Your protagonist's POV matters!
Author Alison Sinclair kindly gave me her permission to reprint a part of an interview, regarding her SF book Legacies (see my review of the book) because I think the advice she gives there is valid for many writers.
I keep struggling with the character's POV in my own novels, so talking about her work process is really interesting.
The "dumb" thing she refers, for the past-present interweaved, has been used by others, but it distracted me in Legacies, even if it is a good way to stretch the suspense!
The "good" thing, keeping to one POV, I concur with, even if I find it difficult.
****extract**** Alison Sinclair speaking!***********
In retrospect, I did two dumb things and two smart thing in my first novel.
Dumb things (ie, things I wasn't developed enough to do): writing a quest novel, and using that past-present interleaved; structure that Ursula Le Guin made work so beautifully in The Dispossessed. (which was her, what, sixth? seventh? novel. See what I mean about inadvertently overambitious). I didn't realize until a year or so after Legacies came out where I'd got it from, and why I was so wedded to it.
Smart things I did: keeping to a single viewpoint, and having a character I had deliberately written as attentive and highly perceptive. Sometimes, wrestling with the need to convey something essential via a viewpoint character for whom it's not in character to NOTICE that, I miss Lian.
Quest plots - frequently the first plot an SF&F writer tries - are not as easy as they look: certain choices have to be made to ensure the quest plot gets and keeps its narrative drive and doesn't become picaresque (an editorial comment about an early draft of Legacies) or degenerate into a travelogue.
I were writing a quest, even now, I'd make sure that what was being sought and who was seeking it were established in the first chapter, and not lose sight of that for a moment. I'm still not sure enough in my plotting to do the man/woman goes off all unknowing and finds his/her destiny on the way.
I was unwittingly smart enough to establish the quest in the beginning of Legacies' frontstory, interspersing it with the interleaved backstory in which Lian had to find his mission. Erien in Throne Price may have been lacking certain crucial information, but he knew exactly what he wanted to do when he arrived on Gelion. Which put him on a collision course with other peoples' agendas.
(...)
Again, writers have pulled off the reluctant, foot-dragging protagonist wonderfully, but I find life much easier if a character wants something and goes after it (even if it's the wrong thing for them - or maybe especially if so).
Lian climbing over the wall in Legacies, throwing himself into the path of the story, was a wonderfully liberating moment. Once he'd fallen in with the modern Burdanians, he was committed to deception, decision, and action. (...)
****************end of extract****************
Another interesting blog post from Alison about plot and editors can be followed here
I keep struggling with the character's POV in my own novels, so talking about her work process is really interesting.
The "dumb" thing she refers, for the past-present interweaved, has been used by others, but it distracted me in Legacies, even if it is a good way to stretch the suspense!
The "good" thing, keeping to one POV, I concur with, even if I find it difficult.
****extract**** Alison Sinclair speaking!***********
In retrospect, I did two dumb things and two smart thing in my first novel.
Dumb things (ie, things I wasn't developed enough to do): writing a quest novel, and using that past-present interleaved; structure that Ursula Le Guin made work so beautifully in The Dispossessed. (which was her, what, sixth? seventh? novel. See what I mean about inadvertently overambitious). I didn't realize until a year or so after Legacies came out where I'd got it from, and why I was so wedded to it.
Smart things I did: keeping to a single viewpoint, and having a character I had deliberately written as attentive and highly perceptive. Sometimes, wrestling with the need to convey something essential via a viewpoint character for whom it's not in character to NOTICE that, I miss Lian.
Quest plots - frequently the first plot an SF&F writer tries - are not as easy as they look: certain choices have to be made to ensure the quest plot gets and keeps its narrative drive and doesn't become picaresque (an editorial comment about an early draft of Legacies) or degenerate into a travelogue.
I were writing a quest, even now, I'd make sure that what was being sought and who was seeking it were established in the first chapter, and not lose sight of that for a moment. I'm still not sure enough in my plotting to do the man/woman goes off all unknowing and finds his/her destiny on the way.
I was unwittingly smart enough to establish the quest in the beginning of Legacies' frontstory, interspersing it with the interleaved backstory in which Lian had to find his mission. Erien in Throne Price may have been lacking certain crucial information, but he knew exactly what he wanted to do when he arrived on Gelion. Which put him on a collision course with other peoples' agendas.
(...)
Again, writers have pulled off the reluctant, foot-dragging protagonist wonderfully, but I find life much easier if a character wants something and goes after it (even if it's the wrong thing for them - or maybe especially if so).
Lian climbing over the wall in Legacies, throwing himself into the path of the story, was a wonderfully liberating moment. Once he'd fallen in with the modern Burdanians, he was committed to deception, decision, and action. (...)
****************end of extract****************
Another interesting blog post from Alison about plot and editors can be followed here
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Lynda
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Aug 02, 2010 07:31AM
Brings back memories! I met Alison when she was working on the forerunner of Legacies. Fond memories of Lian and the Burdanians. It's very true that a single POV is easiest to follow. But in Throne Price, for example, which Alison and I wrote together, the two POV approach made it clearer to the reader why Erien was on a collision course with other people's agendas because the other POV (Amel) was privy to info Erien wasn't. I think multiple POV in such situations can pack a lot more punch with respect to dramatizing cultures and character as opposed to a focus on plot and "who dunnit" types of puzzle-questions.
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I agree with the strength of the multiple POW. In my ongoing SF series (Chaaas' Quest), I initially put only the main characters POW. Note that it is a YA series.
In the case of Lian, I almost considered it as a two-POW, since it went back and forth in time.
In my second Chaaas book, I added his mentor's POW, an older adult, which proved very useful for the tension at the end of Les Vents de Tammerlan. And it made for a "deepening" of this character. (That book went in nomination for the 2009 GG awards).
And for the third book, where there is a catastrophic event at the end, so I sprinkled a (very few) limited POW by secondary characters and his mentor Sirius, but Chaaas' POW remains dominant.
I am writing the fourth book now, and I keep mainly to my young protagonist's POW (with the mentor's POW intervening in some capital scenes).
Presumably the mentor's POV enriches the reader's understanding of the big picture, the relationship between characters and the like. Sounds like the kind of think I like about multiple POV. I think of it as a way to illuminate the blind spots in a protaganist's character, as well. And to shed two lamps on the same reality, which cast different shadows. Good point about the older/younger Lian being two POVs. Our different selves are almost different characters even in real life. Chaas' Quest sounds intersting.
@Lynda:yes the Chaaas series is being translated into English as we speak (hum, write), and in search of a publisher.
And my main character IS a typical adolescent, even if he is from another humanoid race. So often, his impressions of other characters may be skewed, or (like in tome 4) he may be distracted by petty or pretty things around! So the mentor's perceptions are useful.
