Changing Characters' POVs

[cherrystark]

@Penni @joannekwan Same! 3rd person omniscient is a great way to do POV changes, I prefer them. IF we have to see a repeat scene, I prefer it like how Leverage does it where we see some twist we didn't see the first time.

[paracosmosfiction]

Third-person writing feels a lot freer to me in terms of perspective-changing. I find if I write the scene correctly, I can change the perspective from one character to another fairly organically within the writing. Ultimately, whenever I write a scene, the first question I ask myself upon reading back over it is "Will this confuse my readers?" Fortunately, I have friends and family to fall back on if I'm ever not sure about a scene and need to have them read it to make sure it makes sense.

As far as first-person goes, I feel like part of the charm of writing from the first-person perspective is that we only see things from that one character's perspective. This means we as the readers are only as aware of the story unfolding in front of us as the narrator is. That said if you want to offer a first-person perspective whilst also maintaining the freedom of perspective of a third person writing you could always just insert an actual 'Narrator Character' into your writing, who tells the story whilst also being a character in the story. Lemony Snicket is the most famous example of this I can think of.

[alexlcuri07]

I completely agree. Actually, seeing ~X-Name POV~ at the top of a chapter, especially if its followed up with first person is one of those things that will make me put a story down.

I have seen interesting variations on this though. One of my favorite book series (The House of Night novels by PC and Kristen Cast) was written in first person. However when they switched to multiple POVs several books into the series, the MC was still written in 1st person while the other cast member chapters were written in 3rd. I was surprised at how much I didn't hate the transition and preferred it over them trying to make all the other character chapters in 1st person POV.

Personally I write 3rd person, multiple POV but I try to make each character have a unique inner voice, and I rarely switch between character POVs within one chapter.

[cherrystark]

The Mary Russell books are the same way. Whenever Mary is telling the story, it's always 1st person. Whenever Sherlock, Watson, or any other character needs to present their piece of the narrative, it's always 3rd person. With that, there is always some explanation of the shift like letters, a person reading a diary, etc.

[Arterrex]

Changing POV when writing 1st person is probably a bad idea in almost all cases. It kind of betrays the point of writing in 1st person in the first place which is to tell the story from a particular characters POV and give the reader an intimacy with them and the way they think. I think it can be done but it's probably very difficult to pull off correctly and probably not something you will find done well by beginner writers.

Changing POV when writing 3rd person, however, seems pretty normal depending on the kind of story you are writing. Some stories obviously benefit from it more than others.

[carafox2121]

I love switching in first person POV, but I will say it took me a long time to figure out how to do it in a way that felt right to me. Admittedly, I do start off by putting the name at the top, but then I try to make sure the personality of the character shines through. Typically, I like to have at least 2 characters that I switch between and every now and again I will sprinkle in another person. Kind of like when a show reveals something but only the audience knows. And whenever I have any scene overlaps it usually reveals something that wasn't revealed to the main character or shows the emotion of the opposite character in the scene. I don't do that too often because it does feel a tad repetitive when it's overdone.

I have written in third person, but just couldn't quite get the feel I was looking for. I can see how third person omniscient can benefit storytelling, it's just not the style that draws me personally. Like, I don't mind reading it, but writing it is just not my go-to.