Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I am currently preparing a query for a novel written from two different points of view. I'm finding that because the story is written this way, people are getting confused as to who the main character in the query is. It was my understanding that a query shouldn't necessarily be from a particular point of view, considering I'm the writer and I'm simply re-telling the story for the purpose of getting an agent, but maybe I'm wrong.

Should I mention that it's a rotating POV in the query? Would that help the agent understand that there are two main characters, and that's why both of their stories are mentioned in the query?

Has anybody here ever tackled this issue?

I think it's because you spent the first two paragrahps following one character, and then skip to the other character to follow their story. I think if you found a way to introduce both at the beginning it would give each character ownership of the story, and you could alternate during the query. Otherwise it's an adjustment. We think it's about character A, and then it switches to character B without resolving A's story.

Just my thoughts.

Best,

Bryan

Thanks Bryan.

Wow, I really screwed up! The second paragraph is supposed to be from Scott's perspective! I'll reword the second paragraph so that people know we're now with Scott, and then hopefully they'll forgive the alternating perspectives further down.

I was almost tempted to change it to entirely one character's perspective, but that would only give half of the story (it would also mean I completely chickened out on doing a difficult query!).

Man, this query is slowly driving me insane!

Jaime :)

I know I said this in your other thread but I really like your story idea. I understand what you are trying to do and I agree, it will be hard. I disagree that trying it from 1 perspective would be chickening out though. You could always try it and see how it works. I don't think you would be starting from scratch either. Try a quick query from April's perspective only and see how it turns out. It may be better, and it may not. The problem I see with trying to show both perspectives is that if, in any way, it looks gimmicky, it'll turn off about every agent. Fortunately for you, your story would still make me want to see more so it might work. Good luck.