OKay, well, in my story, I sometimes jump to the antagonists perspective, however, at the time our hero thinks of him as an ally and is only revealed as a **AHEM** Bad guy near the end. Now, in these chapters he meets with some of his allys, and they speak his name often, but I don't want the reader to know of his deception (who he really is). GOT IT? GOOD! Anyway, well writing this, I kept using the words "the man" and others to avoid using his actual name... Is there a way to avoid this? I know an Alias is an option. After all, I've seen star wars.
Posted by Rahl22 (Member # 1411) on :
Not really a way to do that without deliberately violating POV and your reader's trust. I'd recommend that you don't.
Posted by Kalvin (Member # 2630) on :
POV?
Posted by Isaiah13 (Member # 2283) on :
Is jumping to the antagonists point of view necessary? It sounds like you will deliberately be withholding info from the reader if you do, and many people frown on that sort of thing.
Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :
POV = Point of View
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
Kalvin,
How long of a piece of work is this? I have a situation very similar to this in the novel I am writing, but I'm not keeping that from the reader. In fact, the reader should be amused by the mean old bad guys pretending to be nice. It is even critical to the plot because one of the bad guys has a change of heart after living with the good guys for a year.
If you want the reader to believe the bad guys are good guys, you absolutely MUST stay in the human point of view. The reason is that once you move to a point of view that knows the details, you MUST tell the reader those details. If you don't, the reader will feel cheated and probably not read anything else you write. That is important, because only JK Rowling, Stephen King, and a few others can live off the income of only one of their books, and to get there, they had to build a loyal fan base by writing many books.
And remember, on a novel, the basic plot will be on the back cover and perhaps even the front cover. There will likely be a picture you don't like, that doesn't look anything like your aliens gracing the front cover. So the readers will probably know about your aliens, whether you tell them or not.
My suggestion is that you either make it clear that the aliens are pretending so the reader can watch the humans figure out the plot, otherwise stay very close to the humans and keep the alien secret from the humans so you don't have to tell the reader. But, as soon as the humans learn the truth, so does the reader.
Good luck with it.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Spaceman, I don't think Kalvin said anything about using aliens in his story.
Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :
What other people have said, about not trying to hide his identity from the reader, is probably good advice. I have yet to see a story where the payoff from hiding the bad guys identity was worth it. Not counting mysteries, where the point is to figure out whodunnit, and even then the criminals POV is almost never invoked.
You will heighten the tension in your story if the reader knows something the protagonist doesn't.
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
Heh heh. My perspective is fogged due to the similarity with what I'm doing. Somebody slap me around. Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :
Ooh! Me! Me! Can I do it?
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
I'll just let you critique my next story. Slap away.
