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Hey, people. So… In my current WIP I have one main character who is supposed to be “telling the story” (it starts out with an introduction of him talking about his and his father’s lives, and the rest of the book is him telling that story), so the parts that the MC is in are written in 1st person, while the parts of the story without him are written in 3rd person. I personally like it because it gives a unique feel to the story, but I was wondering if it would be too confusing to readers (especially when part of the book is taken from the MC’s father’s journal and is also written in 1st person). Has anyone read such a book before? Advice?
(Sorry this is so similar to @waterlily ‘s question. :))
@sam-kowal @dekreel @daeus @dragon-snapper @anyoneA Kapeefer for life!
Compendium of KP Literature: kapeeferliterature.wordpress.com@supermonkey42 I don’t think it would be too confusing as long as the MC doesn’t know what other characters are thinking because…that would be creepy.
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@supermonkey42 It can be confusing if the story isn’t written with good transisions in between 1st and 3rd person. Since the story is mainly in 1st person, I think it should be based upon what the character knows.
When you have a section that’s in 3rd person, you could have the character say, “While I was doing this or while I was at that place etc., Johnny was blablabla…” or, “I remember/recall/know that Johnny was blablabla…” Or something along those lines. That way the reader is still somewhat engaged to the narrator even if he isn’t in the scene. The reader would still be following the narration, instead of jumping from the narration to the 3rd person.
Another thing you could do is have the character talk about how he feels about certain parts of the scene, or even talk about how he heard about the scene. Like, “Frank heard that Johnny said etc…”
Long story short, make sure you express the narrator’s experience with the scene, directly or indirectly. Otherwise the story would be choppy and a bit confusing.
Hope that helps! 😉
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Okayyy, that was a bit long and complicated…
You can pronounce it however you want.
@dekreel @daeus Thanks guys! Good advice. Yeah, um, I guess my MC does somehow know some people’s thoughts when I’m writing in 3rd person, so I’ll have to fix that. The only problem would be if the story really needs a scene that the MC doesn’t know about… I’ll figure something out. 🙂
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Compendium of KP Literature: kapeeferliterature.wordpress.comSomething else that might be helpful to keep in mind is making sure you’re being clear when setting a scene about which characters are present (because it might potentially be jarring to transition from 1st person to a scene where the MC isn’t present?). It sounds interesting though! I don’t think I’ve read a book told that way before. 🙂
And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
@supermonkey42 🙂 hmm
that’s an intriguing idea
I don’t think it would be confusing to readers, as long as they know exactly who’s point of view the scene is coming from. For example, especially the part where the father’s journal is written in 1st person, make it very clear which character is speaking. I have read books that have done this (the Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, for example) and there’s a little heading at the beginning of each chapter that says who’s narrating that one.
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Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.@introvert_girl @sam-kowal Thanks. I’ll try sticking some headers in to make it less jarring and confusing.
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Compendium of KP Literature: kapeeferliterature.wordpress.com@supermonkey42 Personally, if I were reading that story, it would be less confusing if the third person part was obviously narrated by your main character. If the main character also adds his/her own thoughts during their narration of the story, it help, too (“Bob lunged forward to get the piece of cake, which I think was the stupidest thing he could’ve done”). Apart from that, what @introvert_girl said about transitions, and I think it should be fine.
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literatureforthelight.wordpress.com@supermonkey42 I actually just beta read a novel where it was like this: the MC’s scenes in first person, and then other scenes in 3rd person. It rolled along fine and was very intriguing. So long as the reader knows who’s who, I’d say go for it 🙂
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