Hybrid POV

[Preacher]

I was reading through early chapters of my WIP and found that it came out in first person as opposed to the third person it was written in. I have considered revising and shifting over to first person for the protagonist while staying in third person when not on the protagonist. I have read some novels that use this method and it seemed to work just fine for them.

What do you guys think about the hybrid POV?

[Falls Apart]

I've seen this before as well, but only rarely, and when I saw it, it felt . . . clumsy. Like the author didn't know what (s)he was trying to say. Maybe it'll work, but I'd proceed with caution.

[Preacher]

Has anybody here ever started a novel in 3rd person, then read it and considered a switch to 1st person? A switch to 1st person would force the removal of some sections that were in 3rd but it might also serve to deepen mystery and suspense because the reader will not see other things going on, they will only be able to see exactly what my protagonist is seeing. They will "learn" along with him. It seems like an interesting idea to me, allowing me and everybody else to get more inside the head of my protagonist.

Thoughts?

[HillaryJ]

Has anybody here ever started a novel in 3rd person, then read it and considered a switch to 1st person? A switch to 1st person would force the removal of some sections that were in 3rd but it might also serve to deepen mystery and suspense because the reader will not see other things going on, they will only be able to see exactly what my protagonist is seeing. They will "learn" along with him. It seems like an interesting idea to me, allowing me and everybody else to get more inside the head of my protagonist.

Thoughts?

Yes. I got about 80,000 words into a novel when I realized the voice wasn't working in third person. I spent two weeks converting it to first, which included the basic changes from "she" to "I", changes in how things were described, deepening of the narrative voice, and finding ways to introduce exposition for the things that were shown in the POVs of other characters before. It was right for that story. It was difficult, and I still found errors and gaps two drafts later from the manual conversion.

I have seen this "hybrid" POV where the main character is in first person and there's something else in 3rd. Usually it's action at a single scene or with a single other party. I find it jarring, even when done well. And, it's rarely done well. There are limitations and advantages to any style. My advice is to figure out which is right for your story, stick to it and learn the skills to smooth through the difficult areas that another POV might have made easier.

[oldhousejunkie]

I use hybrid POV. My female MC is in first, and then the two male MCs are in third. Originally I was planning to have many different characters in third, but an early beta reader suggested that it was too confusing. So I chose the two most important characters after the female MC. There are multiple scenes, which I think contributes to it reading better. I also don't do middle of the chapter switches. If I start the chapter in first with the female MC, then I end it that way. If I start a chapter in third with one of the male MCs, I end it that way. Some of the chapters are shorter as a result, but it would be too jarring to be switching back and forth. Additionally, I usually will only do one chapter at a time for the third person MCs, whereas the first person chapters can go on for a while. I don't think constantly switching back and forth would be helpful. So far, I haven't received any negative feedback from my serious betas.

I did originally start the novel off in third, but I had problems connecting with my female MC. She goes through a great deal of trauma and I found that I was unable to accurately portray the range of emotions she goes through. It was just too glossy in third. You get a better sense of her character in first. Nevertheless, it's definitely hard to do. I had to fix a lot of instances where the female MC assumed too much about an opposing character. A good beta can definitely call out these sorts of scenarios, so make sure you have one.

On another note, I think Laurie R. King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series is an excellent example of how to shift POVs. It's so seamless, you don't even notice it.

[polymath]

I think a multiple viewpoint narrative needs a somewhat overt narrator to mediate character viewpoint transitions. I think it's especially important to have a somewhat overt narrator when one viewpoint character is reported in first person and other viewpoint characters are reported in third person. The disconnect, as it were, is so that readers aren't lured into thinking the first person viewpoint character narrates the whole when he or she cannot know the other viewpoints, which causes narrative distance disturbances. Master class authors don't call undue attention to somewhat overt narrators, but they're still there mediating and seamlessly opening narrative distance for transitions and closing narrative distance for dramatic purposes.

[sierramcconnell]

The only time I do it is with journal entries. I do it when Bradley is writing a journal entry, and it suddenly shifts to someone else's journal entry in mid-entry, making the reader wonder who is writing because it's suddenly eloquent and yet holds the same theme that Bradley had been writing about.

Because I don't want them to know who is writing, I don't write in third to mention details or names, or even if it's a boy or girl. I want them to assume things, and then as more clues are given, finally realize who is writing it to see how similar they are.

But the rest of the book is in third person. Because I hate first and I have difficulty writing in first because you only get one viewpoint and I'm the kind of person who wants everyone's side of the story. I want you to know why this guy did this and that guy did that, without the main character always knowing everything.

[trixie]

Has anybody here ever started a novel in 3rd person, then read it and considered a switch to 1st person? A switch to 1st person would force the removal of some sections that were in 3rd but it might also serve to deepen mystery and suspense because the reader will not see other things going on, they will only be able to see exactly what my protagonist is seeing. They will "learn" along with him. It seems like an interesting idea to me, allowing me and everybody else to get more inside the head of my protagonist.

Preacher, I'm doing this right now. I have approx 60K words in my MG adventure book in 3rd person but I felt like I had a lot of 2-D characters. In order to really get the voice of my MC into the story, I started a re-write back at page one, this time in 1st person. It's either a brilliant decision, or the best waste of time under the guise of a "learning experience." Stay tuned.

