Multiple first person, has it been done?

[Ankari]

I have a quick question: has anyone read a book with multiple first person point of views? I have only read one author that uses first person point of view (Jacqueline Carey) and I found it very intimate. I would like to read a book with multiple first POV and see if its something I would like to entertain. Any suggestions?

 

[Telcontar]

The only one I can remember offhand was an old YA series I read when I was a kid, "The Animorphs." I remember it quite fondly.

And just as a note, whenever the question is "XYZ, has it been done?" the answer is always yes.

 

[Ireth]

I haven an unfinished fanfic that was written in multiple first-person; I switched POV every chapter, but kept it limited to a few people, and cycled between them. Unfortunately the story kinda died on me a long time ago. ^^;

 

[Steerpike]

Nick Sagan's book Edenborn is told is multiple first-person POVs (and one second person POV as well). It is the sequel to Idlewild, but I can't remember if that one follows the same format.

 

[Devor]

Treasure Island is told 1st Person, and about 2/3rds of the way through, one of the other characters "picks up his log" for a few chapters, letting you wonder a little if the first character might be dead.

The thing with 1st Person is that it brings readers to care a great deal more about the main character, but somewhat at the expense of your connection to the other characters involved. For me, I would expect a lot of 1st person jumping around might be a little weird because I would feel like, I only care about this character, oh now I'm supposed to care only about this one. Then again, sometimes 1st Person can be laid pretty thick, like with Huck Finn, but if it's a light touch or you only change POVs a few times, I don't think it would be such a problem.

 

[Shockley]

William Faulkner does this in The Sound and the Fury. It has three separate first person narrators (one of whom is mentally retarded, and Faulkner adopts the appropriate level of comprehension) and a small third person section.

It's one of the greatest English language novels, so that says something.

 

[soulless]

The Torchwood Miracle Day prequel novel First Born used multiple first person narrative. I loved it, far better than the other two in the set which were both third person.

 

[Penpilot]

The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, two alternating first person POVs.

 

[unwittytitle]

Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting and its sequel, Porno, both use multiple 1st person POVs (with like 5 or 6 main characters at that). Welsh tries to use different styles of language when narrating the different characters (essentially giving each one a unique way of thinking and talking). While this works alright for some of the more vulgar characters, it can be confusing trying to figure out who’s head you’re in during any given chapter and it might take several paragraphs or pages before another character identifies them in conversation.

Bret Eaton Ellis also uses multiple 1st person POVs in his novel The Rules of Attraction, but at least he provides the POV character’s name before each section, making it a lot easier follow (albeit probably less technically nuanced).

 

[The Dark One]

My recently published novel uses multiple first person, plus third person plus the archived reports of undercover agents, plus pages torn from an arcane book sprinkled through the text.

My concern was that there are some scenes which are told from two 1st person POV. My solution was to use different fonts and it works really well. The publisher had no problem with it.

 

[Ankari]

Tanks for the examples. I will read a couple of them. @The Dark One, what is the name of your book? I would rather support a Mythic Scribe member than anyone else.

Thanks!

 

[OGone]

Doesn't Twilight use multiple first person perspectives?

Do you mean multiple first person perspectives or two or more characters speaking at one time? I have never read anything written as a first person plural narrative but would certainly be interested in the concept...

 

[Ankari]

Doesn't Twilight use multiple first person perspectives?

Do you mean multiple first person perspectives or two or more characters speaking at one time? I have never read anything written as a first person plural narrative but would certainly be interested in the concept...

I was thinking of having multiple characters in a book in first POV but with each chapter from the POV of one character at a time. I won't come close two the Twilight series to see how the author pulled it off

 

[The Dark One]

Tanks for the examples. I will read a couple of them. @The Dark One, what is the name of your book? I would rather support a Mythic Scribe member than anyone else.

Thanks!

Thanks for your interest Ankari

The book is called THEM...I was kinda loath to mention it by name as I wasn't sure of the forum rules. If you do a search on amazon, my initials are AD and there is a desert scene on the cover.

 

[Drindome]

I have only encountered it twice and was irritated by it both times. However neither authors were particularly skilled so thats not saying it couldn't be done well.

 

[John R. Neuman]

Dracula is probably the best example of first person plural writing in the classical canon. Not only is it written from multiple first person perspectives, but it also is formatted in a number of ways depending on the speaker, be it letters back and forth between two narrators or journal entries, both personal and professional. Portions even take the part of newspaper clippings.

 

[kennyc]

This is the one I was going to mention.

I've got on in pre-draft phase that I have planned on doing in multiple first person pov. That's why I happened to think of and check out Sound and the Fury again.

Thanks for the thread and the other titles people have mentioned!