Writing an F. P with the occassional third person chapter in. Is this a good idea?

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

I've been playing around with this idea for a while. I'm writing an First Person narrated story. I really like the Character, he's great. I like the story, and the World. So far, so good

But, the plot is a pretty big one, (though still in the process of being ironed out YAY for non-planners! and YAY for Planners, odd people that they are!

And I want to show elements of the plot, and world progressing along with my character ,even ones that aren't related yet, because I don't want to just spring them in in later books, seeing as they're pretty big. SO I thought I could maybe do a Sanderson, and like his Stormlight archives, have little segments for other characters, in third person, just to expand on the whole plot and story.

Any opinions Scribers?

And, just to make this very clear. I am NOT trying to compare myself to Sanderson here, he's way too good for me. Yet. *evil laughter*

 

[Steerpike]

Not a problem. Sanderson isn't the only author I've seen do that. If you want to mix a first person narrative with third-person narratives from other points of view, that is perfectly fine.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

Cheers dude. I've never really come across it like Sanderson does it; sure Mr Rothfuss sort of does it, but still focusing on Kvothe. And I really like the idea, I just wasn't sure if the style was sort of frowned upon or just not really done. Thanks again.

 

[Steerpike]

Cheers dude. I've never really come across it like Sanderson does it; sure Mr Rothfuss sort of does it, but still focusing on Kvothe. And I really like the idea, I just wasn't sure if the style was sort of frowned upon or just not really done. Thanks again.

One example that comes to mind is the House of Night series, by P.C. and Kristin Cast. The main character tells her story from a first-person POV, but the authors routinely switch to other viewpoint characters for entire chapters, where the main character isn't even present, and tell those chapters in third person from the other character's viewpoint.

 

[BWFoster78]

I find myself forced to give the standard response to this:

You can do anything you like as long as it works.

Authors have obviously made it work, so obviously it can work.

Therefore, the discussion is: how do you make it work?

I think that the big issue is that the transitions don't seem jarring. The way Rothfuss made it seamless was to have one POV style for the narrative and one for the interludes. That worked, for me, really well. It made a lot of sense for him to do it that way.

What's your plan for making it work?

 

[Steerpike]

The way the Casts did it was simply to limit the change to chapter breaks. When a chapter featuring the MC ends, the next one may pick up in third person with another character. They didn't do anything special other than that, but the presence of a chapter break signals that there may be a POV switch.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

BWFoster, first, thanks for your post, tis appreciated. Now I'm probably missing your point here, but my way of making it work is too write engaging characters, and use them in a way that shows them fulfilling their own dreams and agendas, not just being a new and shinny info dispenser.