posted
I have a slight problem with a book I'm working on as an experiement, and may acutally end up submit for the 1st 13 lines on Feedback forum.
If I have fallen in love a secondary character in my book and am pretty much ignorning my main character/POV character, does it follow that I need more character development on my POV character?
I would normally switch around the characters and begin the book again from the more interesting character's POV but unfortuntly I can find no way of doing this believably since this is a fish-out-of-water story where the main character is thrust into a situation he may or may not be able to handle.
Am I being too vague? Does this request make any sense?
posted
I have found myself enjoying the company of secondary characters over that of primary characters on many ocassions. This is not a problem. The POV character/main antagonist is the person who has the ability to solve the problem. That should always be your criterion. BUt that doesn't mean your world can't be rich with secondary characters you enjoy. Just make sure tha tyou do like your antagonist. If you can't find a reason to, you might want to step back and do some more character development, but don't fret too much if you still like secondary guy more.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I have a kind of a similar problem, in a bit of a backwards way.
My POV character started out as someone who just hung around my protagonist. However, the POV character has become very interesting, and I find myself almost marginalizing my main character at times.
I'm still in love with my main character...but it's sometimes hard for me to show how important she is since I'm going through the eyes of an alternate POV.
Does anyone have any suggestions while we're on the topic?
How I ended up solving the problem for myself was that I took him on a side trip and created for him a new world and a story of his own.
It got him out of my system, ended up making for me a new short story, led me in a direction that could progress into a new novel, and made me entirely re-evaluate his position in the original WIP. To my dismay, I discovered that he wasn't all that important. He was just trying to speak to or through me. Once he had said what he needed to say and established him in his own right, I decided he could be at least reduced much in importance if not entirely eliminated from his previous role.
posted
I've experianced this, It is nothing to worry about. Think about it this way, in Starwars who do you think the main charachter is supposed to be? Well that's obvious it's supposed to be Luke. But have you ever met anyone who liked Luke? No, I personally like Han Solo, not that I'm alone in that or anything. Luke is there to drive the story in the direction that it needs to go, because if it was up to Han then none of it would have happened. So that's one way of looking at it.
Posts: 15 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Important rule of thumb: Your POV character in every scene should be whoever has the greatest emotional stake in that scene's outcome.
The POV character never needs to be the character you love the most, but should always be the character experiencing the most dramatic tension. If you find yourself using the POV of the protagonist in scenes where someone else has a greater emotional stake, you should consider rewriting those scenes.
posted
I think there are a lot of exceptions to the "greatest emotional stake" rule. Just a few that immediately jump to mind: - when that character needs to remain distant from the reader (e.g. Aral Vorkosigan in Bujold's work--he would lose a lot of his mystique if he were ever a viewpoint character) - when that character knows things that need to remain unknown (e.g. in a mystery, writing from the villain's viewpoint is often a problem) - when the story is being told in the first person from a single viewpoint
There are a lot of reasons for choosing (or rejecting) a viewpoint character. The only rule that really works all the time is "choose the one that lets you tell the story most effectively".
posted
Eljay, I agree. There are many factors that go into choosing a POV character and emotional stake in a scene is only one of them. Structure is of critical importance.
But let me try to divert this conversation. Looking back at the original question the concern was over a MAIN character or protagonist who is not as sympathetic as a secondary one...not a POV character. We associate main character and POV character too much on this site, although it is understandable as to why. But sometimes the story is told through the eyes of a secondary chracter for whatever reason, the author can decide.
posted
This makes me feel a little better. Funny you should mention Luke vs. Han because in a lot of ways the two boys I'm writing about seem a little like those two. I guess I was mainly worried about losing my main character/POV character's audience sympathy with his plight if who I really enjoyed writing for is his "sidekick". Time and many edits later, I'm sure, will tell.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
There are a whole lot of storied where the main POV character is not the most interesting. In "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson, what we could call the main character (although it's a problematic distinction in that book) is pretty much a cardboard cut-out normal dude in a town full of nutcases, all far more interesting than he is. "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"--The story is about Andy, but told through his friend, Red's POV. Sherlock Holmes, definitely far more interesting than Watson. Need I go on?
Your main character doesn't have to be the most interesting character in the book.
posted
Elizabeth Boyer had a story with the "sidekick" as the POV, and he turned out to be the one who actually got things done. He was the prince's servant (not exactly like Bertie Wooster's Jeeves, but not entirely unlike, either), and though the prince got all the credit, the servant was content, because he knew he was the real hero of the story.
The book is THE THRALL AND THE DRAGON'S HEART, by the way.
posted
I read a serialized novel on-line a few months ago that used a different POV for each chapter and it never used the same POV twice.
It was really well-done. The title character never had the POV, and while he was a great charater to follow, I don't think he could have carried the POV.
So I guess I'll just recommend what everyone else seems to be doing, just tell the story and don't worry too much about who you are using to tell it. You can always go back and edit things later.
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