Should I change POVs in the following case?
I'm writing a story where later on (three or four chapters after) a second main character is introduced. And after that the chapters will alternate between the first MC and this second one. At first I thought of keeping the POV of the first MC since this second character is actually someone the first MC is looking at in a videotape (the first MC is investigating about an earthquake, and the second MC is a person who got trapped in the ruins of a building and filmed the whole thing).
So the narration goes like, The camera was now pointing at the wall, showing half of Y's back. X could imaging herself being there... (Maybe having one character performing the actions and the other adding her thoughts is a bit awkward?)
I wonder though if I should just narrate those chapters using the second MC's POV: Y stared at the wall, his back to the camera. He wondered for how long he'd been trapped in this tomb of rubble...
I don't know, maybe this way I can have access to his thoughts, hence making the narration more compelling? On the other hand, would be changing POVs so late in in the story feel clumsy?
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1 answer
As long as you label the chapters with the name of the POV character, you're fine. George RR Martin famously has like a dozen POV characters per 700-page book. At least one that I remember had to take on a new identity, so her POV chapter name changed from A to B. I just finished a Patricia Briggs novel with 20ish chapters. Eighteen are in the first person, told by Mercy, and two (8 and 16, so not sequential) are told in the third person by her husband. Those two chapters have "Adam" at the top.
Do whatever works and label it so it's clear.
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