Hi,
Lets say your story was shared by two main characters who were together the whole time. How would you write this?
Lets say your story was shared by two main characters who were together the whole time. How would you write this?
-
Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work
Two Main Characters Together the Whole Time?
- Thread starter justlukeyou
- Start date
- Status
From a point of view perspective?
If that's the case, I'd advise picking one POV character per scene. You don't want to hop from one character's thoughts to another without warning.
If that's the case, I'd advise picking one POV character per scene. You don't want to hop from one character's thoughts to another without warning.
I was thinking of writing it in second person and share it continuously mostly through dialogue but is it okay to be very dialogue heavy?
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2008
- Messages
- 6,137
- Reaction score
- 694
Second person is very tricky to pull off. I wouldn't recommend it. It can also be a tough sell as it's unfamiliar to many readers. Also, you don't need it to tell a story with two MCs.
As rwm says, you can switch POV between scenes, or even chapters. Or you can stick with one POV throughout. A lot of my Fantasy novel has two characters who pretty much share the protagonist honours, but only one of them gets to narrate.
As rwm says, you can switch POV between scenes, or even chapters. Or you can stick with one POV throughout. A lot of my Fantasy novel has two characters who pretty much share the protagonist honours, but only one of them gets to narrate.
This sounds like my story exactly. An assassin is given a mission, and he is assigned a partner with special abilities to help him on his task. With the exception of the first three chapters, he and the female MC are together the whole story, trying to accomplish their task.
My story switches back and forth between both their POV's but it's heavily with the assassin. There's probably a 70/30 split. I did that for a lot of reasons - main reason being the assassin has more knowledge. He's knows the employer personally and the girl doesn't.
Are your characters equal, or do they have a knowledge gap? Is one character more suited to hold the POV over the other one? Does one have a special skill that makes them more interesting than the other? Picking where to put your POV is tricky business.
Also: Second person? That's a bit odd to share two characters with. What genre is the story?
My story switches back and forth between both their POV's but it's heavily with the assassin. There's probably a 70/30 split. I did that for a lot of reasons - main reason being the assassin has more knowledge. He's knows the employer personally and the girl doesn't.
Are your characters equal, or do they have a knowledge gap? Is one character more suited to hold the POV over the other one? Does one have a special skill that makes them more interesting than the other? Picking where to put your POV is tricky business.
Also: Second person? That's a bit odd to share two characters with. What genre is the story?
This sounds like an early draft of my WIP.
My 2 FMCs were together so much that I couldn't distinguish between them.
In later drafts, I had one become temporarily incapacitated and totally dependent on the other. Then I had one kill the other near the end.
At some point their personalities diverged.
Anyway, that's how I wrote mine.
I have never read anything long in 2nd person, I don't think I'd be able to stomach it, to be honest. I can only imagine it working with some very, very specific stories that want to make the reader feel like going though some experience or gods know what. I'd have to see a standard-type story in 2nd person actually working before I believe it can be done 
As for dialogue-heavy, I don't mind. I prefer dialogue-driven narration oftentimes.
As for dialogue-heavy, I don't mind. I prefer dialogue-driven narration oftentimes.
Are you talking about second person, as in, "you do this," and "you do that," or 1st person plural, as in "we did this," and "we did that?" Only reason I ask is that I can't see how the number of MCs and whether they are together would need to influence second person POV. However, if you were talking about narrating the story from both of them as a plural "we," that could be interesting if done well. I suppose the only problem might be if it's too close and we're in both heads at the same time, it might still feel like head-hopping. 
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
Are you talking about second person, as in, "you do this," and "you do that," or 1st person plural, as in "we did this," and "we did that?" Only reason I ask is that I can't see how the number of MCs and whether they are together would need to influence second person POV. However, if you were talking about narrating the story from both of them as a plural "we," that could be interesting if done well. I suppose the only problem might be if it's too close and we're in both heads at the same time, it might still feel like head-hopping.
But wouldn't keeping a consistent narration of this sort make things illogical?
I mean, you can say: "We decided to go to the river." "We cried for help."
And I suppose you can say: " 'I don't like you,' we told the waitress." But it's already getting odd, like some creepy twins
But then it gets to: "We got shot in the knee." "We rolled to the other side in bed." "We scratched out chins." And it gets funny at best
But what if two people are occupying the same body?? (This is spec fic, right?) In that case, would 'we scratched our chin' be the way to go?
Once I read a book where the eight main characters narrated in first-person plural. When one of them did something individually, that one character was referred to by name.
It was a great story, but the POV drove me nuts.
/derail
I say pick one and have them be the viewpoint character. Or use third-person objective of omniscient if that fits the story better.
It was a great story, but the POV drove me nuts.
/derail
I say pick one and have them be the viewpoint character. Or use third-person objective of omniscient if that fits the story better.
Omniscient Point of View.
My latest WIP is pretty much exactly what you're doing. A story of two people involved in a series of events. What I've been doing is shifting the narration (keeping it omniscient of course) between the two characters. So the first scene, I'll get into the emotions of MC1 and in another scene I'll jump to the thoughts of MC2. It's very difficult to pull off. I'll admit, I've spent more time rewriting scenes and transitions than I have progressing the story.
At the end of the day, I think what you need to accomplish is having the reader understand what's going on.
That isn't really omniscient point of view. Omniscient point of view requires an omniscient narrator. It sounds like you're just doing multiple third person limited, which is the point of view I'd recommend for the OP. True omniscient is difficult.
Both those things would kill it for me. I doubt I'd read a short story written this way. I certainly wouldn't touch such a novel.
No matter how many main characters there are, one is usually the focus, the real protagonist, and this plays into POV.
But having two main characters together is not at all unusual, and requires no special tricks of methods of writing. It's no different than having any two characters in the same scene.
How much they're together or apart is up to you, but I think you;re putting the cart before the horse. Start writing and see what happens.
But wouldn't keeping a consistent narration of this sort make things illogical?
I mean, you can say: "We decided to go to the river." "We cried for help."
And I suppose you can say: " 'I don't like you,' we told the waitress." But it's already getting odd, like some creepy twins
But then it gets to: "We got shot in the knee." "We rolled to the other side in bed." "We scratched out chins." And it gets funny at best
I've only ever seen it (first person plural) done well in a short short story. I don't think it would go over well for anything longer. But then, neither would second person, imo
I've only ever seen it (first person plural) done well in a short short story. I don't think it would go over well for anything longer. But then, neither would second person, imo
I actually saw this in the urban fantasy novel A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin. The main character was sharing his consciousness with a supernatural entity. So sometimes he narrated with "I" and other times with "we."
It was a bit confusing at first, but I adjusted to it after a while.
Do whatever the hell you want. It's your story. If you ultimately decide that it doesn't do what you want it to do, then try something else. At least you'll have figured out whether it works or not. Maybe you'll stumble onto something awesome.
- Status