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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31066
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31066
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In _The Sound and the Fury_, Faulkner tells each part of the novel in the voice of a different character. In _No Country for Old Men_ Cormac McCarthy switches back and forth between first and third person narration. In _Bleak House_, Dickens switches back and forth between a rather haughty and detached narrator and the very warm and sympathetic voice of his heroine Esther Summerson. In short, it can be done.

At the same time it is an advanced literary technique, and, perhaps more importantly, it is a self conscious literary technique. It draws the reader's attention to the fact that they are reading a literary work. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The sophisticated reader is quite capable of engaging with a story on multiple levels simultaneously. Done well, the technique gives an additional layer of interest to the story.

But by calling attention to the literary technique of the novel, this approach goes against the the cinematic approach to the popular novel that is prevalent today. In this approach, the author tries to create an experience for the reader that is as much as possible like watching a conventional movie. (Movies, of course, can use self conscious cinematic techniques as well, though it is not common in mainstream cinema.) This is where the "show don't tell" doctrine is applied in full force. (It is a literary technique, not a universal rule.) The aim of this technique is that the reader/viewer should forget that they are reading/watching and should just experience events as if they were there.

When you use explicit literary techniques such as switching POVs you shake the reader by the scruff of the neck and say, "Hey, pay attention, this is a book you are reading." There is a very long tradition of such books, so it is perfectly valid to do so. But know what you are doing because it changes your audience.

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