In my story, Jonta is the central figure bringing it all together, so I originally thought I'd begin the story with him. With war starting to encompass the whole contintent in different factions, a group of young people from all different nations started gathering together, Jonta among them. When they become the main army agianst the northern invaders regular patrols start making soldiers into heros. Stories spurned from the fighting start to circulate and Jonta gets the idea to write them all down. In my retelling, I was going to latch on to a character for a certian amout of time while they are a main factor in naration, then hop to another charcter. Granted, while I'm in the POV of, say, Connor or Hasis, they are around many of the people who I later will pick to focus on. My question: will that make the story too broken?
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
I think you are confusing a complex plot with disjointedness. They do not have to go together. What brings them together is your skill as a writer. Look at complex stories like Frank Herbert's "Dune" or Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." The characters are introduced a few at a time, the pertinent points of the milieu are fed to us in brief patches of dialog carefully crafted with action and narrative.
As for switching POV, provided you do it at the beginning of a chapter, or at the very least as a separate marked section, no one will fault you. Just don't jump around so rapidly that your reader becomes disoriented.
Posted by apeiron (Member # 2565) on :
Ooo--and don't make the mistake Tolkein did and switch to characters we barely know after investing hundreds of pages into other ones. When the fellowship split, I kept trying to sneak peaks ahead to see where I'd meet up with Frodo and Sam again. Very frustrating.
Posted by Totty472 (Member # 2869) on :
many authors use the characters name as a chapter title, you could do it that way.