Writerly/Readerly types:

[dragonlady7]

I have a question for those of you who are writerly/readerly types:
The Novel In Progress's current draft alternates between a 1st person close POV (a slightly unreliable narrator), and two third-person fairly-close POVs whose biases are less subtle. (i.e., the 1st-per character will believe/state things that are not true, but the 3rd-per characters probably will not.) It's usually a fairly even mix between the one first person and all the third-person segments-- half him, the other half the other two people. The vast majority of the third person narration is by the most important secondary character, with a few sections, regularly spaced, by a third character.

I can't think how else to do it.
But alternating first and third person: readable, or ugh-inducing?

And if you say the latter, would it be better to put the 1st-per guy into 3rd-per without losing his unreliability, or better to put the 3rd-per people into 1st-per? (I thought that would be confusing, as I know it would be very difficult to differentiate between "I" and "I" when it's different people talking.)

For some reason I just had to put him into 1st per to be able to introduce his unreliability. I couldn't do it in 3rd-per-- I can't get quite close enough, somehow. It's... weird, I dunno.

Anyway, I know this is boring, but I'm stuck on something frustrating at work and I'm hoping that by thinking about other things it will suddenly become clear to me.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Readable _if_ you are gifted at voices. I've read things in this style I've liked a lot, and I write this way sometimes too, but I consider differentiated voices my strongest gift as a writer.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I went back and read the first paragraph, read it again, and still can't figure it out. Which for me says that if the description of how it's told is too confusing, the book is not something I'm going to wrap my head around. Too many shifts and voices and I shrug and stop caring, because I can see the author's hand in it, and I don't think the author's hand should EVER be visible. I don't want to listen to a Bruce Springsteen CD and have my first thought be "Huh, this is obviously engineered by Bob Clearmountain. I recognise his style."

But I'm not a fan of tricky switches in a story, anyway. Very few writers that I've come across can do it even remotely well; hell, the only book that comes to mind to do it properly was Nora Lofts "The Lute Player".

Give me the story, because that's what's important. Otherwise, I just get cranky.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what I was trying to do-- tell the story. Otherwise I have to play elaborate games with getting the unreliable narrator to have all the information he needs, and filling in gaps when he can't be present for events, and all sorts of assorted bullshit. Having multiple narrators was the only way I could see to just tell the damn story. But having one of them in first person, and the rest in third person, might seem gimmicky, so that was what I'm trying to avoid-- but it just seems the most natural to me to do it that way.

You're right that people just want the damn story, and that's what I want to give them, so I'm trying to find the least-distracting way of doing it.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Well - then go with whatever feels natural. My take would be entirely different (see above-stated dislike of Too Much Craft in any storytelling), but what works for me, or any other writer, is unlikely to match the way your process and see.

End viewpoint from me, I guess, would be to go with whatever feels is in the best service of the story. If you're feeling that something's going to come across as distracting or gimmicky, you're probably right.

[mmmbamboo.livejournal.com]

I think its the type of thing that borders on a fine line... If you can pull it off, it's probably fantastic. If you fall even the slightest bit short, it might be really distracting. But I think you should give it a shot. I love experimental POV shifts.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I don't have any problem with it, as a reader. I quite like a variety of voices, as long as there aren't so many that you can't feel the overall thrust of the story. And three, whether mixed or not, doesn't in any way qualify as too many. I don't personally see it as an issue.