Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How important is it for multiple POVs to run chronologically?

I don't think it is too important. I read a story (can't remember the name) in which two POVs were presented, one from like a century ago, and one in the future! The early POV was an ancestor of th...

posted 5y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-19T22:13:49Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46432
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:22:50Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46432
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T12:22:50Z (almost 5 years ago)
I don't think it is too important. I read a story (can't remember the name) in which two POVs were presented, one from like a century ago, and one in the future! The early POV was an ancestor of the later POV, and his descendant was unraveling a mystery about his ancestor, while the early POV was actually about the circumstances that led to this mystery, which were entertaining as well. In a way they proceeded somewhat in parallel, the later POV discovering clues (and getting confused, etc) about what we just read the earlier POV was doing.

I think the thing to worry about non-chronological adventures is killing suspense for the early POV by revealing something in the later POV (which obviously might know the future or fate of the early POV).

You need both POV's to be interesting until the end of their respective times. If your later POV is mostly in the last half, then giving too much information about what happened in **his** past could be a spoiler for what is **yet** to happen in the early POV story. But that is just something to be careful with, not a reason to not do it.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-07-03T15:33:27Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 4