Is This a New Trend?

Is it cinematic or epistolary.

 

Multiple first person POV? No thanks.

I've noticed in a couple books that are first person, when they switch to a new POV it becomes third person.

 

I still haven't found my way to one of those... Thankfully. If that is the new trend, I am very old-fashioned.

 

Seconded. I tried to beta read a novel that was written in multi 1st person, and it was just jarring and weird to read. I never did make it all the way through. The one way I could see that being salvageable is if the chapters are titled after the POV character to make things easier on the reader, but not everyone does that.

 

Dracula is a multi first person, but it is in epistolary format so that makes it easier to know who's head we are on.

 

I've come across only one multiple first person POV series, and that is Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles.

The first five novels in the series are exclusively from Atticus O'Sullivan's POV (first person past tense). Then, in the 6th novel, he shifts to a 2nd First Person POV (present tense). The reason within the context of the story makes sense. In the 7th and 8th he employs 3 first person POV characters (two present, the original past tense). It works okay, but I (and my family) are not enamored with one of the new POVs, and that grates on us. My guess is that if he started off the series that way, I would've been less likely to continue. The third added POV does seem to have more added value, and isn't as detracting from the story.

With the novels, he puts the emblem (picture) of one of their animals the druids can bind to (transform into), so the reader right off knows the POV. With the audiobook, it's easy because the narrator has different voices and cadence and such for the different characters.

 

I avoid 1st POV in general, let alone multi-1st. With the trendiness of 1st it's inevitable a bunch of young writers would throw out a wave of multi. Hopefully that never catches on, although it's easy enough to avoid, heh heh.

 

And this is why it's one of the most horrible books I've read in my entire life. I hated that novel.

But moving on...yes OP, I'm not sure if it's a trend but I've noticed a lot of books lately with present tense and 1st person. UGH. I can't do either. They'll immediately make me put a story down. And multiple 1st person POV? Nope.

What's interesting is that we're told to not use adverbs, was, it was, cliche phrases, omnisc, etc but 1st person multiple pov is okay? -_- Although I've come across many readers that prefer first person because it allows the to get inside the characters heads. So maybe this is why there's a rise in novels written this way.

 

I will have to disagree with you about Dracula. It's one of my favorites. But I do agree that multi first is difficult on the reader. Further, to your point about first being easier to get in a person's head, I think that's because most writers, my self included, underestimate the power of 3d person close.

 

Yes. Absolutely. I know one young writer (very young, we're talking still in her late teens here) who will only write in first person because it allows her to think properly. I've read some of her work and while it's creative, I can't get past the tense. There's just this...aroma of conceit that comes with first person if done wrong. But that's one measly person's opinion.

Btw...Dracula the movie was fantastic. But I was also in high school when I read Dracula so maybe that's where the lack of appreciation came from.

 

I think that aroma of conceit, and this is just me BTW, comes from the fact that for young authors it is easier to self-insert with first person. That isn't to say that it's not a problem with early 3d person works, but it's just much, much easier to do when it comes to 1st person. Kind of like when method actors get a bit too...method.

 

I have yet to read a book that is multiple 1st person POV. Hopefully this means that it is not a trend. I have recently read a great book that was 1st/multiple third, but the mere thought of multiple first makes me a little ill.

If does does become a trend, lets hope it is a short one.

 

I dislike first person in general, I find it very hard to empathise with the MC or feel any reverence for them. Any hint of arrogance or even confidence and I quickly dislike the character. I am too critical of their thoughts and just cannot put myself in their position. I also feel it reads like a diary which means for me it isn't 'happening now' it feels more like it's being told in hindsight which loses tension.

The closest thing to multi first person I've read was by Bernard Cornwell, the prologue was in first person POV by a guy who talked about his father. Then in Chapter one you become the father and it is his first person POV for the rest of the book. I remember thinking it worked very well because it avoided my usual objection to first person in that I formed an opinion of the MC before I was actually put in his head.

I didn't even make it all the way through Dracula, started a year ago, but for me the whole diary format just totally lacked tension. It was intriguing but just didn't have that live action feel were you feel tense and as if something dangerous could happen any moment. I was about halfway through when I took a couple of days break from it. I have a rule when I read books, if I am past halfway and I don't actively want to keep reading it (i.e. I feel like I'm forcing myself to read) then it has failed and gets left unread.

 

Robin Hobb's latest Farseer trilogy has two first-person narrators, although she only switches views between chapters. Sometimes multiple chapters for one before the other. It works fine, no confusion whatsoever about whose head we are in at the beginning of each new section for a character. Reference points, signals of the change in character are well handled and organic. The trilogy has other problems, mostly in pacing and in Fitz's unending whining, but the dual first-person POV approach is not one of them.

 

I would add that Robin Hobb's effort is helped in multiple ways.

The two characters are wildly different in age — one old, one very young — and in personality, and most of the time (particularly as the trilogy progresses), they are geographically separated and are undergoing different trials, conflicts. These things allow all sorts of signposting, from references to the geography, to the different sets of other characters around them and to different situations, as well as obvious changes in tone/outlook due to personality differences. I can just imagine a less experienced writer trying to switch between two or more 1st person narrators of similar age, position, personality and intermixed in the same milieu/locality and similar ongoing events—and failing.