First vs. third person
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Re: First vs. third person
A much bigger issue though is the overall story structure, and here I have tried something I dont think is used often, but which is easier if I use both third and first person. Usually tradition says you have one or at most two or "main" characters. So, if you have a single main character, or point of view, then you have to tell the whole tale from their eyes. This is very hard with stories with several plot threads, which I enjoy doing. For some reason, I have always told tales from several points of view, different plot lines intermingling throughout or at the end. The choice for first or third person is a judgement, and I know it may confuse or irritate readers, but some come to like it, and others don't. Tradition in writing, an unwritten rule, seems to be, no more than a single first person thread in a tale being told, and this becomes the reader's expectation, but I ask, why? In the case of Adrift you could say I don't have a "main" character but many equal characters, all tied to the ship, with their own story. The ship is the main force, or character, perhaps. This structure breaks traditions, and standards, I know, but I like working with it and I think it works. I am using the same structure with the next book in the series, which will be a much longer tale, twice as long, wrapping all up, again from the point of view of several characters. And, when the series is done, readers will have come to know not just Sarah and Myra and Sergei but many others, an entire world, many lives, all different, just like in the real world....
And, with several characters, it seems to me third person always would become difficult and boring, just as first person for all of them feels a bit self involved and difficult. I'd like to think a mixture might be more interesting, more creative, and eventually readers will come to understand the structure, and the flow. The story is told with a linear timeline, ie each chapter lies at the same time or after the one before it, but each has a different point of view. The reader should come to see and trust that the flow of the tale is linear, and the heading with the names makes it easier (I would like to be able to write without naming the points of view, that is, write well enough so it is very clear to the reader anyway, and I may try that, but then the reader will spend a bit of energy trying to place who is speaking and this take the reader out of the flow of the tale), so they know that the tale will continue and the various threads will tell the story but from different perspectives. And, in the end, hopefully, when all is done the story is meatier, richer, more detailed, that way. Imagine blindfolded people feeling an elephant, the story about many people having their own perspective of one thing. The one thing is the overall arc of the tale, in Adrift, in the next book, but each character has their own arc, too. In my opinion, each character needs to have their own challenge, or dilemma, or story arc, linked or separate from the overall tale. In Adrift, it is Pete's dilemma with Sam, or Louise's belief Larry is having an affair - neither linked to the burned ship but key. If a character doesn't have an arc, the reader won't care about that character, all the character will be is a vehicle to "tell" the tale, and that is deadly. It's more complicated, and may require more work from the reader, but many characters can be much more interesting if each character has an arc that is interesting, such that a reader will want, when they see that character's name on the chapter, to know what will happen with that person, and will see that shift from one point of view to another not as an unhappy change but as a return to another story line they are carrying too....not sure this very long note makes sense, but it's the best I can do....
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Personally, I liked how the narrative is written. I didn't find it confusing because each chapter was dedicated to other characters and their dilemma. I can understand why Steve is given first person, he was there when the ship caught fire, and I get why Myra is first person, she leads the manhunt to find her father.
The change of POV really didn't bother at all, it sorta felt like a change of the scenes when you watch movies. I think what the author did was choose who had the most insight at the moment and depending on that, plus their character determined if they would get a chapter.
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