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PoV

Malik

Auror
The choice of POV has nothing to do with whom you think the main character should be. The POV determines what information you want the reader to have. If you want to do this in multiple scenes or chapters with each one from a different character's perspective, great. You can do it in any sort of first, or any sort of third; just pick one and stick with it. (N.K. Jemesin wrote a book in frame narrative alternating between third ominiscient and SECOND PERSON PRESENT TENSE. And it won like every award anyone could think of, if memory serves.)

I still write in old-school omniscient third, meaning there's an invisible narrator between the characters and the reader. The narrator is coloring the scenes and adding (or omitting) information all the time.

Because POV determines the reader's knowledge of the story, you need to know what your story is, what your theme is, and most of all, the point you want the book or story to make. When you have that, choosing POV is easy.

If you're pantsing, you either need to keep POV and character knowledge in your head at all times and choose your lens character, or be prepared to write every scene from every possible character's perspective until it clicks.
 

Incanus

Auror
Yes, good point about the distinction between main character and the POV.

Sherlock Holmes stories show this. Holmes is the subject and main character, but Watson is the first-person POV. That setup determines the info the reader receives, and it worked quite well.
 
Personal opinion, just write the damn thing and find out.

You can keep thinking about it for a decade and research all different aspects and applications and differences of POVs and what have you, and none of that will help you get the thing on paper. Just write it and see what works. Everything you can think of has been done, and done well and done poorly. Just write it and find out.

You can have multiple first person POV's in a single book. It's hard, especially once you get above 2, but it can be done. You can have omniscient POVs, where you either have a narrator telling you what's going on, or you can have all thoughts of all characters at all times. You can tell the same scene twice from different POVs. It's all possible, it's all been done before, and it can all work.

However, you will only learn if it works for you if you write it.

Also, for a given scene, there is actually very little difference between first person and deep third person POV. You can basically swap out "I" for "he/she" and be done with it. You can show internal thoughts and ideas and feelings just as well in both. It's mainly personal preference.

You can also just write a single scene in omniscient POV and show the thoughts of each person as they are thinking it. It's just personal preference.

So just sit down, pick one type of POV, and try writing the scene or section. If it works, keep it and continue in that fashion. If it doesn't, try something else. But forget about researching it more, and just write it. Further research at this point is just procrastination and giving yourself a reason not to do the hard work of writing. Stop procrastinating, sit down behind a keyboard and just write it.
 

Incanus

Auror
I agree with Prince that you need to start writing things out as soon as you can. Getting comfortable with putting words down is essential.

However, I don't think it's a good idea to change from first-person to third limited (or vice-versa) by simply swapping out the pronouns. From my understanding there are more differences between the two that just that. I think handling it that way would be a missed opportunity.

I think of first-person as if the entire story is in invisible quotation marks, with the whole thing being attributed to the narration of the character.

Third limited uses a narrator that comes between the character whose POV it is, and the reader.

While there is overlap, those differences should yield different prose choices in many cases.

Either way, the topic is worth studying. It will become easier with hands-on practice.
 
Currently writing a story with multiple POVs. With three parallel plots happening at once, there was a very clear "A" story that had to go first. The characters in the "A" plot offer the reader a deeper look into the mysteries of the world. Additionally, characters in the "A" plot take actions that directly influence the choices and actions of character sin the "B" and "C" plots. So for me, it was pretty clear that their chapters should go first.
 

Malik

Auror
Getting comfortable with putting words down is essential.
This. I've been writing stories since I learned to read. There's no way to get good at it except to do it, and there's no way to find your voice but to do it for decades.
 

Malik

Auror
Getting comfortable with putting words down is essential.

Also, and this is gonna hurt, but I'm here for the hard truths: You're going to be terrible at this for a long, long time. Writing a book is not enough writing to write a good book. I had written a dozen failed novels and had well over a million words under my belt before my "debut" novel. I look back on those old manuscripts now, and I cringe. There is no fast way to get good at this unless you start when you're in grade school. (Even then, I did, and I wasn't successful until my 40's.) Write. There is no other way to get good at this.
 
However, I don't think it's a good idea to change from first-person to third limited (or vice-versa) by simply swapping out the pronouns. From my understanding there are more differences between the two that just that. I think handling it that way would be a missed opportunity.
Yes and no.

If all you're doing is swapping out he for I, then you're probably selling your story short.

However, there are a lot of different types of both third and first person types of viewpoint. One fairly common in YA is first person cinematic present tense, which sort of reads like a first person shooter game. That is, you are simply seeing and experiencing the world through the eyes of the character as they are experiencing it. That's very different from a first person narrator who is recounting a tale that happened in the past.

And it's very much a fluid situation. There are some 3rd person POV's that are very close to a first person POV and vice versa. How well they work often depend on the skill of the writer.

All in all, it's one of those situations where it's very easy to overthink it. If instead you simply try something and see what works, you can always improve on it later. It's very much a case of don't compare your first draft to someone elses final draft. If you read a very intimate first person POV tale, it may very well be that in the first draft, much of that personal voice was missing. And the writer only managed to add that in in a third or fourth draft. And their first draft may very well have been closer to a third person with he swapped for I than their final draft.

During editing I've changed view point characters (though I always write in third). Mainly because the character I changed to was a lot more interesting for that scene. And the changes required are not as big as you might think. So just start writing. You can always edit it later.
 

Fidel

Scribe
Has anyone done multiple Pov books? I always wondered how do you decide who goes first... I am thinking I need just to write my story 4 times and then just plucked chapters.
Yeah, plenty of authors do multiple POV books! Some alternate every chapter, some split it into sections, and some just go with whatever flows best. Writing the full story from each POV and then piecing it together could work, but it might be a lot, maybe try writing key moments from each perspective first and see how they fit?
 

