McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Point of view shifts

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meg_evonne:
It sounds like you need 3rd across the board and just zoom into whoever's shoulder you want to see the world from.

arianne:
If you want to mix it up, it would be a good idea to make the changes constant, I think. So like every third chapter would be in third person, and the readers soon come to expect that and may even be looking forward to seeing how "Ron" reacts to such and such that "Harry" said or did.

It all depends on how seamless you make the story go together, though...

The Deposed King:
I'd say stay mostly with your main character and only foray into other characters as you need.

That said, I'm probably not the most skilled at such POV shifting.  So take my advice with a grain of salt.  On the other side I used two secondary characters in my first book to give different perspectives.  Mostly the one and sometimes the other.  But honestly, I'd write like two or three chapters (say 5k a chapter) with my main guy and then only a a 2k chapter with the sideliner.  Not to say things didn't very but as a general rule of thumb.

I will say as a reader I don't like POV shifting.  That said if you can do it right you will turn on a lot of readers.  Probably just not me  :o


The Deposed King

cenwolfgirl:
I point of vew shift in my story (well stories there is now two)
I have to to show serten events and give information to the read that serten caricters (like my main charictor) can not have yet or she is not near where the event is happening but most of the time i stick to her point of vew

i will say it must fit with the story otherwise you can get very confused as to what is going on witch is proberly why some people don't like it

Haru:
I've seen something similar done in "Lycidas" by a german author called Christoph Marzi. I am not sure if it is translated yet, or if they are planning to, but if you have the chance, read it, it is great.

Anyhow, one interesting thing is, that the pov character is the mentor of the main character, so you are looking at the main character from a third person view, but the story is told from the first person view of the mentor. Sort of the opposite of what you are doing, but it kind of does the same. you are focused on the main character, but since you see her from the mentors pov, you get the comments and interpretation of her actions as the mentor sees it.

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