I want to quote two who have read the first two chapters of my WIP, I don't think they frequent this site, and if they are I hope they don't mind me quoting them.

Person 1:
"Overall I'd say that your style of writing is good enough, but, for me, your method of development isn't that attractive, that is, shifting from the first person of chapter 1 to the third person of chapter 2. I know that some professional writers choose that route, but I've a feeling that a writer breaking in would be expected to be more conventional, either choosing the first or third person."

Person 2:
"The transition in points-of-view and tenses between chapters is quite jolting, I’m afraid. Okay, jolting for me, anyway. My mind has been conditioned against this sort of change. If things start out first person, they ought to stay first person, I’ve been led to believe. Going suddenly from first to third really tips the apple cart and sets fruit a rolling. Now, I’ve read books
where different chapters center on different characters’ first person points-of-view (“Brothers” by Ben Bova, for instance). Maybe you could do that. One chapter could be from the good guy’s eyes, the next from the bad guy’s, that sort of thing."

Both claim to have some publications under thier belt, and if so therefore would have the credentials.

So, is shifting back and forth between first and third, a bad idea?

Should I keep it all in third? First person really gets into the mind of the progagonist, the way that third person limited can't.

Consider an old-fashioned narrator. In a prologue or something of that nature, the fictional author of the work gives an introduction and context for the telling of the story. Then the story itself is told in third person, since the narrator is never part of events, and thus is not present in the story proper.

Now consider a fundamentally different situation. You start with a first person character POV in your opening, then in later chapters this person is referred to in the third person. Can you see the difference? Experienced readers and most competent editors can, and from the comments of your critics I think that they do as well.

The first person POV has been reserved for the protagonist, an average guy caught in the middle of forces beyond his control and knowledge.

Third person chapters were for the other POV characters, the antagonists and other movers of the story.

I had figured it was OK, as long as I didn't mix first and third in a single chapter.

First person has a certain closeness that even third person limited cannot have. I lose
his narritive voice if I go to third person for his character.

But if I stick to first person only, there are things the reader would never know. For instance, he's apprehended by two "policemen". Only they take him out far out into the countryside, through the woods, to a dilapidated building. They comment why there peer is nowhere to be found, who was left guarding it. The protagonist flees and they follow. In time, the two are killed, not by the protagonist, but by thier antagonists.
But behind the scenes there is much going on.
The protagonist unwittingly lead the antagonists back to the building, and the results are very disastrous.

The protagonist never knows or understands, and at the end up blames himself.

quote:

---

First person really gets into the mind of the progagonist, the way that third person limited can't.

---

This a popular misconception in my opinion.

quote:

---

First person has a certain closeness that even third person limited cannot have. I lose his narritive voice if I go to third person for his character.

---

Why? In a 3rd person narrative, your narrative voice can have the same personality, and just as much of it, as in 1st person. Just because you're not saying "I", it doesn't mean the narrative isn't filtered through your character's consciousness. In fact, in 3rd-person limited done well, the narrative needs to be filtered through the character's consciousness. It's the whole point of 3PL. The narrator is not really some unnamed third person telling the story, but the character's mind, if that makes any sense. You're basically inside his head, telling what he thinks, feels, and perceives.

I agree with that.

<In a 3rd person narrative, your narrative voice can have the same personality,
and just as much of it, as in 1st person.>

There's still a certain something that is lost. For instance here's the intro as it is now:

Once, in my know-it-all youth, I declared that individuals own their fate. Grandpa agreed up to a point. A few, he said, are marked from the very start. And for those, Murphy’s Law wears iron boots. I had no idea what he meant until the day of his funeral, when the boots came a kicking...

Then if I made it 3PL:
Once, in Scott's know-it-all youth, he declared that individuals own their fate.
His grandfather agreed up to a point. A few, Grandpa said, are marked from the very start. And for those, Murphy’s Law wears iron boots. Scott had no idea what Grandpa meant until the day of the funeral, when the boots came a kicking...

Replacing prounouns isn't enough. I know, probably some would think it sounded hokey before, but I'm sure many would agree it sounds even worse in 3PL.

<I haven't really heard you say why you've decided to do this switch.>

Yes, but it separates the character from the narrative voice to some extent. So, for example, you might use the humor of the first-person narrative voice to build sympathy for a character who is otherwise relatively unsympathetic.

Another reason for using a first person's voice is to allow exaggeration, distortion, or outright lying in the narration. A third person narrator must add caveats to such things (or else the reader will end up distrusting the author.)

