In my last novel I had one main character, first person and roughly followed the Hero's Journey structure.

This time around I want to have three main characters and follow each of their lives through the novel (the connection between the three is that they all work at the same place).

I'm considering doing what Carole Matthews did in "The Chocolate Lovers' Club" which is tell the story of the main character of the three in the first person and the stories of the other two in the third person. It seems to me that this might be tricky to do. Then again, telling the novel in the first person for each character (ala Kate Long in "The Bad Mother's Handbook") also has its difficulties because I'll need a distinct voice for each character and they're all pretty much the same age.

The alternative is the write the whole novel in the 3rd person but I really love writing in the first person so this option doesn't really appeal.

Okay, so that's half of my dilemma...

The other half is to do with structuring the novel. In terms of chapters should I go:

Chapter 1 - Character A
Chapter 2 - Character B
Chapter 3 - Character C
Chapter 4 - Character A
Chapter 5 - Character B
etc

or mix them up a bit?

How do you deal with getting the balance of cliffhangers and suspense right when you're juggling the stories of three different characters? Leaving one hanging and then start from the POV of another?

I realise I'm asking lots of questions and I don't expect anyone to answer them all. If anyone can point me in the direction of a useful website or book that can help me out with this I'd be really grateful.

Ta

SS

or mix them up a bit? How do you deal with getting the balance of cliffhangers and suspense right when you're juggling the stories of three different characters? Leaving one hanging and then start from the POV of another?

In answer to this part, I would recommend reading Terry Pratchett, eg, Lords And Ladies. He is an expert at writing from numerous povs, mixing it up - ie, as multiple scenes within a chapter) - Leaving each scene on a hook, and having distinctive voices for the many and varied characters that populate his books.


- NaomiM

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Re: For a 'Characters A,B,C, Chapts.1.2.3' structure, you could take a look at Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down

Ah, thanks Naomi. I have that novel (the Nick Hornby one). Didn't love it, but I've got it! Will dig it out and have a look at the structure.

I've never read any Terry Pratchett but you've just convinced me I should.

This is an instinctive rather than measured reply - but I'd definitely mix them up. Start with the 123 ABC structure so the reader grasps the format, but at some point it would (imo) help to go BAAC for example. Then CAB etc. And definitely have sections of varyingly lengths. Uniformity might make it feel schematic and predictable.

Having the three threads could be fantastic in terms of structuring cliff hangers - leave us dying to know what A does next then move onto C for example.

Whether or not you choose one first person and two third person narratives, I'd always try three first persons as an exercise, merely to ensure there are three very distinctive voices to work from, whichever pov is chosen for the final draft.

And I wouldn't worry if they're all the same age. Different social backgrounds, education, family situations past and present, previous highs and lows in life, character strengths and defects, likes, dislikes, passions, professions will give them sufficient distinction. Even what paper they read will inform the sort of vocab and idioms they use, as will what they watch on tv (if it's modern.)

Good luck with it.
C

My novel has two MCs for the first half and another appears in the second half. I write in 3rd person and just head the chapter with the name of whoever's pov it's from. I began by simply alternating the two MCs, chapter by chapter, and when the third appeared, dropping him in occasionally among the others. However, now I'm revising, I'm experimenting with dropping in very short scenes of him before he officially appears.
I think the thing to bear in mind is what the reader needs. You have an advantage in that your characters work in the same place, so the reader will continually be reminded of the others' presence, even when you're in the POV of another character. (By the way, I think there's a huge difference between what the reader WANTS and what the reader NEEDS - as Sol Stein says, never take the reader where he/she wants to go, but the reader needs to know where they are, what's happening and to whom, and there must be enough sense of urgency/interest to keep the reader's interest throughout).
If it's any help, I'd say write the story as it feels it wants to be told. In second draft you can play around with structure. But others may disagree.
As to 3rd/1st person, dunno!
Best of luck with it, Scribbles,
Susiex

I agree, once you've established firmly how each one sounds and who they are - rather like a radio play - then by all means mix them up. My rule of thumb in TMoL when switching voices was that the first sentence should have at least two things in it that oriented the reader: one usually a name or a place, the other something stylistic. I think mixing third and first can work very well, especially if, as you say, one is more central to the story than the others.

