Multiple first-persons vs subjective third-

Lots of books use 1st/3rd - 1st for the most important viewpoint character, 3rd to get into the POVs of other characters.

Multiple 1st person POV might get confusing (usually no organic name references, lots of "I"s, no immediate identification of MC, etc). You'll need plenty of contextual cues! Multiple 3rd person POVs are simpler, IMO, as long as you don't head-hop too much. I'm partial towards 3rd POV though. 1st person can sometimes feel fabricated--the narrator gets in the way more artificially than in 3rd POV, as strange as that sounds.

Both methods are doable, but in the end, go with the one you feel more comfortable with.

I've done both. They can both work.

A few notes about multiple first person POV: My preference is only to switch at chapter breaks, and to label the chapter with the character's name so it's not confusing. Also, I wouldn't do multiple first person POV for more than two or three POV characters. A combo of first person and third is also a possibility, as Carrie mentions--I've read such books, though not in my genre.

The difficult thing about writing multiple first person POV's is that each voice has to sound different. It can also be overwhelming if you have a LOT of characters who are narrating. Do you think all of the characters you want to narrate have a unique enough voice to stand out? Or do you think it would be more effective to have one solid voice, but with free indirect speech seeing into the minds of multiple characters? Also, how many characters would be narrating? It's also important to think about why you want more than one narrator. Do the other narrators have something really important to add, or do you just want to see a couple of scenes from a different perspective?

THE RAVEN CYCLE (Maggie Stiefvater), THE LIST (Siobhan Vivian), and A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE (George R.R. Martin) are all excellent examples of multi-character third if you want to check those out. And GONE GIRL (Gillian Flynn) and THE SCORPIO RACES (Stiefvater again) both have multiple narrators with very distinct voices.

I think the main thing to figure out is why the multiple narrators are necessary. Whose story are you telling? How do the stakes/wants change with more than one narrator? Or is it just so the reader had more explanation? I had an issue with one of my old projects in that one voice was entirely action and the other was explanation, which was not good.

Hope this helps!

I've very recently read a multiple first person novel; The Just City, by Jo Walton. It's fine to read. She just names each chapter.

I am currently writing a MS in mostly first person with a few third person scenes from another POV. I chose to do so because the two povs are the same person, different personalities, but only one pov is "watching" all the time, if that makes sense.

LJD said:

I've done both. They can both work.

A few notes about multiple first person POV: My preference is only to switch at chapter breaks, and to label the chapter with the character's name so it's not confusing. Also, I wouldn't do multiple first person POV for more than two or three POV characters. A combo of first person and third is also a possibility, as Carrie mentions--I've read such books, though not in my genre.

Click to expand...

^^^Definitely my preference as a reader. I like each chapter to be from a certain persons pov regardless if its 1st or 3rd. And I really like books that stick to no more than 4/5 mc. Some authors are really great at switching pov mid chapter but this is a skill beyond me and only a few authors can pull it off. I recently stopped reading a novel because there were too many pov and I kept flipping back to see which character was who and it was too much work. And I usually like her novels(Jodie Picoult) but if I'm skipping chapters to get back to the mc I really like then that is a problem. So as long as each mc is intriguing and can hold their own I say go for it. I like novels with more than one pov but not too many.

I'd agree: if you're going to do multiple first person narrators, it's best to only switch at chapter breaks. I see this done a lot in YA novels, and the chapter is usually preceded by the name of the character, which makes it easy to keep track of whose head you're in. But I'd also agree that if you're going to take this approach it's really important to give each character a distinct voice. I've read way too many novels where the different first person voices just blurred together, leaving me to wonder why they did it like that in the first place.

Admittedly, I am not a fan of multiple first person POVs at all--I've seen it done well a few times, but for the most part it feels unnecessary to me. If I'm going to be using multiple POVs I generally just do a close third person, limiting myself to one POV per scene or chapter break. I use first person only when I'm spending the entire novel in one character's head.

I think the reason for this is that, when I'm reading third person (even a close third person) it's the narrator telling the story--and the narrator can do anything, so it feels totally natural for the thoughts of multiple characters to be explored. But in a first person narration, I feel like it's the character telling me their own story in their own voice. It's an inherently more intimate and personal style, like I'm listening directly to someone talk. But if the story has numerous first person narrators and is constantly jumping from head to head, it breaks that illusion and creates a kind of cognitive dissonance. It's like I'm in a roomful of people who are all talking over each other, trying to tell their own stories. I can handle switching back and forth between two first person narrators, anything more than that quickly becomes too much.

Just my personal preference though.

Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware books, Alex is first person, and the others are 3rd. It works well, and I may use it some day.

Write it the way the story is revealed to you.

If not done carefully it can leave the reader confused... "Wait, whose head am I in now?"

Third limited lets you combine 3rd and first. You don't get peppered with I’s but use names, write in simple past tense. But you can toss in inner thoughts at any point, too.

I'm being strict on only changing POV between chapters, and the first sentence always names the VP character, preferably in a way that shows it's the privledged one: “Frank felt bad about the previous day.” we only know the feelings of one character directly, so Frank must be “it” now.

I agree that if using first person in POVs, it's super important to have distinct voices for them, especially if it's more than two. It's something to address in editing though. I'm using it, and I had to go back and assign certain words and phrases to certain characters. One was already very distinct. The other's were more tricky.

One tip I picked up was mentioning the next POV at the end of the scene before the switch. I also do label them all.

I just did a very anal accounting of all the switches to track who dominated or who got lost. Was so illuminating!!!

Best of luck with your writing!

Ihe R.G. said:

Multiple 1st person POV might get confusing (usually no organic name references, lots of "I"s, no immediate identification of MC, etc). You'll need plenty of contextual cues! Multiple 3rd person POVs are simpler, IMO, as long as you don't head-hop too much. I'm partial towards 3rd POV though. 1st person can sometimes feel fabricated--the narrator gets in the way more artificially than in 3rd POV, as strange as that sounds.

Both methods are doable, but in the end, go with the one you feel more comfortable with.

Click to expand...

Most authors who use multiple first person viewpoints have chapter or scene headings with the name of the pov character at the top. That eliminates any possibility of confusion. Of course, having a distinct voice for every pov character and contextual cues will be important too, in both first and in limited (or subjective) third.

I recently picked up a book (The Ruins of Lace) because of its fascinating blurb. Unfortunately the story was told from the first-person POVs of at least six characters - a lacemaker, her sister, some unrelated girl, some relative of the girl, a border inspector and a dog. A dog got his own POV. There may have been others, I can't recall because it was difficult trying to remember who was who and whose head I was supposed to be in. The relatively short chapters didn't help either. I enjoyed the background and the style, but I don't want an experience like this again.

Multiple 1st *can* be done but requires a lot of work with voice so that we (as readers) can see these aren't the same characters even before we get a name reference.

Close 3rd is a good option as it's easier to clue the reader into whose POV we're in. (I tend to start chapters with the name of the person who is the POV character. FREX: Miranda stirred the cereal in her bowl. Sil glanced at her phone for the third time in as many minutes.)

I've also done a series in which there was a semi-omnipotent 1st person character/narrator. She narrates all the chapters, but some of them she isn't in so they come across more like 3rd person (because she doesn't reference herself in any of those chapter) and, because of the "how" of her seeing these other characters actions, the voice has minor shifts in those chapters - reflecting that she is witnessing/living the experiences of others. But that worked in a very particular context and I can't apply it to every story I write.