McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Point of View Question

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LizW65:
I'm actually doing this in my own WIP.  My primary narrator, the female protagonist, speaks in first person, and her narratives have regular chapter headings:  Chapter One, Chapter Two, etc.  My male protagonist's storyline is told in third person, and his narratives are headed by a date and time, eg:  October 17, Early Evening.  I also have a distinct "voice" for each, to further differentiate the two.

Shecky:

--- Quote from: neurovore on January 01, 2009, 09:27:33 PM ---If you can do it, go for it.

Myself, I have always thought putting the character name at the head of the section is admitting defeat. (If necessary in a book where all the voices are as indistinguishably similar as Number of the Beast.  Distinct voices are not that hard, and particularly if you are using your different POVs in a repeating pattern I think there's no need for it.

--- End quote ---

"Indistinguishably similar"? Truly? To me, there is a VERY strong distinction between the voices. I think any confusion in Number comes from the fact that all four narrative characters are of like mind on a number of essential things.

KevinEvans:
The publishing industry seems to go through cycles in what they buy.

Right now the trend seems to be third person limited. If the authors are established and have a following, they can probably get away with what ever they want as long as they don't alienate their fan base.

As new authors (my wife and I) most our revisions seem to have POV as their root cause. In short we are still in the boat of having to write what the editor wants. Certainly if I expect to get paid I am going to write what sells, and if it was pre 1915 that would be third person omniscient....
(grin)

Regards,
Kevin

kero319:
Books i would suggest to you while your writing would be
Nick Sagan's series starting with Idlewild
and Ender's Game
Idlewild series has the switch in first person between 3 or 4 characters and indicates which is speaking by a symbol for each at the beginning of the chapter (very good read from a fairly low profile author) and Ender's Game kinda-sort of has a italics thing going at each start of the chapter. its more just because its my favorite book lol.

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