First Person + Third, or Third Person with multiple perspectives?

You will find as many opinions on this matter as there are options, and even more threads here devoted to it. It's also impossible to give a sensible opinion on it outside the context of the actual writing. I'd say trust your feelings, Luke.

caw

I was going to say, Listen to blacbird (caw!), but I'm too busy laughing. Do what you will until I calm down.

Maryn and her sense of humor

Salis said:

Fair enough. I'm off to bang my sister!

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I already have. She's a bit of all right.

Just keep the two voices distinct. I read a book that had multiple perspectives, but all of the voices sounded the same.

Salis said:

There. Now we've done first person with two perspectives. I am taking this as a sign that it is the way forward.

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I'm riding shotgun.

This thread is dirty! I love you guys.

Just throwing in my thoughts on the question: I'm a big fan of third person for whatever reason, but it's entirely possible to write a great book with multiple first-person POVs. Rock and roll.

If you do it well anything is possible. I've read excellent books in all combinations of POVs: multiple 1st, multiple 3rd, 1st + 3rd, etc. etc. Make sure when you're doing 1st (or close 3rd) you have distinct voices that match your character. One of the things about some authors is that their characters all sound the same... drives me nuts.

Recommended Books for multiple POV

The Poisonwood Bible...Barbara Kingsolver
My name is Red....Orhan Pamuk

"Onion Girl" by Charles de Lint worked extremely well with multiple POVs in first and third person.

The two different points of view are going to have very different feel to them, so make sure there's a good narrative reason to make them distinct. If they are evenly balanced, and each one is intended to push the narrative forward in a similar way, it might be better to have them be similar. There are plenty of instances of multiple first person POV's (off the top of my head I can think of Kij Johnson's The Fox Woman) where all they need to do is put the name of the narrator at the head of each switched chapter, and there's no problem. On the other hand, I sold a story to Analog in which the primary drive of the narrative was carried by one voice (in this case a third person close POV, past tense) while another voice (first person, present tense) provided passages of reflection in between. That's just to give you a sense of some reasons why I chose to change the style of the POV. I hope it gives you some good things to think about.