Fidel

Scribe
The choice of POV has nothing to do with whom you think the main character should be. The POV determines what information you want the reader to have. If you want to do this in multiple scenes or chapters with each one from a different character's perspective, great. You can do it in any sort of first, or any sort of third; just pick one and stick with it. (N.K. Jemesin wrote a book in frame narrative alternating between third ominiscient and SECOND PERSON PRESENT TENSE. And it won like every award anyone could think of, if memory serves.)

I still write in old-school omniscient third, meaning there's an invisible narrator between the characters and the reader. The narrator is coloring the scenes and adding (or omitting) information all the time.

Because POV determines the reader's knowledge of the story, you need to know what your story is, what your theme is, and most of all, the point you want the book or story to make. When you have that, choosing POV is easy.

If you're pantsing, you either need to keep POV and character knowledge in your head at all times and choose your lens character, or be prepared to write every scene from every possible character's perspective until it clicks.
That’s a solid breakdown of POV. It’s less about the "main character" and more about what the reader should know and when. Jemisin pulling off second-person present tense is wild, but it proves there are no real limits if it serves the story. And yeah, pantsing with multiple POVs sounds like a challenge, you’d either need a sharp instinct for perspective or a lot of rewrites.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I'm writing part of The War of Seven Lies—certain chapters—hopping from tense to tense and 1st, 2nd, 3rd Limited, and 3rd Omniscient Narrator POVs in irregularly alternating paragraphs, but as you might imagine, there's a particular reasoning behind this.

What's (sort of) surprising is how well test readers adapt to the situation and start piecing it together. I fully expect some folks to be aggravated to no end by the oddity, but the rest of the novel will be in a standard 3rd Limited. Writing it is, quite simply, the funnest writing I've ever done.
 
What's (sort of) surprising is how well test readers adapt to the situation and start piecing it together. I fully expect some folks to be aggravated to no end by the oddity, but the rest of the novel will be in a standard 3rd Limited. Writing it is, quite simply, the funnest writing I've ever done.
I've read a few novels by R. Scott Bakker, where he switches from third person past tense to third person present tense for 1 particular viewpoint character (for mental health reasons). While I understood the reasons for it, it was jarring each time I encountered that POV. The first time I reread a whole page just to make sure I was reading it right. After that, it took only a sentence or so.

So the rapid switching can work for me I guess, as long as it's not too long a piece.

Then again, I also read a complete novel in first person present tense, and that was jarring each time I picked it up. It was a good enough book, but the combination was too unusual for me to feel natural. Again, only for a sentence or so until I settled into the novel, and then it was fine.
 

Karlin

Sage
Also, and this is gonna hurt, but I'm here for the hard truths: You're going to be terrible at this for a long, long time. Writing a book is not enough writing to write a good book. I had written a dozen failed novels and had well over a million words under my belt before my "debut" novel. I look back on those old manuscripts now, and I cringe. There is no fast way to get good at this unless you start when you're in grade school. (Even then, I did, and I wasn't successful until my 40's.) Write. There is no other way to get good at this.
Absolutely. Stop agonizing over this and that, and write. Write. So you'll get it wrong. So what? You'll learn, you'll fix.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I'm used to reading present tense—or I was—from screenwriting, so it doesn't phase me. I'll have to post a bit of a chapter sometime and see what people think. On the one hand, I want it to be "jarring" or I wouldn't do it, heh heh, but I don't want it to be SO jarring that people stop reading. Essentially, the chapters are from "one" POV, but that one POV moves through time. The one exception would be the Narrator Voice 3rd Om. At some points, the character, whom we can call Scribe, is experiencing an event for the first time, while in others, he's looking back at the event, and in others, he is observing himself from the future. The 2nd POV comes into play when Scribe is writing the narration, anticipating that he—or perhaps a different version of himself—will eventually read what he is writing, so he refers to the reader as you.

I've read a few novels by R. Scott Bakker, where he switches from third person past tense to third person present tense for 1 particular viewpoint character (for mental health reasons). While I understood the reasons for it, it was jarring each time I encountered that POV. The first time I reread a whole page just to make sure I was reading it right. After that, it took only a sentence or so.

So the rapid switching can work for me I guess, as long as it's not too long a piece.

Then again, I also read a complete novel in first person present tense, and that was jarring each time I picked it up. It was a good enough book, but the combination was too unusual for me to feel natural. Again, only for a sentence or so until I settled into the novel, and then it was fine.
 
I've read some first person, though not much. And most of the time it's fine. Maybe it was just this author's voice, but something about the combination of first person and present tense just didn't work for my brain.

If you want someone to read through the chapter to see how a reader with little prior knowledge experiences it, feel free to throw it my way. I'm not the best critic, but I can at least tell you if it makes sense to me and if I like it or not. And I have read Eve of Snows, which I liked, so I already know some of your writing.
 

Fidel

Scribe
I've read some first person, though not much. And most of the time it's fine. Maybe it was just this author's voice, but something about the combination of first person and present tense just didn't work for my brain.

If you want someone to read through the chapter to see how a reader with little prior knowledge experiences it, feel free to throw it my way. I'm not the best critic, but I can at least tell you if it makes sense to me and if I like it or not. And I have read Eve of Snows, which I liked, so I already know some of your writing.
First person + present tense can definitely be hit or miss, it’s a specific vibe that doesn’t always click with everyone. Appreciate the offer to read through your chapter though! Fresh eyes, especially from someone who’s already familiar with your style, can be super helpful. And hey, if it worked in *Eve of Snows*, you’re probably on the right track. Go for it!
 
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