McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Chapter Perspectives and How to Start Them

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Dresdenus Prime:
Strangely enough I was working on my story, setting on a first person perspective when a character currently unnamed came to me in my mind and said;

"It's bad enough I don't have a name yet, but you seriously forgot that there's a scene later in the book that I'm in and your main character isn't?! So how the hell are you going to work that Mr. Aspiring Author if your book is in first person?"

So after we fought with phaser sabers (yes I merged Star Wars/ Trek weapons, which I can do in my brain) I decided that I was confident that this book could be written in third person after all.

Anywho, to the point - When I start my chapters I had an idea of how to start them, and that was each chapters first sentence would start with the name of the character the chapter was following. So for example:

Chapter 1
John walked to the park.

Chapter 2
Sarah heard the phone ringing.

Chapter 3
Percy transformed into a herb eating velociraptor before his evening bath.

And so forth. If the following chapter stayed with the same person, then there would be no name. My question to you folks is - Would that bog things down to much? Or turn people and/or baby hippo's off of the book? Would it just be better for me to place the name under the chapter number ala Geroge RR Martin? If that is considered a no-no in the literary creation world I would prefer to stay away from it, but in my mind it seemed cool.

I appreciate all and any advice as I always do 8)

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
I've always disliked making a big point of showing the name of the character whose viewpoint a chapter is in, as a title or a starting para; it's kind of admitting in advance "I'm not good enough with voice to make these characters adequately distinct."

Galvatron:
I have to agree with Neuro

If the characters have a distinct voice it will be clear who it is, there is no need to start off by saying it.

Dresdenus Prime:
Thanks guys! It actually does sound kind of lame when you put it that way. Much obliged!

Quantus:
Eh, I generally have lower standards and such things have never really bothered me.  It also may depend on your audience; I see such methods used more often in books that are aimed at younger readers, where such extra hints help them regain their bearings faster, especially if you are changing perspectives often, or switching to different views of the same events. 

But as Neuro and Galvatron said, it is no substitute for distinct character voices.  So Id say write the thing without them, but dont be afraid to add the extra hints in later if you think they'd be helpful

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