Four view points. Is it bad?

[Xitra_Blud]

My story is broken up into four parts. Each part of the story is told by a different character (e.g. the first part is told by character 1, the second part is told by character 2, the third part is told by character 3, and the fourth part is told by character 4). Each tell their own stories and the events that took place in their own lives as they all come together in the end. Is that bad?

 

[GeekDavid]

Not necessarily, but it is difficult to pull off successfully. Marion Harmon's latest book splits the first-person narration between three POV characters. Each section is headed with the name of the character who is narrating. He sometimes switches between narrators within a chapter.

 

[Feo Takahari]

If you're going to do a character and then set them aside until the ending, it's important that their individual storyline stands on its own to some degree. It will intersect with the others' storylines, of course, but it shouldn't end on a cliffhanger or even feel incomplete, since you won't be coming back to it for quite a while. (The video game Trauma Team provides a good model for this. Each character's storyline has a clear beginning, middle, and end, though in some cases it's a very bittersweet end. When all the storylines have ended, a new one appears that blends them all together and gives all the characters true endings, resolving some of the sorrow of the earlier endings.)

 

[Penpilot]

No, it's not bad at all, but it can be tricky. If a POV character is the only POV character for a long stretch beginning from the beginning of the book, the reader will get attached to that character and expect that character to be the sole POV for the entire novel. When you end the first character's story and switch to the second character, it can be jarring and if the reader doesn't like the second character as much as the first, you may lose them because they don't want to read about the second character. They want more from the first. There's no avoiding this, but just be aware.

You say that the stories come together at the end. I think one thing you can do to maintain reader interest between POV switches is to make sure that the story threads of all four at the very least weave together loosely. What I mean by that is as you tell a POV's story, make sure you touch on events from the other POVs stories, letting the reader know that those stories overlap and inhabit the same world. If for example POV1's story involves them robbing the king, then when you get to POV2's story maybe find away to mention that robbery in some way, even if it's just in passing. Maybe POV2 hears somebody talking about the daring robbery of the king as they have a drink in a tavern or the town crier announces the news as POV2 walks into town.

Doing stuff like this may encourage a reader to reread the book. If you drop hints at stuff happening to other POVs in POV1, before the reader encounters POV2, POV3, etc, the reader may decide to go back and find these easter eggs.

 

[GeekDavid]

You say that the stories come together at the end. I think one thing you can do to maintain reader interest between POV switches is to make sure that the story threads of all four at the very least weave together loosely. What I mean by that is as you tell a POV's story, make sure you touch on events from the other POVs stories, letting the reader know that those stories overlap and inhabit the same world. If for example POV1's story involves them robbing the king, then when you get to POV2's story maybe find away to mention that robbery in some way, even if it's just in passing. Maybe POV2 hears somebody talking about the daring robbery of the king as they have a drink in a tavern or the town crier announces the news as POV2 walks into town.

LE Modesitt did this in his Recluce series, but he did it with two separate books. One book takes the view of one of the characters, telling the story from his point of view; a later book shows the view of the opposing side, telling the story from his point of view. Quite interesting, I thought.

 

[Bruce McKnight]

I don't think it's bad, but it can get difficult. I'm working on a project just like this now and it's tricky, leading to even more procrastination than usual. I can't abandon it, though, because as tricky as it is, I find it very interesting.

Like Feo said, though, each story has to stand on its own.