It's like ww says, there are limitations imposed by the very nature of what you're trying to do. Think of it as the line between comedy and tragedy. There are devices that you use in comedy that you simply cannot use effectively in tragedy, and vice versa. This isn't because some authority has made an arbitrary rule against it, it is because tragedy and comedy strive for fundamentally different reactions in the audience.

You can never get away from the fact that the evolution of first person fiction comes from an actual effort to delude the audience into believing that the story is true. Of course, in the modern form we put a note right at the front of the story saying that it isn't true and nobody is expected to actually believe it, yet the form is chosen for it's ability to convincingly create the illusion, and the reader will be affected by the depth and integrity of the illusion.

So any break in the illusion isn't just a departure from the form, it ruins the first person segments for the audience. Think for a moment about comedy that uses violation of the "fourth wall" to direct jokes at the audience in various ways. Now imagine trying to pull that narrative technique off in a serious drama. You see? It can be done, it has been done, and done very well. But it has to be done with great imagination and skill, or it simply fails.

As what I have now (not including the first draft):

(Chapter 1) First Person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon.

(Chapter 2) Third person limited. Antagonist Character: Pendaran (the one manipulating Scott Landon)

(Chapter 3) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon. Immediate aftermatch of said manipulation.

(Chapter 4) Third person limited. Character: Abillus. Both acting as a protagonist and a Antagonist. Monitors Scott Landon and looks into what went on between Scott and Pendaran.

(Chapter 5) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon. A week later. Pendaran abducts Scott.

(Chapter 6): Third person limited. Character: Abillus. On personal leave, buys gun to kill brother-in-law.

(Chapter 7): Third person limited. Character: Pendaran. Since Scott does not remember what happens during the course of the chapter, it is from Pendaran's POV.

I had planned to rework first draft chapters this way:

(Chapter 8) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon.

(Chapter 9) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon.

(Chapter 10) Third person limited. Abillus. Kills brother-in-law while his brother-in-law's partners are going to aprehend Scott.

(Chapter 11) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon. Scott is aprehended.

(Chapter 12) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon. Scott escapes.

(Chapter 13) Third person limited. Abillus. Has a chance to aprehended Scott, but not without revealing his crime, and so does not act.

(Chapter 14) First person. Protagonist. Main character: Scott Landon. Further adventures on the run.

For the second draft, I have not planned out past 14, though I except the story will follow the same plot as the first draft.

I don't really know why she did them that way, but I suspect is was because she felt closer to Lew Alton (who was the 1st person POV) than she did to Regis Hastur (whose chapters were told in 3rd person POV). Either that, or she wanted the reader to feel closer to Lew. <shrug>

It was interesting to read (as a writer) and it didn't bother me as a reader, and so far as I know, it worked just fine for her many fans.

The way she did it was to have separate chapters for Lew and Regis, and to alternate them. Also, most of the time in the novels, Lew and Regis were apart from each other and pursuing different, if simultaneous, goals.

And if so, is the third person narrator of the Abillus and Pendaran segments compatable with being Scott?

No, he never learns everything they do. In the rough draft, Abillus takes his secret (killing his BIL) to the grave.

Also, Scott dies, but his memories are perfectly recorded in something called the Memory Tree. His memories can be accessed by one of the 'good' guys.

Too, I was thinking he might have an existance as a split personality in the mind of the Chief antagonist, and he'd 'haunt' the antagonist in his dreams.

But I don't think either scenerio would be addressed in the WIP.

<And if so, is the third person narrator of the Abillus and Pendaran segments compatable with being Scott?>

Chris, who's telling the entire story? Who assembled the alternating POV accounts, and for what purpose? In other words, what is the reason the story exists in the first place?

We can see that Scott may simply want to tell his fantastic tale, as would anyone who experiences the extraordinary, but who is the force behind the third person sections? And how does this person (or persons) relate to Scott's first person sections? If you cannot satisfactorily answer that, then you've got a problem.

There are at least two superhuman beings, Hypersentients in the milieu. They are in the rough draft, but I'm editing out thier involvement because I think it was too akin to a Deus Ex Machina.

They could easliy be the compilers of the story, plucking the stories out the minds of the characters as they see fit.

One of the dangers of doing this though is that often a reader will become more attached to certain characters and find themselves trudging through a POV chapter of a character they don't care as much about.

Also, unless you mean that Pendaran and Abillus recorded their own stories in third person, don't call them their own 3P narrators. In a third person narrative, the characters referred to in third person are explicitly not the narrator. If it turns out that one of them is the narrator, then the narrator has been "shading the truth" during the entire story.

If you have a compiler, then that character need not be omniscient, the compiler need only have access to the primary accounts of the POV characters. Usually, each account would be in first person.

quote:

---

The protagonist has a more effective voice in first than in third, yet he is not omniscient.

