Mystery Character POV

One question before I say anything: is the villain the hero?

I'm not sure if you can pull off waiting till the climax. The best way to hide a villain is in plain sight. You may need to move your aha up. Gone Girl did it--and everyone dug that--LOL!!! Just consider when the scene of villain action needs to be mentioned. (can the others discover what happened, rather than having it be a live scene?) I'm assuming you have an outline if this is your first draft first chapter. Is it a thriller? I don't know the story, but if readers know someone is the villain, and the intended victim doesn't, it can create a ton of tension.

To Quinn's question, if it is the hero, or another POV male, you're basically doubling them, so unless it's a multiple personality, readers might feel cheated. Since you're early in this story, maybe experiment with first person for the villain scenes. Then it's just I, and would stand out. I'm not saying I recommend that, but it can be done well.

I'm only commenting because I read Cop Town by Karin Slaughter, and she did POV chapters from a character called the Fox (yes, a nickname) but there was a lot of un-major players to pick from for readers to consider. PM me if you want a spoiler, or just check it out. It's a harsh book, but helpful to me, as I'm writing crime stories in the early 80s--her's is late 70s.

Anyway, welcome to AW. Go ahead and dig in, do some critiques and comments and get past the first 50. Everyone is so generous with their time and advice. Knowing more about the story would help us all help you. After 50 posts you can post your chapter and whoever you helped, or whoever wants to weigh in, can give you some more direct advice.

I also mix my POVs by scene in the same chapters. So far so good!

Best of luck with your writing!

KayWriter said:

My plan is to add one scene from the Villian's POV to the end of each chapter, but I need a way to que the readers that it isn't the Hero.

Suggestions?

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You'll have to make the POV changes very clear. Various ways to do that:

1) In other scenes, you'd normally clarify the POV character by his or her name, right? Probably within the first sentence or two. So in the villain's scenes, use only "he."

2) Make the villain's voice distinct from that of the other male character.

3) Make sure the setting is different from the scene you just switched from.

4) Make the villain's scenes into their own chapters (no matter how short) and give them a consistent title, even something as simple as "Interlude" or "Elsewhere" or "Meanwhile." Same one each time, so the reader is instantly clued in.

Oh, and for future reference, "que" is spelled "cue."

I suggest writing it in first person. Not the whole MS, just the Villian scenes.

It's very easy to get away with no name when in first person (case in point: Fight Club). Almost impossible in third, unless there is literally nobody else in the scenes, but you're still using either an identifier or He/She a lot, which soon gets annoying and repetitive.

First person would stand out, remove your name issues, prevent POV confusion, and give you some narrative elbow room.

Harlequin said:

I suggest writing it in first person. Not the whole MS, just the Villian scenes.

It's very easy to get away with no name when in first person (case in point: Fight Club). Almost impossible in third, unless there is literally nobody else in the scenes, but you're still using either an identifier or He/She a lot, which soon gets annoying and repetitive.

First person would stand out, remove your name issues, prevent POV confusion, and give you some narrative elbow room.

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I agree with this. I'm writing a fantasy novel from only one person's view, and he stumbles upon clues and letters amongst other things, but there are multiple mysterious characters involved including himself and it's very hard to tell who is the villain. Don't know if this is of any help but still ^^

If the villain reveal is left till the end, I assume you have some other sort of antagonist to fill in the plot until then to anchor readers in the conflict? Or is it a detective-style story?

I had a similar question to yours not long ago, but it wasn't about POV, but about the payoff of hiding the antagonist until the climax. Having an antagonist defined early in the story focuses plot more, and makes the back-and-forth more direct and immediate, while withholding the antagonist can slow the conflict too much, and diffuses the sense of threat/emergency (but it does bring catharsis and pathos to the climax). On the other hand, early antagonists do not build up the sense of mystery and the unknown like late antagonists do. Just a tangential thought to consider about antagonist reveals.

Back to POV, I agree with the other posters. Changing it to first person, you won't even need to tell readers the villain is male, which would take the surprise of the reveal further. I also really liked that idea of having small transitioning chapters just for the villain. You could combine these two methods as well. It would help the story structure and at the same time cloud the villain's identity even more.

You can also distinguish those scenes typographically, by using italics for those sections.

If you want readers to know he's male, have him get lost but refuse to ask for directions. Or pee standing up. Or think about sex every 7.5 seconds.

Or do anything else typically male.

Nickname (ex: The Weasel)
Sample book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1455585327/?tag=absowrit-20

Just "he" or "the man".
Sample book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802122779/?tag=absowrit-20

Second person POV.
Sample book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0515143502/?tag=absowrit-20

-cb

ETA: all those samples open on the villain, so you can read the first chapter straight in Amazon and check them out.

Second person would be a very interesting way to present this. You could probably maintain the mystery for a while, but having this POV every chapter I think would put a lot of stress on the story in terms of keeping it a secret.

You could have it as first person POV- I do like the mystery of it. It depends at what stage it is appropriate for the villain to be revealed and make sure that you've got a lot going on in the other POVs.

Here's where I'm confused.

So while I get that the character is hidden from being bad; however, when you're in his POV and don't know who he is, are we aware that the mystery man is the bad guy?

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Either way, having super short chapters with the chapter being titled "Him" isn't a bad idea. Michael Crichton writes short chapters where he titles it with their name or scene identifier.