Do you think a story with two different POVs is bad?

[Orpheus]

I'm struggling a bit with an idea I have for my next story. I'm planning on writing a thriller/erotic/mystery story set on a deserted island. The setting is one that's been done to death, but I've always loved books like the not so subtle Island by Richard Laymon that take place on, you guessed it, deserted islands.

My problem is this. I want to write in the first person for the protagonist, but I'd also like to have some scenes where readers discover information that the protagonist isn't aware of yet, via third person scenes. I don't want to achieve this by having different viewpoint characters all using 1st person, because in first person there would be no way to generate mystery by hiding character's motives.

Do you think having the protagonist's scenes in first person and other scenes in third person would be too jarring?

 

[saktongmanyak]

As a reader, I don't mind POV switches and I don't think it's 'bad'. A disclaimer or a note that you're switching POVs before the chapter starts might make it less jarring for those readers who do expect a fixed POV though. Still, if you condition your readers that you'll be switching POVs every now and then, I think they won't mind it in the long run (as long as the POV switches provide insight that sticking to the MC's POV won't).

As a writer, I also do it when I feel like a different POV would be necessary to flesh out a part of the story or a character. I'd rather the reader find a bit of discomfort from a POV change, rather than finding a part of the story extremely exposition heavy or boring just because I have to play catch up with info that I as the writer and other characters knew, but MC didn't.

Based on my experience, most readers won't seem to mind. The first time I did a POV switch from MC, to one of my female characters (where I mistakenly kept the second person POV), I had one comment that asked if anybody else thought the POV switch was jarring. I understood where they were coming from since it ruined immersion (having referred to MC as 'You') and having kept it for the female character as well, made 'You' two different people. The weird thing is, the chapter where I switched to a female character's 2nd person POV is also my most liked chapter out of the 180+ chapters I've published here on CHYOA. So... I don't know what to think anymore lol.

In any case, after that, I stuck to 3rd person POV when I switch POVs, and readers didn't seem to mind. I think even if you switch from 1st person MC to 1st person diff character won't be too jarring either, since the reader understands that when the character says 'I', they know it's not referring to the them, but the character narrating.

 

[TheLowKing]

Viewing events from multiple perspectives is totally normal in literature, and readers are definitely not put off by it. Switching between first person and third person is a little unusual, though, I don't think I've ever seen that. If you're writing in the past tense, one way you could justify that decision is by presenting your story as the protagonist's autobiography, and act like they didn't hear about the third person's thoughts and experiences until long after, using phrases like "What I didn't know at the time was that Mary...".

I agree with saktongmanyak that you should make it clear to your readers that this is what you're doing. I dislike author's notes during chapters of your story, though, they break my immersion too much. I think you can definitely get away with an unconventional style choice like this without big bold disclaimers. If you do your first perspective switch early enough, when readers are still forming their expectations for the story, that'll show them what to expect from your story, and it'll work just fine.

 

[IWannaSpankGirls]

I've got a POV of seven different characters in one of my stories so two should be fine though I always
start every perspective switch with;

• Gina's P.O.V.
• Susan's P.O.V.
• Marel's P.O.V.
• Marcie's P.O.V.
• Lindsey's P.O.V.
• Rina's P.O.V.
• Cutie's P.O.V.

You should probably avoid having the same scene told from that many points of view. I did this before and I found the same double blowjob cuckquean scene being told four times (one for each girl giving the blowjob, one for the girl watching while wearing a diaper and one for the girly looking boy receiving the blowjob).

 

[Orpheus]

Thanks for your answers. My question was more directly about switching between a first person and third person writing POV (I and My vs She and Her), as I agree it is perfectly normal to have other narrators in a story.

It's comforting to hear that some of you have done them before or think they can work with proper setup. Perhaps I'll just give it a go and see what happens. The weirdest thing about my planned POV switch is going from first person to third person omniscient rather than third person limited in an effort to keep readers out of other character's thought processes, but I'm optimistic after reading your replies. thanks!

 

[Dissonant Soundtrack]

The weirdest thing about my planned POV switch is going from first person to third person omniscient rather than third person limited in an effort to keep readers out of other character's thought processes, but I'm optimistic after reading your replies. thanks!

As you noted in the OP, you have be aware of the disconnect between what the audience knows and what the 1st person character knows. Many CHYOA stories can go long periods between updates. And if that's your pace, just pay note of how much you're asking your audience to remember.

