where do you start?
5 Mar 2008 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouThe drawback of a multi-POV story, it seems, is that you could conceivably consider the story to be three stories in one, since each character is going to have his/her own take on the big picture. Now that I've started to (finally) settle down on each character's share of the story -- and his/her perspective and role in the catastrophes -- I'm left puzzling out one basic but crucial detail.
Who gets the first shot?
In a multi-POV story, how do you determine who starts the story? Have you successfully written (or read successfully-written) stories in which a lesser character jump-starts things before it moves to a major character? Or do your best recollections of story-starts focus on those stories in which the character who ends up with the greatest amount of focus is also the one to begin (and possibly end) the story?
...
She considered letting the tea-tray eat the annoying man, since she hadn't a single charm that might work on badge-carrying Americans, and it was too early in the day to offer sake. Drowning guests in alcohol held no propriety until at least mid-afternoon.
Who gets the first shot?
In a multi-POV story, how do you determine who starts the story? Have you successfully written (or read successfully-written) stories in which a lesser character jump-starts things before it moves to a major character? Or do your best recollections of story-starts focus on those stories in which the character who ends up with the greatest amount of focus is also the one to begin (and possibly end) the story?
...
She considered letting the tea-tray eat the annoying man, since she hadn't a single charm that might work on badge-carrying Americans, and it was too early in the day to offer sake. Drowning guests in alcohol held no propriety until at least mid-afternoon.
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Date: 5 Mar 2008 11:59 pm (UTC)Was that multi-POV? I, uh, actually couldn't much get past the start. Hell, the first paragraph gave me the heebie-jeebies. Not because I didn't want to read it, but... okay, I think I got to the third chapter. AND I WAS ALREADY FRICKING TERRIFIED.
(The movie -- the original, not those knockoffs -- didn't exactly help, either. All those friends who love horror movies? Crazy people, because I spent half that specific movie UNDER THE SOFA. Oi. Jeebers.)
More than one POV bleeds off narrative drive and lowers the reader's identification with one character that is so necessary for suspense (sometimes). But it balances that with providing a bigger canvas and a more ambitious story.
I think it was Clancy who does this particular trick (that I'd spent most of hte morning trying to recall) -- Joe walks through past the guard, checks his badge, walks on. Next scene is from the guard's POV noting something that Joe missed, and that we know is important but that the guard doesn't know is important.
That's the sort of tension I love in multi-POV, where you're not doing omni, but instead delaying the pay-off until the next scene and its reflective viewpoint back onto the first scene (or as a continuation of the first, but from a different side). It's much like in camerawork, where the camera cuts away from the scene's original POV to give us a look-back shot, onto the POV character from an external/camera view.
Since in single POV it's not like you can ever say (at least not gracefully, or without some effort) things like haircolor or eyecolor -- when was the last time you looked at your eyes while talking to someone?
Okay, honestly, I like using multi-POV to burst another character's bubble. Joe thinks he's awesome. Cut to Jane, who's busy thinking about her grocery list. Woot.