Just a question:
I have started a novel telling the story from one person's point of view, as writer's are prone to do, I have become quite attached to my narrator and I enjoy her telling the story. However, I am at a point in my novel where I am finding her point of view a little limiting and I am thinking about giving another person (or people) a voice in the novel. I'm sure there are no hard and fast rules that exist but what is the general feeling about changing the point of view?
It probably depends on how much you've written. If you use a different POV, either give that character an equal amount of content or go back and write a few sections of their POV here and there to break to break up the primary POV.
I wouldn't mind taking a look just to see what you got.
Just finished reading a novel (Joseph Nassise-Eyes to See) that had a single POV broken up by chapters in third person. The hero was working through the story and the enemy/outside forces were written in chapters between the main story. It was odd at first but the author made it work by bring the two together in the climactic scenes. He also used this first-third-first person writing to intro supporting characters. It took a little time to get accustomed to reading but you could always put your own spin on it.
Hopefully this makes some sense or helps!
Matt
Jodi Picoult does this in almost all of her novels and she's a raging success in the YA community. Even Stephen King praised her novels as well-written. All you have to do is make sure you don't focus on one character for too long; don't let your narrator dominate your novel, no matter how attached you are. Hell, I find it hard focusing on one POV because I'm so attached to all of my characters.
I once wrote a novella with 3 different points of view: 1 in first person and the other 2 in third. I did that because I wasn't confidant with my writing enough to think I could pull off three voices that sounded nothing alike in the same book.
Thanks for all your replies! As usual LitReactor gives me much food for thought!
Martin's Game of Thrones series breaks up each character into their own chapter to move the story along. Maybe look at what he did and see if that might be something to look into. Just a random thought.
^That's Jodi Picoult's exact style. All of her books read the same, but they're definitely one of the best tools to help teenagers learn the craft of writing, hands down. Usually, either her chapters or sections of each chapter are in different voices and POVs.
You know, I can't stand Picoult. Althuogh I didn't realize they were geared towards teens - so that might actually account for a lot of it.
^^^^^ was going to say something similar
I have read a few Picoult books and they are okay but formulaic for sure. I will check out other recommendations though :)
