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MORE WRITING IS GETTING DONE! HUZZAH!
However, that brings up an interesting question, and I need reader/author input on what is to be done. Those who don't want spoilers on the next PFH, DO NOT READ.
Okay. So in the next part of the story, I'm finally getting to the so-long-built-up-to conflict between Becky/the Princesses and Professor Swift. I know what I want in it, I know how it's gonna turn out.
The only thing I'm not sure about, is whether to write it from Professor Swift's view or not, as I had originally planned.
If it were any other story, or even about three years ago, I would never have even bothered asking, but I know people expect a certain amount of quality and consistency out of me any more (yay?) so I wanted to get input before doing it.
On the one hand, writing from Swift's point of view, at least part of the time, would give me a chance to build a deeper empathy for the character, and allow me to tell a part of what's happening that I wouldn't be able to get to being limited to Beck's point of view. I want this, because I want readers to understand why Swift is the way he is. You don't have to like him, but I want people to see he isn't "evil" so to speak either, just a normal person who's made a few bad decisions.
On the other hand, to date I can't remember a single time I've broken perspective in PFH, and doing it once for one little part of the story seems to me like it might be bad writing. With the overall story limited to Beck's point of view, is it really fair to break that for a character like Swift, who everybody is set to see as one of the main villains (due largely to how I've written him) when most readers would prefer something along the lines of a side-story about Sarah?
The only way I could get across from Beck's point of view what I would be doing from Swift's would be to enter Story Time Mode, and let's face it, no matter what happens Swift and Becky aren't going to be best friends who sit around swapping life stories.
So, what do ya'll think I should do?
Melanie E.
Comments
You must write the story you want
You've not been commissioned to do anything, so go with your gut feeling and write the story you first thought up. Don't worry about it being read and enjoyed, it will be.
Angharad
Your call
Ultimately it's you call and I will support what you choose to do but as you're asking...
It is a risk, particularly when you are switching to the antagonists viewpoint, and done poorly can really switch off the reader. However, done well (and you are good enough a writer to do it well) it can aid understanding of someone other than the main characters motivations. I'd suggest starting from the default position of Becky's viewpoint given how consistently we've seen the world from her eyes to date and if you can't tell the story effectively that way go with your instincts on the use of a different character's perspective. Or even as you mention, tell part of the chapter from Becky's view and part from Swift's?
Whatever you choose to do I look forward to the next chapter. :-)
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
How about posting it as a
How about posting it as a side story separate from the main sequence, but part of the collection? There's a risk that people don't read it but you get to keep the perspective pure in your main storyline and get a chance to enrich the story as well.
side-story wouldn't work...
and a smaller chapter posting would throw off the flow of the overall story, since everything to this point has been done in three-chapter bursts.
The side-story part wouldn't work because reading what happens here is not only necessary to tie up loose plot threads, but affects things that happen later in the story. If I did it as a side story, people would quite possibly miss it the first time around, or never read it at all, and then I'd end up with an almost Whateley-esque "this happens here but read this first because it references this that was started here and continued in this other otherwise completely unrelated story that might be about a character you've got no interest in but you won't understand what you're reading for the one you are interested in if you don't read their story too."
I'd rather keep everything together if I could.
Melanie E.
Perspective Shifts
Why not show both viewpoints? A good way to do that is shown in the latest Maggie Finson story Softly Zephyr, oh Come Softly
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/37036/softly-zephyr-oh...
May Your Light Forever Shine
I think
both approaches could be viable, but again, I tend to do the perspective or POV shift in more than a few of my stories and I'm comfortable with doing it. If you do just make sure you don't interrupt the flow of the story as you feel it should be and or are happy with.
The side story approach can work, Saless does it a lot with The Wyld universe, though I've never really tried that myself.
In the end I'd say try it the one way and see how you feel about and with the story but at the end of the day it IS your story.
And as been said, you're certainly good enough to pull off the change in POV or perspective.
Maggie
Thanks for the compliment :D
I have used perspective shift before myself -- in fact, I used it constantly in the first story I started posting here, "Echoes." I just wanted to make sure nobody thought that one instance or so of perspective shift thrown in essentially at random would mess up the reading experience of this one.
I think I'll go ahead and do it. Writing the same series from multiple perspectives would take too long, and I am nowhere near that patient.
Melanie E.
Perhaps...
...Beck learning somehow about Swift's perspective; a revelation via dialogue or an overheard conversation not meant to be shared? Coming across a journal or log or notes? I'm confident that you'll find the best way of revelation and it will be terrific as always!
Love, Andrea Lena
Oh...here's another thought....
...shift perspective? How about her in a nice dress while viewed slightly off perpendicular?
Love, Andrea Lena
You know, facial wise
She's not all that off from how I imagine Becky looking, so good going! A bit softer, because of being younger, but that's about it.
Melanie E.
Story Time Mode
Swift and Becky aren't going to be best friends, but if Swift's section was labeled as something like "excerpt from the journal of Prof. Swift," then the literary device would imply that Becky or whoever is editing the story together found Swift's documents without necessarily being on friendly terms with him. And it would not be out of character for an academic type to keep a journal.