If a main character is writing the story, can I change who writes the story in the next chapter?
I’m trying to write my first novel and I have come across an issue which I feel like it could change the whole story/flow. Originally it wouldn’t have mattered if I wrote in the third person but I then came across other challenges and just decided to stick with first.
My question (sorry if it doesn’t make sense) is this:
I am writing my novel in the first person through the main character. I wanted to include another characters perspective who is the villan, like a small section of their evil plan. But I don’t know how I would write that if it is through my main character life. So basically it would mean switching from one scene in one chapter eg. School to a new scene in a different chapter eg. Cave
Also how would people understand if it’s the main characters story but somehow another person was able to write in it?
If anyone could help me out. It would be appreciated.
Many thanks,
Stephanie
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2 answers
First person serves best to help the reader identify with the character, it minimises the distance between the audience and the protagonist. Is that the kind of connection you want between the reader and the antagonist as well? That's an option, so long as that's a conscious decision on your part.
Switching between several first-person POVs is done sometimes. For example, in her recent book Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik switches between several POVs (protagonists and supporting characters), all in first person. Another example is The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones.
The thing to watch out for when you do such a switch is that it needs to be immediately clear who the POV is at any given moment. This can be indicated by location, by other characters addressing the character by name, etc., but is best maintained by having each POV have a distinctly different inner voice. So, each character would talk differently, think differently, see things differently. Even with all those in place, the first few times Naomi Novik switched POV, I found it a bit jarring, it took me a little tome to readjust. In first person, we expect to follow one character throughout. (Diana Wynne Jones avoided this problem by clearly labelling the parts of the story that belong to one character or the other, alternating "Alice" parts and "Bob" parts. By the time "Alice" and "Bob" meet, and the parts get labelled "Alice and Bob", the reader is sufficiently familiar with both, and accustomed to having both POVs.)
If you don't want that closeness and understanding for the antagonist that a first-person account would create, you can move to third person, as @TotumusMaximus indicates. An advantage of this approach is that the reader doesn't see everything that's going on in the anatagonist's mind, there remains a sense of mystery, a sense of "unknown" about them.
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Well written changes in perspective are fine. Yes, I've been confused by poorly written ones. All it takes is a very small orienting hint, but some writers leave it out. I can't remember the actual books but there have been times I've started a new section only to realize the person is different from before. Or, in a book that has many perspective changes, I have had trouble figuring out whose head we're in now. I'm not an inattentive reader; these are faults of the author.
For Stephanie, yes, you want to be super clear with the transition. If it's just one (or a small handful) of quick scene changes to the villain's perspective, you can do it in an insert. One of those pages that is set apart from the rest and has a different font, or background color, or a box around it. If that's too big and obvious, then at least give a sentence to explain the transition, like with Totumus's example.
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