question on POV

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Garriga

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I am participating in a collaborative story, and I am writing the ending. The first writer started the story in first person. Most of the others have kept it in first person. A few switched to third person omniscient, which I would never do. However, the scenes they wrote did not have the narrator in them, so I guess it is okay. Also, the project is for fun, and only positive feedback is allowed.

The writer before me left our narrator too far away from where the action is about to occur. He has a visual but there is no way he can hear the dialogue. I could have him run to the where the action is taking place, but everything can’t stop and wait for the narrator.

Is it possible to write a scene in third person omniscient, and beginning the next scene at the moment the other the other started, and use first person. So the scenes are happing at the same time.

Does this make any sense?
 

totopink

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I would go with no.
I think it's possible to write in first person past tense and describe action that the first person doesn't directly see.

"I took my school books out of my locker. Down the corridor, Jane was arguing with Mick about the car again. They stopped talking abruptly as I approached them."

However if this was "Kit took his school books out of his locker. Out of his earshot, Jane was arguing with Mick about the car again. As I approached them, Jane and Mick stopped talking."

It just doesn't work. You can't switch tenses and guarantee the reader will still know what you are on about.
 

Garriga

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I agree, I am just going to have to figure out how to get the narrator near the other characters.

I love writing narration in first person, but description is tricky.
 

backslashbaby

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You could have the narrator show up after hitching a ride on a wagon, etc. Skip the boring parts, in other words. If nothing happens while he literally travels to the key scene, just 'tell' that part briefly, and jump into the good stuff.
 

Bufty

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It would be easier for all concerned if a POV was agreed at the outset.
 

Brett Marie

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Garriga, I would agree with the others that it's best to have a consistent POV. However, if you want to see a great example of one story told from multiple viewpoints, in which all of the viewpoints diverge wildly in voice and style, but in which each one adds an essential piece to the whole, check out Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

It's Southern Gothic literary fiction, which isn't everybody's taste, and I will admit that as a whole it's far from my favorite book. But it is a fantastic piece for a writer to study to see how you can split viewpoints, jump forward and backward in time, and still create a full, comprehensible story.
 
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