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In my novel, the MC starts out as a boy who is too young to understand what is going on around him, but over the course of the novel he grows up and the story truly becomes his. I've decided to tell the story both from his point of view and from his mother's so that the things that happen in the beginning of the story will make sense. Do you guys think that this will make my story too choppy from switching back and forth between them?
Posts: 132 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I generally start chapters with the boy's POV to give a general feel for what he's going through and then switch over to tell the rest of the chapter through the mother's POV. I do put a break between the two.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I can see this as a story where the answers of the childs perspective will come from his mother. The change of paragraph could simply come from different chapters. The most recent book I've read that did this was "Eldest". The POV went between Eragon and his cousin, a few chapters each here until they finally meet in the end of the book. Are you trying to do something like that?
Posts: 384 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I think it sounds like it could work -- write it and see, is my advice. You can always revise later. As long as you include the boy's PoV in the beginning of each chapter, the reader won't be surprised when it turns out to be his story in the end.
Posts: 9 | Registered: Dec 2005
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My gut reaction is that it sounds like a bad reason to use multiple points of view, although there is no way I could say for sure without reading it. (And even then it would be my opinion.) First, it makes me wonder if you're starting the story in the right place. Typically, stories begin where the protagonist gets involved in the conflict. If he's too young to understand what's going on, then even if his childhood is relevant *background*, it may not be the best place to start.
Alsohow important is this mother? Is her role solely that of a translator? If so, I think this would annoy me.
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mikemunsil - Yes, there is a logical progression. The POVs go in chronological order. I start out with the boy's general perspective, then switch to the mother's perspective to show how she is dealing with the things going on around her (and thus give the reader more understanding of the big picture).
Survivor - I feel that in order to understand my main character as he truly is, the reader must see the things he sees and follow him, even as a small boy. Also, one of the main themes of the story is the wide range of cultures that people can be born into. Several of those cultures appear when he is young and have a big impact on him.
Leigh - Thanks for the tip. I *think* that as long as I am consistent in putting the boy's POV first in the chapter and then have the remainder as the mother's, I should do alright. I guess it's probably just a matter of having someone read it and tell me what they think.
Nyna - That's what I was going for. We'll see.
Christine - The point of the mother is not to be a translator. She's a very important character on her own. The only reason that she's not just as much a main character is that she sacrifices her life for her son part way through the story. But I suppose the beginning of the story is almost more hers than anyone else's.
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I;ve mentioned this elsewhere, but if you want the deep end of the pool in viewpoint switching, read Donaldson's Forbidden Space series: The Real Story, Forbidden Knowledge, A Dark and Hungry God Arises, Chaos and Order, and This Day All Gods Die.
In the first few books, he switches viewpoints between one or two characters, and then only after several chapters. There are events going on over a large area of the galaxy, so there's no way to maintain a single viewpoint.
But, as the series progresses and the action picks up momentum, he starts switching viewpoints quicker and quicker, and switching between more and more characters. In the last two books, he's switching viewpoints in nearly every chapter, sometimes to secondary or even minor characters. There are so many things happening in so many places it would be impossible to tell them all from a single viewpoint, and the switching actually helps convey the crisis that is developing and how things seem to be just a whisker from spinning completely out of control.
Donaldson used a very simple device to keep things from getting confused. Every chapter was written strictly from one character's viewpoint, and he placed the name of the character as the title of each chapter so the reader knew exactly whose viewpoint it was.
It's one of the few times I've seen this pulled off.
This novel starts out with the story of a woman who ultimatly dies as a result of her involvement with the plot. It then becomes the story of the woman's son who picks up the cause and brings the plot to its final conclusion.
Thought: Don't use the son's point of view at all until his mother dies and he becomes the main character. Make it her story. Dare to kill off your heroine halfway through the novel. Who would expect that? The son should be an active character beforehand from the mom's point of view but then he comes in full force partway through after her death and carries the story on his back from then on. It may even be a little daring but I think it could be a great affect.
quote:[T]he reader must see the things he sees and follow him, even as a small boy.
In that case, tell his entire story from his own POV. If you want to tell his mother's story, you can do that in a separate book (hey, you'll want these to be two books eventually, might as well get that clear now).
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