 

[Orpheus]

As you noted in the OP, you have be aware of the disconnect between what the audience knows and what the 1st person character knows. Many CHYOA stories can go long periods between updates. And if that's your pace, just pay note of how much you're asking your audience to remember.

Good point. On my current story I've pumped out just under 60 mid-sized chapters for the main branch in a month, but there's no guarantee that I'll be writing so often all the time. If my updates are slower for my new story, I might try to cover that base with optional recap chapters? One thing I'll do for sure is keep a Scrivener list of things the protagonist knows and things he doesn't. Maybe just balancing that list to be a reasonable amount of things the reader has to remember would be enough.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

To answer the title thread question, yes, it is.

If there would be some kind of Big Book of No-s, that would be in it.

Then again, this is Chyoa and that book doesn't exist, so do what you feel like.

PoV changes can happen, of course, even in published literature but they have to be handled in the right way.
Let's begin by saying that changing from two or three or even more first person PoV of different characters is more ok than switching from first person to the third and vice versa.
Narrative devices to change povs are usually found letters or diaries or stuff like that.

You said you wanted to write in first person and that you want to write a horror kind of story. Well, changing to the third person to explain facts of the world would be a major immersion break.
Maybe you should just go with third person from the start, it's not that bad really.

 

[parkingdiscount]

POV switches are actually not as bad if you can write it naturally, the most important is having motive and consistency. If you are going to switch only three chapters out of forty, don't bother with it.
The reader needs to be able to pick up on the switch naturally and don't feel like it breaks their reading tempo.

You need a reason to use the switch as well, I wrote a non-Erotic fiction about a zombie outbreak on WP back in the day and I used first person for all chapters that follow the survivor MC to get a feeling of intimacy and self-preservation. Then for all chapters with the clean up squads sent in by the governments they are done in third person because they know much more about their environment and they work more as a cohesive unit than an individual.

From your post it seems you are looking for a way to give readers information the MC would not know through TPP, so one way you can do it is enforcing it from the start with a format that users can familiarize with.

Example:
Jack was a smart boy who always aced his exams and had his peers' admiration. Yet little did he know that his new teacher was a demon in disguise... <-- TPP world building/ scene transitioner

"BLABKASDBLKASBDA " Jack said as he slammed his face into a thick math book. <-- FPP content
"BAIDSKJB" I said as I slammed my face .. <--- FPP EDIT

 

[Orpheus]

You need a reason to use the switch as well, I wrote a non-Erotic fiction about a zombie outbreak on WP back in the day and I used first person for all chapters that follow the survivor MC to get a feeling of intimacy and self-preservation. Then for all chapters with the clean up squads sent in by the governments they are done in third person because they know much more about their environment and they work more as a cohesive unit than an individual.

This is a VERY similar situation to what I was talking about. In my story there will be a character or set of characters (haven't decided yet) that are on a different part of the island, far away from the protagonist. The point of having these split character groups is because the character(s) not with the protagonist are providing insight into the inherent danger of the island to keep suspense elevated while the protagonist's group is introduced and aren't in immediate danger.

 

[JohnTitor45]

POV switches are actually not as bad if you can write it naturally, the most important is having motive and consistency. If you are going to switch only three chapters out of forty, don't bother with it.
The reader needs to be able to pick up on the switch naturally and don't feel like it breaks their reading tempo.

You need a reason to use the switch as well, I wrote a non-Erotic fiction about a zombie outbreak on WP back in the day and I used first person for all chapters that follow the survivor MC to get a feeling of intimacy and self-preservation. Then for all chapters with the clean up squads sent in by the governments they are done in third person because they know much more about their environment and they work more as a cohesive unit than an individual.

From your post it seems you are looking for a way to give readers information the MC would not know through TPP, so one way you can do it is enforcing it from the start with a format that users can familiarize with.

Example:
Jack was a smart boy who always aced his exams and had his peers' admiration. Yet little did he know that his new teacher was a demon in disguise... <-- TPP world building/ scene transitioner

"BLABKASDBLKASBDA " Jack said as he slammed his face into a thick math book. <-- FPP content

With Persona, I've been sticking with just one P.O.V. character in 1st person. However, I am planning on doing one with both the male and female characters from Persona 3. I'm kinda wondering if I should stick to 1st person and switch between the two or if I should do that path in 3rd person. I do use customisable names for the main character and an advantage with 1st person is that you don't have to put the character's custom name down all the first.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

From your post it seems you are looking for a way to give readers information the MC would not know through TPP, so one way you can do it is enforcing it from the start with a format that users can familiarize with.

