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chapter fllow

Hi .. my background is feature writing ... 800 - 1500 words to a deadline and I think it shows in my main body of work.#
My early chapters are from the perspective of different members of a family - so each chapter is quite different in tone. However, my fear is that this could make for a disjointed novel, chapters being almost short stories.
Additionally, if there are five main characters - surely it will be cumbersome for each to have a chapter like this .... lordy, lordy, lordy!
comments hugely welcomed

Comments

  • Could you start off with the story line as from third person and then at a particular trigger point in the story bring in the chapters that are from each character's point of view, and interweave them? This could be effective if each time you do this you end up at a later point in the story.
  • [quote=beebythesea]surely it will be cumbersome for each to have a chapter like this[/quote] They'll each have several chapters each, won't they, over the course of the novel?

    As long as all five characters are clearly telling the same story, although from different viewpoints, I think it'd be OK. The Patchwork Marriage by Jane Green uses multiple viewpoint characters in this way (I think there were only 4 though)
  • I have a friend who started a novel from 4 different viewpoints. It was cumbersome. Very difficult to write and get the balance of the story correct. In the end she went with three and it was a lot better. I fact it worked. Three is the magic number. This is a person with a brain like a computer and a mellifluous style - it stodged.

    You'd have to submerge the importance of two characters though.
  • I think it sounds fine - an accurate reflection of family life with everyone having their own experiences and grievances!
  • Milly Johnson writes her books from multiple viewpoints: usually there are 3 or 4 main characters and they all have their story to tell while also acting as a cohesive group.
    It does work, but only by coming back to that whole group regularly, and the group having input into the individual lives too.
    5 main characters seems a lot; could you write their stories as separate novellas, so telling the same story completely from 5 different viewpoints, and at the end bringing them together?
  • I reckon more books I read have multiple viewpoints, as opposed to just the one, but making it work all comes down to scale; are we talking about a tight, essentially shared, environment, a la the last two Mark Haddon books, or something wider, like the Game of Thrones series?
  • I've read books structured this way - some work very well. Have a look at "The Photograph" by Penelope Lively. "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lernnox" by Maggie O'Farrell.
  • edited October 2013
    Err.
    G R R Martin - millions (well not quite) of view points.
    Robert Jordan - Ditto.
    Melanie Rawn, Kate Elliott , R Feist.

    Look for the overlying theme use that to bind the narative, the story to your characters.
  • I think one thing to bear in mind is that it's very difficult to have several different viewpoints in the same story if you're writing them all in first-person perspective (you don't say whether you are or not, so bear with me if this is something you've already dealt with).

    A chap in the writing group I used to go to was working on a book with, I think, six different characters. He really struggled to make their voices sound different, with the result that it all got very monotonous and hard to follow because if your attention wandered it was easy to lose track of which character was the viewpoint one for the different chapters. You really need to pay attention to style, sentence length, word choice, sense of humour, and a whole heap of other aspects if you're going to pull off multiple first-person narrators. It's a lot of work.

    If you're writing them from a third-person perspective, it's easier, as it doesn't matter if your novel has one consistent style throughout - as long as the individual characters are clearly defined in how they talk and behave.
  • In my work-in-progress I have three viewpoints, two in first person and one in third. They work, but I went through four major drafts, experimenting with different combinations of viewpoint, before I got to the formula that works. Even so, the weaving of three plot threads is complex and it's as much as I can manage.

    Another concept I developed had two viewpoints, both in third person and they were much easier to control.

    I don't think I would cope with five viewpoints.
  • I'd say write the whole thing, then see if it feels disjointed :)
  • As a reader I prefer the viewpoints of different characters to be the same. Switching from 1st to 3rd feels jarring.
  • You've all been extremely useful ..thank you so much for your swift responses.
    I'm particularly pleased that other examples have been offered so off to the splendid Broadstairs library team to track down these books

    My main two characters - mum, is in the first person in her chapters; but in the family chapters everyone is in the third person.

    Mephistopheles echoes my writing mentor ...get it down ..write, write, write... then address issues in re-draft. Ive got to stop going back over previously written chapters or its a continual two chapter forward, one back.
    In closing ... all comments greatly appreciated and lots to think about / research/ read.
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