three pov's of same vision

er, spread them out a bit?

Seriously though. if the characters are very different, they will have unique takes on the same vision/experience. It doesn't have to be same-y.

I read a book in which the entire story was told by three people. Each had their own chapters told in first person and they often recounted the same events. It was compelling because each person revealed internal character information that cast the scene in a new light. The chapters actually conveyed new information even though they were about the same occurance.

Soccer Mom said:

I read a book in which the entire story was told by three people. Each had their own chapters told in first person and they often recounted the same events. It was compelling because each person revealed internal character information that cast the scene in a new light. The chapters actually conveyed new information even though they were about the same occurance.

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Hi Soccer Mom, do you remember the name or author of that book? That's exactly what I'm trying to do with my WIP!

Perhaps you could break the scene up. . . . to get the full vision you will need to read what everybody saw. What kind of projection or importance are the characters placing on aspects the vision? Perhaps one character sees a building and a little white dog. . . the next person sees a taxi and a phone booth and the third person sees a waste basket that has caught on fire. All one scene but three different aspects seen by three different perspectives, each adding their own projection and metaphor onto the situation. We do not get the entire seen from one pair of eyes but in the end we get the scene, as well as three different meanings.

Do they each see exactly the same thing? Are they seeing the vision at exactly the same time?

I'd suggest describing one person's vision in detail to ground the reader in the basics of the vision. When describing the vision from the other POVs, concentrate on the differences from the first description.

This is similar to having three different eyewitnesses to the same crime. Even though they all saw the same events, they'll remember different things.

This also reminds me about the story of the blind men and the elephant. Do any of the three people who see the vision see the entire picture, or are they just seeing bits and pieces?

That would work. You could use some buzz words that will help the reader immediately know they are describing the same dream.


ETA: Candy, I sent you what I remember in a rep point.

Soccer Mom said:

That would work. You could use some buzz words that will help the reader immediately know they are describing the same dream.

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What she said. I was going to call them "signposts" but they amount to the same thing.