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I am writing a novel wherein there are many characters whose thoughts are key to telling it properly. In an earlier draft, I attempted to have any given chapter told from the point of view of exac...
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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/237 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I am writing a novel wherein there are many characters whose thoughts are key to telling it properly. In an earlier draft, I attempted to have any given chapter told from the point of view of exactly one character, but that turned out to be problematic. Usually it led to chapters I found uncomfortably short, or I would wind up writing mostly about nothing as I forgot that character was no longer important for the current scene. In my current draft, I decided to go with a pseudo-omniscient narrator to solve these problems. It could only step into one character's head at a time, but it would be able to switch characters mid-scene, if necessary, rather than waiting for a section or chapter break. Some of the transitions from one character to another have felt a bit awkward, though. Most of the better ones I have involve dialogue; it's easy to switch the frame to another character naturally after that character has just spoken. Are there any other techniques that can make these transitions flow better?