Multiple Perspectives in YA Novels

Jonathan.Bentz said:

Right, so I've been working on a YA novel called Psionics, and found myself hitting a block. I realized soon enough that I need to have the story be told from more than one perspective, but I don't see this book being told from the third-person.

My questions: Are there YA books that have a first-person perspective from two or three different characters? If so, how do you point that out in the manuscript? Do you simply write the name of the character, or do you change the font slightly to denote a new character as they introduce themselves?

Any help with this would be appreciated. I think I recall reading multiple perspectives in a YA book series before (first-person style), but I can't remember for sure.

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-two different book series that I can recall off the top of my head, where the voice is first person, but viewed through multiple characters...Sirenz and Ghost and the Goth- both of these series have multiple views and are written in 1st- hey- hope this helps

I know it's been done a few times. The biggest stumbling block I see is that for a lot of writers it is just difficult to really develop a different voice for each character. You also need to be certain you establish a format early on and that you stick to it fairly well--alternating chapter to chapter or dividing the book into sections and having each section be told from a different POV.

A very well-known example is Breaking Dawn, which has first person narratives from Jacob's POV as well as from Bella's.

eyeblink said:

A very well-known example is Breaking Dawn, which has first person narratives from Jacob's POV as well as from Bella's.

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I still shudder to think about that one. I'm not even going to address the whole Twilight issue because I could go on all day and I'd rather not. But it was the perfect example of a POV shift gone wrong. Maybe I could have bought it if the POV had occasionally shifted in the other books in the series, but it felt so out of left field and strange...

A similar question was discussed fairly recently here http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239764.

If you check that thread out, you'll see lots of examples of YA books written in dual first person (and people's opinions on how well the POV was handled in those books, too).

PIECES OF US is (so far ~ in the middle of reading it) an AMAZING novel with multi POVs.

I recommend Popular by Alissa Grosso -- there are four or five first person POV characters, and they're all pretty distinctive. Each chapters title was the characters name so it was pretty easy to follow.

I remember an old Animorphs book that did that.

The author just put "Chapter 6: Jake".

I'm also doing a similar thing in my Urban Fantasy WIP.

Forbidden by Tabatha Suzuma (which is effing amazing!) Each chapter was simply titled either Maya or Lochan, the two main character's names.

There are plenty of YA books, and adult books, with two or three first person POVs.

The easiest trick, knowing you don't want to write in third person omniscient, is just to separate the chapters such that whenever you change POV you change chapters. If the voice of each character is distinctive and the reader can tell from the first paragraph which character they're following, you're good to go. Don't rely on font changes (although it works in some books - The NeverEnding Story comes to mind - that's an exception to the rule).

I had this question, so this might be of some help:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239764

INCARCERON is two perspectives, but both are told in the third person.

LEGEND by Marie Lu is also from two perspectives, first person.

If you're going to be switching perspectives every chapter, instead of writing CHAPTER ONE, put in the character's first name. That's how I'm formatting my own manuscript, and that's how I saw it explained by various agents/other writers.

Jonathan.Bentz said:

Thanks for all the info. Since the book in question is about them discovering their abilities and learning to harness them, I'll probably put it into 'blocks'; but while in manuscript format, do I just write something like 'Part 1: Darius' and 'Part 2: Leroy'? Or do I put Darius and Leroy's names as the chapter title each time?

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If each section (part) is told ONLY in that character's POV then you don't have to put it as the chapter title each time.

I really didn't like the switch in Twilight, mainly because I thought Jacob was boring, not that Bella didn't have her woe is me side, and I understood why they did it, I just wish there was someone else to do it with, plus it was sudden and after two other books with one POV it felt jarring.

Most of the time with YA I like one POV because of the personal feel it gives, and I've been told it works better for that audience, however books like Potter, are not told in that perspective. Haven't read Legends, should look into it. One place 2 perspectives might work well is with two polarities of good and evil or maybe romantic issues told from triangular perspectives say from two girls a boy or whatever the cases maybe - this way you get all sides. An interesting book, now this is drawing from the classics is William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury where the sister Cassie, hope I'm remembering her name right, been awhile, is told from the perspective of three brothers the first two love her dearly, but the third sees her for what she is, and it ain't good. He hates her. Very interesting. Anyways that's not YA, but you get my point, you technically could do all sorts of things.

As has been said, if you have developed the voice for each character, you can change between them more easily. If you're telling multiple chapters from one POV and then multiple from another, separate them into parts and just say whose POV it's from. Part 1: Bob. Part 2: Carol. The rest of the clarification will come from writing voice