Starting from an Antagonist's POV

Not sure how it would work in fantasy. However, John Sandford in his Prey series, (thriller) Has done this several times throughout the series. He starts with the antagonist's POV and then switches to the protag etc.

Here's a link he has several chapter ones up etc.

http://www.johnsandford.org/index2.html

They often do something similar in mysteries as well.

As to whether you should do it that way, I can't tell you. What I can tell you is that as a reader it wouldn't bother me.

If it seems to you that the best way to accomplish your goal is to start with the antag than do it.

It's how I start. Everyone tells me it's a decent enough hook. My baddie is inhuman and has alot of complex thoughts that I felt I needed to tell the reader about, but it later became my hook.

Good luck.

It's cool, man, do whatever you want. I mean it might not be a good idea to start from the POV or a lamp (AND THEN NEVER REVISIT THE LAMP!!!), lol, no actually that can work as well. Just people might get annoyed if you never come back to his perspective again. Or maybe not.

If you are referring to the section I just reviewed, where Nicholas turns into Nicoli, my recommendation would be to stay in one POV through the whole thing. I would stay right on Nicoli. And the cool part is where he transforms, so I would make Nicholas's part sympathetic but short-- and then wow people with the transformation. You could see Nicholas going from disturbed, depressed human to all-powerful, very nasty supreme being. Or whatever he is.

On the other hand, I think it could be really interesting if you did the whole thing from Krishna's POV. Have him watching Nicholas and thinking about how pathetic his life is, even pitying him. Then have him warp in (or whatever he does to get places) and do the change. He could be wondering at the end if he made a mistake...?

And all of this is going to be totally irrelevant if you're talking about a totally different section. But to answer your actual OP question-- no, I don't think starting in the antagonist's head is a problem at all.

Well-developed antagonists are hot. In general. They make me happy to be alive, and force me to read the book at all hours, possibly through the night, without stopping. From what I've seen of your writing (I've been meaning to crit it, sorry) you've got some very well-developed antagonists. So, no complaints here.

Azraelsbane said:

LoL. Yeah, that last part. The section you read is chapter four. This is chapter one that I'm talking about here.

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DOH! I knew that was going to end up sounding stupid. Haha.

Azraelsbane said:

Thanks Esopha. You should have read my post about my husband's obsession with my main antagonist, and how he actually requested a nude pic of him from LostGirl. I think he thinks my antag is a little TOO hot. He keeps asking me if I could please make him win.

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Your husband sounds like a very...supportive man. >>;

It's not necessarily a problem, but, as with everything in writing, it's a matter of pros and cons.

I'm not sure what the pros of doing it are, and they're probably story-specific, but there are some general cons of doing it:

1. The reader tends to bond with the first pov character, and if it's a character who either isn't a big deal in the book the reader may get annoyed later and throw the book against the wall; or if it isn't someone the reader wants to spend time with, the reader may skim the first page in the bookstore and then put it back without buying it.

2. If the antagonist (as you describe him) isn't even the over-all antagonist, but is just a run-of-the-mill bad guy, then it makes problem #1 above worse. If it's a really interesting bad guy, someone worthy of the protagonist (e.g., Hannibal), you've given the reader something to be fascinated by, but if it's just a regular bad guy, not someone you want the reader to bond with, what's the reason to keep reading? Generally, the reason to keep reading is because the pov character is fascinating in some way, or his situation is fascinating. If not, it's a risky place to start.

3. If the reader does decide that the first pov is fascinating, and buys the book b/c he/she wants to spend more time with that character, the reader is going to be seriously annoyed upon finding out the character is a bit player. There are some genres (mystery series and possibly series in general) which are exceptions to this problem, b/c the reader already knows the protagonist is the sleuth, who will appear later, and the first pov is about to be corpsified or corpsify someone else, so the reader is going to withhold judgment and bonding until the sleuth appears.

I can't think of other drawbacks offhand, although I'm sure there are other, including the practical one of several agents I've heard complaining about books that start in the pov of serial killers, which is a turn-off for them, and might stop them reading a submission before they even reach the protagonist. That may be genre-specific, though, since they were mostly talking about suspense and romantic suspense.

Bottom line: Make sure that whatever advantages you're gaining from doing something unusual are worth the potential disadvantages. It's never a simple question of "can I do this," (b/c the answer to that is always, ultimately, "yes"), but should be a question of "Why should or shouldn't I do this, and what am I gaining and losing?"

And make sure the advantages are FOR THE READER and not just benefitting the author.

JD