or, if the concept is entirely normal for the majority of the people living in your world, but somewhat unusual for your readers, then why not simply treat it as normal, just describe it in a little more detail than your characters would consider it, but in little snippets, one at a time, sometimes in description, sometimes in dialogue, and sometimes through actions which are directly related to this concept.

 

[CicadaGrrl]

Hm. Not sure I have all the info I need here, so excuse me if I'm talking out of my ass. I start with character. If the story isn't working, I change the story, not the character. I have had a character high jack a book before, but those have been in the development stages. I am a devout believer in character backstory and development, but that doesn't mean you have to use it in the story. You have to know it to inform your reader. The reader only needs to know what they need to know. So don't start the story where she starts. Start the story where the story starts. Maybe start when she has just reached or is already been in the unfamiliar environs for a while. Another nice switch is to choose a character that DOES know what's going on, and make them secondary main character. While the book would belong to your current main character, this secondary would have scenes written in their POV. It may mean this character takes over the absolute main character role, but that could be good.

 

[Amanita]

Thank you for your answers. I've decided to try it and spread it among two narrators. My current narrator will stay in her home city and learn to deal with her magic secretely with the support of a few people while the second narrator is living and learning in the other important country and has good reasons to try to find out about the things she needs to find out about for the plot.
Later, they're going to meet and go on together.