You can vary voices quite cold-bloodedly, which helps. Make a list of all the things that can vary (length of sentence, sophistication of syntax, breadth and style of vocabulary, correct or colloquial or wrong grammar, what kind of metaphors/similes they use or don't they use any?...) and decide which speaker does which.)

And if all else fails, simply head each section with the name of the speaker, though I wouldn't do it if the sections are very short. In a funny way it's the most invisible of all: the reader absorbs it and moves on, rather than puzzling away. I've done that in ASA, partly because I also wanted to put in dates, but mainly because two of the three are brother and sister. In the event, though, their voices came out very different, and I'm sure I could have got away without.

Emma

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"How do you deal with getting the balance of cliffhangers and suspense right when you're juggling the stories of three different characters? Leaving one hanging and then start from the POV of another?"

Yes, but I think you need to make sure there's an internal logic to each strand, so that the reader doesn't feel that the switch is arbitrary, purely to set up a cliffhanger. The pattern of tension-and-release, the places where the breaks come (as if they were chapter breaks, say, or the end of an episode on the TV) needs to work for the individual strand if it stood on its own - then the switch seems to be the natural thing to happen.

Thanks everyone. My head's really spinning now, but in a good way - so much to process. I think the thing I'm most worried about is that characters 2 and 3 aren't introduced until about 1/4 of the way through the book when the main character gets the job where they all meet. So if I introduce characters 2 and 3 early on in the book the readers will wonder who the hell they are and what their relevance is to the plot. I guess what I'm asking (in a very messy way) is is it okay to introduce new characters (first person POV) 1/4 of the way through the book when the reader has already got to know the 'main' character?

My sisters Keeper covers a number of MCs very effectively, all in 1st person. But each one has a seperate chaper rather than mixing it up.
Ditto The Boylen Inheritance which has three - Anne of Cleves, Jane B and Catherine Howard- all in 1st person.
This is actually quite a simple structure becasue the stories are linear but each Mc moves the plot onwards by seeing the situation a whole new light.
I think both books work in producing v different voices.
Another device, though I know some WWers loath it, is to have one POV in a different tense.
HB x

Hi there,

I began my novel with three POV characters and found that I was deliberately paying attention to the structure of the novel, which distracted from the writing and, to some extent, the story.

I would recommend that you write each of the three characters' narratives first, then concentrate on how they interlink.

Hope that helps.

I was reminded of Barbara Kingsolver's 'The Poisonwood Bible' which absolutely does follow the formula ABCABC all the way through without feeling predictable or formulaic. And each of the characters has such a distinctive voice (all first person again) there was no question of getting confused, even without the character names at the beginning.

As for when to introduce the 2nd and 3rd characters, I agree that it might be a bit of a surprise for their POVs to pop up quite late in the book - personally I'd like to be getting to know them from the beginning even if they're not directly relevant to the story: it's nice to slowly see how they slot in. But surprise isn't always a bad thing, as Susie says.

A book you might want to look at for three distinctive pov characters is Ali Smith's The Accidental. The main problem I find as a reader of books with changing povs is you can be attached to one character and resent what comes to be seen as 'long interruptions'. I remember in the book mentioned the first voice, a child's , was so irritating that it was quite refreshing when another character's pov took over. Such was my relief it must have been quite a way into the book and if I didn't have a reason to persist I probably wouldn't have.

I suppose how acceptable the change is depends on the reasons for introducing different voices. I think it was William Faulkner who wanted to show how events became ambiguous when seen by different characters. The same effect is explored in several recent films (ie Before the Devil knows you're Dead) There's the 'hook' of having seen what seemed straighforward amplified and made more complex by differing perceptions. By contrast, when I change povs in writing it's because I want the reader to know something of a character's interior life so as to make him/her more sympathetic. If I don't like a character I don't give him/her a voice.

There's also the very practical point of wanting to show something where the mc can't be present. It's more immediate seen through someone else's eyes.

Sheila