• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Showing both sides of a story?

Amanita

Maester
I'm glad that my question has sparked such an interesting discussion.
Obviously, different people have different opinions on that, so I might give mine on the more general issues.

I think the number of view-point characters depends on the story you want to tell.
If the story focuses on a single characters training/personal growth/ quest for revenge, I don't believe other view-points add much to the story. This was the problem in Trudy Canavan's Black Magician trilogy. The plot revolved around the main character Sonea but there were different narrators who didn't add much to the plot but took away the suspense in various parts of the story.
The same goes for stories were the main character is the one with the most influence on the story, the chosen one who has to destroy the Dark Lord or anything of the sort. That's how it's done in Harry Potter but in my opinion this only works as long as the most important things happen around the protagonist. If there are various events of similar importance in different parts of the country/world it might be better to have another view-point character with firsthand experience. That's what I've been missing in the last Harry Potter-books. The events at Hogwarts seemed much more interesting than most of Harry's actions during this book, but we only heard about it on a few pages.
My story set in the "modern times” of my Fantasy world is one with a strong focus on one character and will be told from her point of view only.

Stories where events that are equally important for the story happen in different parts of the world, require more than one view-point character. The only alternative are very contrived schemes such as telepathic connections to someone experiencing the things happening in other parts of the world. I don't think that these are better than multiple view-points, at least not if used too much.
If LotR had only been told from Frodo's point of view and the whole war for Gondor had happend off-screen it wouldn't have worked so well.

The story I was asking this question for also needs more than one view-point character in my opinion. After reading your responses I'm probably going to leave the enemy view-point character out and try to write her actions in a different way. I want the potential readers to be on one side after all and this probably wouldn't work if they had to switch between these two characters.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Ophiucha

Auror
In regards to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I think there is something interesting about having a story that is left untold. That is why I love minor characters who don't get some exposition. The prostitute with a scar across her arm who never tells of the pimp who beat her or her suicide attempt. She's got the scar, and we're left the wonder. The mentor who is missing an eye, who we know fought in many battles against many foes, but we never know who managed to make the mark. Not every story needs to be told, or even should be told. We don't get to learn every mystery of our lives, yet in fiction - fantasy in particular - every twobit character gets to tell a tale of woe, every tree has a history worth sharing, and no statue can be passed without reading the epitaph.

Also, it would seem odd to have half the book from Neville's perspective or something after six books near exclusively in Harry's.
 
Top