Example:
Jack was a smart boy who always aced his exams and had his peers' admiration. Yet little did he know that his new teacher was a demon in disguise... <-- TPP world building/ scene transitioner

"BLABKASDBLKASBDA " Jack said as he slammed his face into a thick math book. <-- FPP content

Hmm, I think that's still third person, technically.
You see, he, his, are third persons pronouns and adjectives.

But yeah, he could totally do something like that.

I'm not convinced it would be as good if you really transitioned into first-person without the right narrative device.

 

[wilparu]

I sure hope it's not a huge no-no, because I do it.

But, sparingly. As you say, different narrators is one thing, and when I do that I put the name of the character at the front of a chapter when the POV *character* changes in that way. But changing tense and/or *story* point of view is trickier, and should be done sparingly.

**Definitely** don't do it mid-chapter, one story on CHYOA I really like had a writer with a really fun idea but they clearly didn't proof read or edit their story at all and it would occasionally have the wrong POV person in a random paragraph, like it was a first person narrated story and for parts of a chapter it would refer to the narrator in the third person. Made it actually really confusing to read!

The best example I have is much of one of my stories is second person, which I don't love but all the other branches in that story were done that way. But I have interlude chapters that break from 2nd person to an omniscient third person from the point of view of characters that are not present with the main protagonist (the 'you' since this is CHYOA). I only put a few in, keep them vague and make them very different stylistically from the normal story. I think if it was 50/50 between a first person and third person story it would just be confusing and potentially distracting, but having the occasional short detour is ok in my book.

Granted, the weird sci-fi interlude chapters get less likes... lol. *But* in another branch I submitted 3rd person POV from a different character and those ones were just as 'liked' as the chapters around them, so maybe it was the sci-fi weirdness not the POV change.

 

[insertnamehere]

Do you think a story with two different POVs is bad?

Yes. As SeriousBrainDamage said, this is one of the more unforgivable of writing crimes. If there were a Seven (non-trivial) Deadly Sins of Writing, changing perspective - at least without a very strong framing device - would be a contender.

I don't see any reason your story needs first person, and would highly recommend using third person limited instead. I went over my thoughts on POVs here quite extensively.

Switching between characters is never really an issue by itself, but it is also never really a justification to drop a nuclear bomb on your story's flow.

 

[parkingdiscount]

Hmm, I think that's still third person, technically.
You see, he, his, are third persons pronouns and adjectives.

But yeah, he could totally do something like that.

I'm not convinced it would be as good if you really transitioned into first-person without the right narrative device.

Yea not sure why I accidentally wrote the FPP example in third XD, fixed.

 

[parkingdiscount]

I think at the end of the day doing something unorthodox in your writing COULD work and turn out great, IF you have a good baseline knowledge of what you are doing and execute it properly.

If you watched the video Hans Zimmer did about his Dune soundtrack, he took the initiative to break off from the norm of opera soundtrack in scifi to do something more alien in essence. Sometimes media take a very sharp turn and accomplish something people would cry out as a sin against the medium and they do it well and people remember them for it, but don't do it just because you think you should, without proper understanding.

An amateur switching perspectives in writing could come off as confusing and badly written,
A professional switching perspectives in writing would come off as nuanced and innovative if they do it right.

Obviously we are all pretty amateur writers in comparison (Most of us), but it helps to do some exploration in writing to learn. What you should avoid is having the same character switch perspectives multiple times with no reason other than its 'cool'.

 

[Orpheus]

I think at the end of the day doing something unorthodox in your writing COULD work and turn out great, IF you have a good baseline knowledge of what you are doing and execute it properly.

Sometimes media take a very sharp turn and accomplish something people would cry out as a sin against the medium and they do it well and people remember them for it, but don't do it just because you think you should, without proper understanding.

An amateur switching perspectives in writing could come off as confusing and badly written,
A professional switching perspectives in writing would come off as nuanced and innovative if they do it right.

What you should avoid is having the same character switch perspectives multiple times with no reason other than its 'cool'.