---

This sounds rather non-specific. Why is this character so much more impressive in first person than in third? Is it because he has an inflated opinion of himself or something?

One person said:
"I like the changing point of view as well. I’m assuming it will alternate between first person with Scott and third person the rest of the time. I’ve read a couple of books like set that way."

It just occured to me yesterday and today I pulled it out the bookcase and checked: Illium.

One of the best science fiction books of the decade. Dan Simmons is just brillant. Of course, he hawks a cruel underlying philosophy underneath, but I'll let that slide.

Here is a good case of shifting first to third. The story interweaves three viewpoints:
(1) Hockenberry (told in first person)
(2) Daeman (told in third)
(3) Mahnmut (told in third)

No offense, but not terrible enough to prevent him from being in print. Not terrible enough to pick up a Hugo and a bunch other awards to boot. He's really one of the giants in the field.

I loved the Hyperion series, was let down by the last novel a bit. I was awed by Ilium. I don't think it's showing off by have first person and third person viewpoint characters.

I did. I count it as part of the same series as Hyperion. I liked it, though the last book was anticlimatic.

Remember, it's fiction!

I remember one person (not here) gave me feedback saying: "many of your readers
will disagree with your character's point of view on things and, understanding that it is also the authors point of view, will be turned off."

Evidently he thought the character's beliefs were my own and that I was trying to convince the readers of some point.

In fact, the majority of readers are likely to assume that what most writers write is autobiographical in some way--probably because they can't imagine anyone actually being able to make such stuff up. (Why else is the most common question asked of writers, "Where do you get your ideas?")

If you write something that "obviously" couldn't be autobiographical (like science fiction or fantasy), then the number of readers who think it is autobiographical decreases, but there are still those who will infer things about the author from the characters.

quote:

---

"many of your readers
will disagree with your character's point of view on things and, understanding that it is also the authors point of view, will be turned off."

---

If you replace "understanding" with "believing" then this is an entirely valid criticism of a text. Heck, it's still valid if you just leave that middle phrase out altogether. I've never had a problem separating authors from their characters. But you can't separate the characters from the story. If I don't like the hero, then I'm not going to be interested in the story unless I know that the "hero" is actually going to get it in the end.

This book is another example of mixing first and third. Doro has his 3PL sections, and Mary's sections are in first person. Sometimes Doro's and Mary's sections are *gasp* in the same chapter.

Across a Nightingale Floor
Grass for his pillow
Brilliance of the Moon

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573223328/104-3341785-7837522

Get this question out of your head. Don't slap a simplistic label on what you've done (or are trying to do) and then look around for successful stories on which you could slap a similar label. That does nothing for your story.

You need your story to work on its own merits, not on the basis of what you can contrive to use as a comparison. Editors don't read the entire text of everything that's submitted, but they do usually read the entire text of anything they might buy before buying it. So it doesn't help your case to say "Butler/King/Mitchner" did what you're doing in this text. The publicist can worry about how to sell your story to people that don't read the entire thing before buying it, after the editor decides that your story is good enough, regardless of what it may superficially resemble.

There is no special "trick" to using multiple POVs with different relationships to an overall narrator of the entire text. You just make sure that it serves the needs of telling the story. That means actually paying attention to the effect that the actual text (rather than a theory about what the text is) has on actual readers that have read the text and are willing to let you know how it affected them.

This is called learning from critiques rather than arguing with them. Remember, the purpose of writing is communication. That means that there is a way to judge success or failure of a work, by whether the techniques used in the text have the desired effects on the reader. Now, I'm not speaking to what the content of your writing should be, that's up to you (and your audience). I'm speaking of things like tense, vocabulary, person, POV, grammer, spelling...all that stuff. In a critique, I may sometimes mention that I don't agree with the core idea communicated by the story or may note that it seems the core ideas are poorly communicated (or weren't there in the first place). That's to give the writer feedback on whether the core ideas that were supposed to be in the text got transmited successfully, if I think that the writer is saying something and it turns out that the writer didn't want to say anything of the sort, that's important. But once I'm clear on what the writer is trying to say in the story, I'll leave it at that. What you want to say as a writer and artist is up to you.

But saying it effectively depends on being willing to accept that your work has no value aside from other people's subjective reactions to the actual text. As a writer, you should always be thinking about how the audience will react to what you've written. And you need to pay attention to differences between the reactions you desired and the reactions your writing actually elicited.

The POV character can't be packing his car at the end of one chapter, and at work five days later next time we see him, without a jarring effect. A blip of narritive summary has to be employed. I can't take for granted the reader will fill in the blanks all the time.