Multiple POV Questions

Hi Vanessa,

Welcome! Nice to meet you.

I'm not sure I understand your first question, but the second question I can answer. I write some urban fantasy too, and I use third person limited. (I'm not comfortable with first person either.) So, you should be fine there.

Others will chime in, I'm sure, about your other questions. Happy writing!

FWIW, Bob Mayer and Jenny Crusie write romantic adventure stories in much the same way you're proposing to do -- he writes the scenes (concentrate on scenes, not chapters) in the male POV and she writes the scenes in the female POV, and then they do joint editing, with him having final say on anything to do with the male character, and her having the final say on anything to do with the female pov.

Different styles can work, as long as there are some commonalities, and the style differences reflect the voices of the POV characters. In the Crusie-Mayer example, Mayer has a special-ops background, and his characters are special-ops types, so the differences between his writer's voice and Crusie's writer's voice are consistent with his character. Does that make sense? You don't notice the different authorial voices so much, b/c they write in deep third-limited POV, and the differences match the differences between the two POV characters, since a special-ops character is going to think and talk and emote (or not) differently from a movie director character (the leads in Don't Look Down).

OTOH, there are some fundamental similarities between Crusie's and Mayer's authorial voices. It's subtle, but they have similar rhythms and similar senses of humor, so despite some other very extreme differences, the voices do mesh. Plus, Mayer made a commitment to writing in third limited, instead of the third-omniscient he writes his non-collaborative work in, so that helped them to mesh too.

You can read more about it at crusiemayer.com.

JD

I'll take the first question, then.

If what you want answered is a general writing question, like the POV query above, then post it right here in Novels.

If you have a question about the romantic part of the book, head on over to romance.

And if your query is about vampires, werewolves, aliens, etc, go to SFF.

If you need an expert opinion on something technical, or some research you can't quite find, then post in the Experts and Research board.

Post pieces for critique in SYW, again deciding on which genre board by what the focus of the scene or chapter is. Alien attack or getting it on?

And for things unrelated to writing, head on over to Office Party and pull up a chair.

That dual-writer style is kind of fascinating. It'd be neat to work on a project like that sometime. I think as long as you maintain the POV for a scene before switching you'll be okay.

I've been experimenting lately with first person and third limited. I usually write several POVs for a novel, which seems like it might be incompatible with first person (hence the experimenting). I've also been trying to figure out if switching third to first (and vice versa) works for a novel, since I haven't ever seen that before. But I'd say if it reads well, go with it.

I don't think first person is necessary for the 'urban fantasy' genre, though it does seem pretty consistent among the mystery/thrillers. Just do what you're comfortable with.

JPLangsdorf said:

I've been experimenting lately with first person and third limited. I usually write several POVs for a novel, which seems like it might be incompatible with first person (hence the experimenting). I've also been trying to figure out if switching third to first (and vice versa) works for a novel, since I haven't ever seen that before. But I'd say if it reads well, go with it.

Click to expand...

Nelson Demille did a first and third POV for Lion's Game, alternating every other chapter. I found it rather off putting and noticed the last time I read the book, I kept skipping to the first person chapters. The change between both characters was jarring, especially the given the personalities, so that didn't help. But no telling how it would come off under different circumstances.

My novel has multiple POV characters, all from the third person. It works, in my case, because I wanted to show events happening around the world, so that the reader would see the big picture. I used third person because I didn't want to get that deep into the characters heads. It's more like the "camera" is following that character around for the chapter.

If you want to see a good example of an author how uses this method, check out George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series.

Maybe switching between first and third would work if, say, the first person was a manuscript someone was reading. I've seen it done that way.

I wonder if it wouldn't be safer to avoid the problem, though. As Jenken points out, it can be annoying for the reader. I'm reading a novel series where the author switches tenses between viewpoint characters—there's one character who's always in present tense, though still third person. The books are good and have been pulling me through, but I find I'm very ready to put the book down and take a break when Mr. Present Tense shows up.

I'd want to be sure there was a strong artistic reason for doing such a thing—that it would produce an effect the story really needs.