Oh for sure, I'm no professional lol

I did something unorthodox in a creative writing class in college back in the day (for what THAT'S worth lmao) where I switched character perspectives every paragraph or so in 3rd person limited as two characters had a conversation. The professor was at least impressed with it enough to pull me aside and tell that she liked the smooth transitions between viewpoint characters, and I was always pretty pleased with that assessment!

A very small excerpt of that story to give an example:

{It occurred to her he might not speak her language, but she was at a loss as she knew only her own. "Can you understand me?" she asked.
The man turned and looked at her. Or perhaps through her. His eyes were distant, as if seeing something entirely different from herself. He nodded once, and just stood there with that far off look in his eyes.
"You extinguish life with every step you take. This forest is under my protection, and all the life within it. I cannot stand your carelessness."
After she spoke, the man turned and continued walking without a word. What did it matter if the forest died? He would not slow his pace for some wild woman and her delusions, regardless of her beauty.
[Action scene happens from the man's perspective but it's too long to write here]
"What are you? Let me down!" the man yelled.
"I am a Priestess of the Forest. The last one."
The forest needed her help, and so she helped it. This man had not offended her in anyway. There was no anger. Only patience that far exceeded a normal human's.}

And so on and so forth, for the length of the short story. The reason I call it third person limited instead of omniscient is because only those two characters' thoughts and feelings are described, while two ally characters and an antagonist who appear later are entirely excluded from receiving internal narration. It was kind of a shared, intertwining third person narrative.

Not sure why I felt the need to share all that, except to say that I've made some odd writing choices before. Forgive my indulgences.

That said, my main reason for wanting to write in 1st person for this new story I'm thinking of is only because I want more experience with 1st person POV while not being limited from seeing other goings-on on the island, so it's not exactly a creatively inspired reason. I suppose I'll relegate myself to the norm (and I actually saw a site rule in the Chyoa guide that said not to change writing POVs since I last posted here, so I guess I better not haha)

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

First-person is usually a told story, a chronicle. If you want immersion for your reader, the typical person used is the second, which is really popular on Chyoa in fact.

Yet, if you still persist in doing first-person, for whatever reason, you should consider that the person telling the story in first-person could have in the present a different knowledge of the facts than that he had at the time the things were happening.

That is to say that the "I" in question, could be the same explaining the "world" in retrospect. Now that he's telling you the story, he knows stuff, back then, he didn't.
So if you want, every now and then, you could just let him pause the tale and explain things.

I don't know if this suits your needs, but I would still advise against a third>>>first person switch and back, despite all the arguments about breaking the rules, which I really don't want to put myself into.

 

[Orpheus]

First-person is usually a told story, a chronicle. If you want immersion for your reader, the typical person used is the second, which is really popular on Chyoa in fact.

Yet, if you still persist in doing first-person, for whatever reason, you should consider that the person telling the story in first-person could have in the present a different knowledge of the facts than that he had at the time the things were happening.

That is to say that the "I" in question, could be the same explaining the "world" in retrospect. Now that he's telling you the story, he knows stuff, back then, he didn't.
So if you want, every now and then, you could just let him pause the tale and explain things.

I don't know if this suits your needs, but I would still advise against a third>>>first person switch and back, despite all the arguments about breaking the rules, which I really don't want to put myself into.

Yeah, now that I know it's against the rules that pretty much kills this little experiment dead, but I appreciate your well-thought out replies.

I may still do first person, mostly because one of my favorite desert island narratives is in first person (Island by Richard Laymon) though it's a flat out horror/gore fest. That, and as I said, I almost never write in the first person, and experimentation keeps the ol' cogs spinning. I do also have a third story I'm currently typing out in 2nd person to see how I like it. It'll be my first ever attempt with that!

 

[gene.sis]

and I actually saw a site rule in the Chyoa guide that said not to change writing POVs since I last posted here, so I guess I better not haha

There's no CHYOA Rule against that.
The Rules are shown on the Rules page of the CHYOA Guide.

If you refer to the guidelines on the first page of the Guide, they are only recommendations. (As mentioned in the parentheses.)

I'd also consider the "Point of View" part of it as "Don't change the POV just because you prefer writing that POV." (And tense...)

you should consider that the person telling the story in first-person could have in the present a different knowledge of the facts than that he had at the time the things were happening.

Using 1st person doesn't necessarily mean you have to use past tense.
You could very well combine 1st person with present tense.
(Though even with past tense, the storyteller doesn't have to know the course of the yet and if they do, they don't have to reveal it to the reader or could hold back parts of it.)