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Switching Perspectives Once in a First Person Novel
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Barbara wrote: "Can you do a jump cut?"I don't believe I've heard that term before, what is it?
It's a filmmaking term. A jump cut jumps the action from point A and point B, but you can refer back to the time skipped in the narrative (not a flashback, but as moments here and there that happened in the past).
I would strongly advise against changing point of view solely to get around a plot difficulty. It might feel like it is getting you out of a hole, but it can come across as jarring to the reader. As a general rule, we can have more than one point of view in a novel but we ought to be consistent. Jumping into third person for a single chapter would be a very unusual thing to do.It could be done, of course. Almost anything is possible in creative writing. But it would be hard to do well. The danger is that the reader will think you have switched POV to solve a plot problem.
The good news is that you don't have to tell a story in a linear way where you describe everything that happens. We can use techniques like flashbacks and fast forwards to focus on the action and zip past the boring bits.
In fact, each time we start a new chapter (or a defined section within a chapter), the reader will assume that we have jumped forward in time. The first few things we say in the chapter will help them to orientate themselves about how far we had come.
In first person POV, you could indicate the passage of time with a straight bit of narrative, say something like this:
"The next year was hard. Every day I trained from sun-up to sun-down. The skin on my hands hardened, my muscles thickened and ... etc etc etc"
Or you could jump into some action to show rather than tell the passage of time:
"Good, good," said the Sensei, as he picked himself up off the dusty floor of the dojo.
The trick I usually use is to fast forward to the next interesting bit and then either make up a scene which indicates that time has passed or, in first person POV, have the narrator explain that time has passed.
Will,Excellent advice as always.
Another technique to indicate the when (and where and who) of a chapter is simply to tell the reader. I think I stole >ahem< the idea from someone but don't remember who.
I usually have two 1st person POVs in my genre, so I simply put the name of the character at the top of the new page to indicate the POV change, when the book is proceeding linearly.
In my historical romances (which tend to get somewhat complex), I find I'm usually identifying the POV character and then the date/time/place:
John
January 14, 1816
11:35 a.m.
Gentleman Jackson's Saloon, London
(Not a real example)
And if the book is only told with one POV, the date/time/place thing can still save a lot of wear and tear on the brain.
Just my USD .02.
Eric-the-ever-penny-distributing
These would work, my hesitation with them is that there are other characters that are affected by the timeline. For example, the main character is separated from her family, and her entire goal is to return to them. But in order to do that successfully, she must be trained. This wouldn't be a problem except that her family, by the time she's trained, will have done something to try to find her, since she's already been missing for a few months on a hostile island. Any suggestions to help avoid this difficulty?
Jori - the main advice that I give people is this ...We live our lives in first person POV. Everything that we experience is experienced from that perspective - our own five senses. That means that we get imperfect information about almost everything. We don't know what our kids do when they go out of the room. We don't know what is happening outside the front door. Or what the Government is doing. Or the mad scientist who lives down the road. Or what happens when we sleep. Or what is happening behind our backs right now.
To get around this, we are constantly making new discoveries about the many bits we can't experience. We talk to people. We read newspapers. We watch television news. We go to see things for ourselves. We imagine.
That may sound as if we are missing out on lots of things. But it also allows us to have different emotions such as the fear of the unknown and worry. As writers we can play with the emotions related to a lack of information.
In your story, you've got two things you want to show. Your main character spends time on a hostile island and being trained. Meanwhile her family worry about her and try to find her. In other words, you have two strong strands of story. Should you show one of these strands, both or neither?
New authors often think that they have to show everything. Everything that the main character does and everything that the subsidiary characters do.
The reality is that we don't. Within reason, the reader will fill in the gaps that we leave in the narrative. We can tell a story just like we experience the world - some things we experience directly and some things we experience third hand.
If you and I were sitting down in a coffee bar and you were telling me your life story, you wouldn't tell it on a day by day basis, would you?
All writing is personal, so I can only tell you how I would approach it. It's not the only way. It's not necessarily the best way. It's my way.
First, I would imagine what all of the characters would do over a certain period of time. Without writing anything down, I would imagine the main character's experiences on the island, what their training would be like, and so on. Then I would do the same for all the minor characters.
When I had the "facts" straight in my head, I would decide how much of that the reader would want to know, and what would be a fun way to show those series of events. I might want to show a couple of episodes on the island, but I'd fast forward over all the daily grind of the training. I would not show the family until the emotionally charged scene when they meet again. Hugs and kisses all round. The family tell about their efforts to find the MC.
This is where the writer gets to be an editor. We arrange the story in an order which gets the facts across in an entertaining way.
Have a look at the Tom Hanks film Cast Away. It is effectively a first person film since the camera rarely moves away from the MC's viewpoint. We don't see all of his time on his desert island - just some highlights and lowlights. And we certainly don't see what his family were doing until he is reunited with them.
Something like that could work for your story.
Eric wrote: "Will,Excellent advice as always.
Another technique to indicate the when (and where and who) of a chapter is simply to tell the reader. I think I stole >ahem< the idea from someone but don't reme..."
A great example of this is The Watch; an extraordinary work, in my humble opinion. But there are many: The Sound and The Fury, etc.
Thank you all for this advice! It has been greatly helpful and I look forward to having space to apply any of it, as the last few days have been crazy. :)
Will's post here makes me laugh because it reminds me of a film that came out probably in the 1980s, called "The Goonies," about a bunch of misfit kids in their teens who go hunting for a legendary treasure in a cave. Of course there is a gang of bad guys after the same treasure. One of the bad guys captures one of the kids and threatens death (or worse) if the kid doesn't tell him everything he knows "from the beginning," meaning related to the treasure hunt. Crying in fear, the kid starts at HIS beginning. The camera pops back a moment later, with the bad guy holding his head in his hands in frustration as the kid is bawling out, "...and when I was in second grade, I threw up on the bus..."
I wrote one of my books in 1st person. As this person did not know all the details of her siblings' lives, I had to switch over to 3rd person to bring their private lives into the story. This served a 2nd purpose: As there are many characters in this story, bringing them in, using 3rd person, removed any confusion with the reader as to who is who and where everyone fits in. As one reviewer put it: "following through to bring every character into perspective".So, it can be done if necessary and handled correctly
Hi, I am trying to change my author's photo on my page. I can't see anything that allows me to edit the photo only add photos. Does anyone know how?Maetreyii
Maetreyii wrote: "Hi, I am trying to change my author's photo on my page. I can't see anything that allows me to edit the photo only add photos. Does anyone know how?Maetreyii"
Hi!
This is the wrong thread to be asking that kind of technical question. There's a Goodreads Librarians Group where you can ask for that kind of help. Sorry I don't have a link for it, though,
Eric
Maetreyii wrote: "Hi, I am trying to change my author's photo on my page. I can't see anything that allows me to edit the photo only add photos. Does anyone know how?"Hi Maetreyii!
Here's how to upload a new image to your author profile:
1. Navigate to your author profile.
2. Click edit data underneath your author bio details.
3. On the top right, choose a file to upload.
4. Check the box agreeing that you are the copyright owner of the image. This is a justification we added to ensure that any image added by a librarian is in the public domain.
5. Fill in the "Copyright information" box. Since you are the author, all you have to add is something like "I'm the author. I own this photo."
6. Click "upload photo."
As mentioned by Eric, this isn't the right place for a request like this. You are, however, more than welcome to start a new topic in the Author Feedback Group under the Ask Goodreads heading whenever you have a question like this.
Other questions are best asked in the Librarians Group and you may want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with that group, so you can find answers easily when you need them.
Your help is greatly appreciated!