Speaking of POV...

[House of Mustard]

So, SE's other thread reminded me that I ought to ask ya'll's opinion.  (I used ya'll's there simply because I like words with more than one apostrophe.)

I'm working on the sequel to Awake right now (which, granted, none of you have read), and I'm having serious POV issues.  In my head I always planned it that the first book would be from one person's POV, and in book 2 I would add a second POV character.  But then I went and wrote book 1 in first person, and I'm stuck wondering (a) do I want book 2 to have two first person POVs? or (b) do I want book 2 to have one first person pov and one third person? or (c) do I re-write the plot and leave only one POV?

This has had me stymied for several months.  I written buckets of stuff, trying different ideas, but I change my mind several times a week.

Any ideas?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I get really irked when anyone switches out of 1st person PoV. IF they're never in it, I have no problem switching between different 3rd person perspectives. BUt if you start in 1st person, stick with THAT guy. That's the narrator. He can't tell me anything about events he's not present to behold. There's a running story on The Quantum Muse, The King's Forresters. They're on chapter 16 or something. But anyway, the narrator alters between the 1st person perspective and thoughts of the hero, and also the 3rd person view of the villain, not going as much into his thoughts, but a little. It throws me into conniptions. Because it seems like when you say "I" you're establishing that the narrator and this character are the same (which is why your first person POV character can't die in stories that don't involve post-mortem adventures... not that it stops Piers Anthony). If the narrator is one of the characters, then he can't tell us anything about anything he doesn't witness, unless another character tells him about it.

I can see it being LESS frustrating to have two characters telling us their story in first-person, but it would still be confusing without some VERY obvious device to communicate who it is that's speaking. Maybe even just putting a name in bold at the top of the page. While it is less frustrating, my advice is still to re-plot with just one PoV character.

[House of Mustard]

Maybe even just putting a name in bold at the top of the page.

That's what I've been doing now, although I haven't let anyone read it.  I've also written a little something in the prologue, kind of explaining the two different points of view.

Here's the problem with cutting the plot: Book One has already been accepted, with the story mapped out for the next two books in mind.  By cutting one POV out of book 2, it would force the series into four books instead of three.  Very problematic...

[EUOL]

I actually like multi-first-person-viewpoint books.  They've never confused me, though the authors almost always switch back and forth in a very regular manner.  (ie, one character, then the other, then back, and so on.)  Putting the names at the top of the chapters is a good suggestion too.

DRACULA is written in three or four first-person VP's, and it was never confusing--in fact, the rotating viewpoints is probably the most interesting part of the book.  He does it through journals and letters, and he always just gives the source at the top of the section (ie "Mary's Journal, March 12th.)  

[House of Mustard]

That's good to know.  I've been looking for examples of each, but had trouble finding many.  Maybe I'll send out samples to some of you guys, and you can tell me if it works.

[Mistress of Darkness]

I'll chime in and say that I like two 1st person POV idea as well. You may want to experiment with naming devices (like the letter/journal idea) and see which one would be easiest to incorporate into the first book.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

The two first person perspectives, like I said, is much easier. Here's an example of mixing 1st and 3rd though: http://www.quantummuse.com/kf1.html

The writing on the whole is slightly above average, but not magnificent. The only real qualm I have is the narrator, who for several pages speaks as the captain of a forester unit, suddenly starts telling us about characters that the captain has never met, and about events he is never told about, nor indeed has any method of learning about. Very annoying.  Makes the narrator unreasonably unreliable to no end.

If you don't want to replot, go with the two first persons. I appear to be the only person who's annoyed at all.

[stacer]

Two examples I can think of in children's lit that do the switching between POVs. Sharon Creech (who has won the Newbery) has done it several times, but the one I remember most is in a book called The Wanderer, in which the two POVs are necessary for the reader to have the whole picture--the characters don't understand the whole picture till the very end, so their character development depends on that POV switch. This one is done in two 1st-person narratives, and each chapter labels the character who's speaking, like EUOL said.

The other one is When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park, which tells the story of two Korean siblings, a boy and a girl, during the Japanese occupation (based on the stories of her parents, which is a fascinating story itself). Anyway, it's a little harder to deal with in this story because one character, the girl, is 1st person past tense, and the brother is 1st person present tense.

Yet it works for this story, because it helps with characterization. The brother lives in the present, while the sister seems to be telling her story from the perspective of having had time to reflect on the story. And it helps differentiate the characters, so you know if it's in present, it's Tae-Yul, and if it's in past, it's Sun-hee (though the chapters here are also labeled by speaker, too).

[stacer]

I think the biggest thing is, with this device, you just have to be sure the reader knows who is speaking. Other than that, I don't have a problem with switching POV.