As for varying POVs, I agree with Falls Apart that it needs to be done well or else your reader could stumble through. But I do think exploring it and trying a few chapters can only help you as a writer. You never know until you try and all that positive mumbo-jumbo.

[Matt Phillips]

I think a multiple viewpoint narrative needs a somewhat overt narrator to mediate character viewpoint transitions. I think it's especially important to have a somewhat overt narrator when one viewpoint character is reported in first person and other viewpoint characters are reported in third person. The disconnect, as it were, is so that readers aren't lured into thinking the first person viewpoint character narrates the whole when he or she cannot know the other viewpoints, which causes narrative distance disturbances. Master class authors don't call undue attention to somewhat overt narrators, but they're still there mediating and seamlessly opening narrative distance for transitions and closing narrative distance for dramatic purposes.

Polymath, can you elaborate on what you mean by a somewhat overt narrator? Do you mean someone other than the 1st person viewpoint character and the 3rd person viewpoint character(s)?

[polymath]

Polymath, can you elaborate on what you mean by a somewhat overt narrator? Do you mean someone other than the 1st person viewpoint character and the 3rd person viewpoint character(s)?

Yes. Regardless of whether a narrative has a first person narrator or third or second, there's a narrator mediating between writer and reader. Actually, there's several personas between writer and reader. Seymour Chatman in Story and Discourse, 1978, delves deeply into those personas. He bases them on this schematic: Author >> implied author >> narrator >> >||narrative meaning space setting||< << narratee << implied reader << reader. I locate another persona between narrator and narratee, a reader surrogate whom readers participate as or accompany as invisible bystander through a narrative. That latter is what Chatman refers to as a nonnarrated narrative, where the narrator is totally covert.

A somewhat overt narrator is one who is mostly invisible in scenes, though nonetheless mediating. Like making choices about what, who, when to report on, subtly expressing commentary, and making attributions of the he said, she thought varieties.

Even first person actually has a narrator distinct but not necessarily discernible from the first person narrator. The over narrator persona is the overall voice of a narrative, the physical, fixed, tangible form of a book or short story, as it were. For illustration, if someone other than the writer reads the narrative aloud in a public venue, comparable to a reader reading to one's self, that orator then is the narrator persona who mediates the narrative. Though the orator can as easily be the writer.

I doubt any two readers would read any given narrative alike. I know it's unlikely to be so. A good example of that is a reader who skips over the tedious parts, choosing what to read, what to like, what to read more deeply. Close readers, on the other hand, don't skip a tic, savor every word, dig for underlying meaning. I'm regularly astonished how differently any two readers read.

Another example, a first person unreliable narrator, a writer writes a narrator-character then who readers take with a degree of subjectivity open to interpretation. An unreliable narrator faithfully believes what he or she reports, but the intervening mediating narrator persona selectively, judiciously selects and slants what's reported so even in unreliableness there's more profound truth in the subtext accessible by readers that's inaccessible by the narrator, perhaps until it's too late to understand and then something wicked his or her way comes that he or she does understand.

[Matt Phillips]

Thanks, Polymath. So how, in a practical sense, does the writer make a transition from, for example, one chapter told from the 1st person character's POV to the next told from another character's POV in 3rd person without at least initially confusing the reader? Would it suffice simply to make clear in the first instance at the beginning of the 3rd person chapter that the 1st person character isn't there and isn't narrating this chapter?

For example, Chapter 1 - mother's POV, 1st person
Chapter 2 - daughter's POV, 3rd person, starts off saying something like, "Mom wouldn't approve, but she's not here, so I'm doing it anyway."

I've also seen authors put the character's name at the beginning of the chapter to indicate it's from his or her POV.

[polymath]

I've not encountered many narratives that transition between first person and third or second person viewpoints. Auxilliary grammatical third person viewpoints, yes, many, if not every first and second person narrator narrative I've read.

Thomas Harris' Hannibal saga is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that transitions between a first person viewpoint character and third person viewpoint characters. Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, Mason Verger in Hannibal, and Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising have the first person viewpoints, respectively, of those installments. Purely third person narrator for Red Dragon, the first installment.

The overall narrator's narrative point of view takes priority, though diving into each character's immediate, vivid, direct personal experiences, sensations, thoughts, and feelings, all the while staying out of the scene.

The other narrative point of view attribute, how to transition between viewpoints, Harris has a way of setting them up as section middles lead in to section endings. I've studied many ways it's done for multiple viewpoint character narratives. Lead out, lead in; jump transitions of many varieties; abrupt section endings, lead-in new sections; lead-out section endings, abrupt new section openings; introduce an overall main dramatic complication through one central character and introduce other central characters and their contributions to the main dramatic complication and their own dramatic complications later one or two at a time, then bring them into contact, clashers or allies or both.

Transition writing is one of the principal writing modes, so there's not any one best method, maybe a best method for each circumstance and at least several methods in any given writer's skill set and tool kit.

Writing modes, DIANE'S SECRET, description, introspection, action, narration, emotion, sensation, summarization, exposition, conversation, recollection, explanation, and transition, in no particular order, though introspection, action, emotion, sensation, and conversation are tops. Causal cause feelings and sensory perceptions, and causal effect feelings, thoughts, words, and deeds.