Writing Question about changing perspectives

[TheBestofSome]

So I recently had this idea for a story, and I also had the idea to swap perspective from one to the other about halfway through. Note that the story would focus heavily on these two characters and their relationship with each other, to the point that any other characters would be fairly minor. It would also be a romance.

My question is, do you think swapping the perspective from one to the other at a turning point about halfway through the story would work, or would I be better served by staying with the perspective of only one, or even swapping between them more frequently?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Two of the romance stories my wife has listened to on PocketFM pulled this. One was a werewolf romance that followed the woman about 2/3 of the time and the Alpha the other third, and the other was a more traditional "millionaire jerk meets supermodel and they keep crossing paths and fall in love, and fall out of love and (probably - the reader had this very calm British voice that seemed to put HERSELF to sleep and made the chapters from the guy's POV just a bit disturbing so I pretty much avoided listening to it) get back together in the end" story.
It seemed to work well for the Werewolf one, but the other one ... well, the choice of reader (probably an AI reader at that) just kind of killed it.
It is difficult to do well but... well I plan to try it if I get to the fourth Jack Diamond story with two support characters taking over as he's indisposed...

And I did once start a horror story where each chapter was told by a different character...

So, my suggestion is this: Go with your gut at first and see how it flows, then maybe go back and redo it for more (or less) balance if it just does not feel right (or if readers complain).

 

[Zagaroth]

I am not sure about swapping perspective that way. Clearly, it can be done as it has been done, but it's not my style personally.

I suspect it is harder to pull off well if you are using first person, so I would recommend using third.

You can certainly swap perspectives, I tend to rotate through my protagonist group, but they are all sharing the same space and there is one linear flow of time (with the rare exception of backtracking for a different perspective on a scene).

 

[TheBestofSome]

Two of the romance stories my wife has listened to on PocketFM pulled this. One was a werewolf romance that followed the woman about 2/3 of the time and the Alpha the other third, and the other was a more traditional "millionaire jerk meets supermodel and they keep crossing paths and fall in love, and fall out of love and (probably - the reader had this very calm British voice that seemed to put HERSELF to sleep and made the chapters from the guy's POV just a bit disturbing so I pretty much avoided listening to it) get back together in the end" story.
It seemed to work well for the Werewolf one, but the other one ... well, the choice of reader (probably an AI reader at that) just kind of killed it.
It is difficult to do well but... well I plan to try it if I get to the fourth Jack Diamond story with two support characters taking over as he's indisposed...

And I did once start a horror story where each chapter was told by a different character...

So, my suggestion is this: Go with your gut at first and see how it flows, then maybe go back and redo it for more (or less) balance if it just does not feel right (or if readers complain).

Good points. I'm no stranger to swapping perspectives here and there, my main story does it semi-frequently, as have a lot of stories that I've read. One thing I don't recall having seen before is having the swap once and only once, which is why I asked. You could be right; possibly the only way to know whether it will work is try and see.

I am not sure about swapping perspective that way. Clearly, it can be done as it has been done, but it's not my style personally.

I suspect it is harder to pull off well if you are using first person, so I would recommend using third.

You can certainly swap perspectives, I tend to rotate through my protagonist group, but they are all sharing the same space and there is one linear flow of time (with the rare exception of backtracking for a different perspective on a scene).

First vs third person is definitely worth giving some thought to. I haven't tried writing first person too much yet; but I do like it in theory for its more personal feel. But that could be a double-edged sword, as you've pointed out.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

So I recently had this idea for a story, and I also had the idea to swap perspective from one to the other about halfway through. Note that the story would focus heavily on these two characters and their relationship with each other, to the point that any other characters would be fairly minor. It would also be a romance.

My question is, do you think swapping the perspective from one to the other at a turning point about halfway through the story would work, or would I be better served by staying with the perspective of only one, or even swapping between them more frequently?

Check out my work and see if it it works. I often swapped POVs, both 1st Person and 3rd Person Omnipotent and Limited.

 

[TheBestofSome]

Check out my work and see if it it works. I often swapped POVs, both 1st Person and 3rd Person Omnipotent and Limited.

The swapping POVs in and of itself isn't what I'm curious about; it's the thought of swapping from one to the other once and only once, about halfway through the story. Have you ever seen a book that does that? And if so, did you like the way it was done?

I'll check out your work for sure, though not tonight. Might give me some extra insight, and even if not, it should still be interesting reading.

 

[Zagaroth]

The biggest potential problem I foresee is that people can become very invested in a PoV, and to find out that you will never return to that PoV might be rather jarring.

Again, I'm not saying it can't be done, but you are certainly giving yourself more of a challenge.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

The swapping POVs in and of itself isn't what I'm curious about; it's the thought of swapping from one to the other once and only once, about halfway through the story.

Yes, I did that, especially on latter volumes. Also, a lot of light novels I read did POV switch mid-chapters and/or mid-story, depending on the necessity of the switch.

I'll check out your work for sure, though not tonight. Might give me some extra insight, and even if not, it should still be interesting reading.

No worries, feel free anytime. Just choose from Volume 1 to 14 (current published here).

 

[Heartmint]

Swapping POV just once, and only once, is a great idea for a romance novel. There's many new avenue that you could try in your writing that wouldn't work on traditional POV swapping novel. BUT, it wouldn't work for a novel where you would write (or release) in chapter(s). You need to publish the whole novel as a whole, or you would face the outrage of your reader (mainly for the early part of the POV change where reader realize the POV wouldn't come back to the first MC).

Alternatively, you could make the second POV a sequel and not the same novel, to make the outrage less so, but at the same time this way it will lose the novelty.

If you publish it on any Webnovel platform, just make sure you clearly said what to expect of the novel in the synopsis

 

[TheBestofSome]

The biggest potential problem I foresee is that people can become very invested in a PoV, and to find out that you will never return to that PoV might be rather jarring.

Again, I'm not saying it can't be done, but you are certainly giving yourself more of a challenge.

Swapping POV just once, and only once, is a great idea for a romance novel. There's many new avenue that you could try in your writing that wouldn't work on traditional POV swapping novel. BUT, it wouldn't work for a novel where you would write (or release) in chapter(s). You need to publish the whole novel as a whole, or you would face the outrage of your reader (mainly for the early part of the POV change where reader realize the POV wouldn't come back to the first MC).

Alternatively, you could make the second POV a sequel and not the same novel, to make the outrage less so, but at the same time this way it will lose the novelty.

If you publish it on any Webnovel platform, just make sure you clearly said what to expect of the novel in the synopsis

This is a very good point. It's not as though I couldn't write it without doing the single POV swap, but I wanted to gather some opinions on the idea, since I've never seen it done myself.

I think I'll take the suggestion above and write it out first to see how it feels before I commit to publishing it anywhere. It would be more difficult to pull off, but that's okay; even if I'm not up to the challenge, trying and failing will still teach me more than not trying at all.

I also might check out how Hans did it before I try my own hand at it; no reason not to learn what I can from the example laid out for me.