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An odd sort of choose your own...

Reluctant_Sir ๐Ÿšซ

The other thread about POVs got me thinking of an old idea.

Something I would love to see done well, though I admit I wouldn't do it because of the amount of drudgery involved, is a multi POV tale in which the user could choose which viewpoint, which character is the MC.

The story would necessarily be limited to a few primary characters, otherwise it would quickly grow unmanageable. The author would have to rewrite the same story over and over, each time from the viewpoint of a new character and, finally, in a 3rd person omniscient view.

The reader could choose a character to start with and switch at will, or stick with one and then read a second character or even a third to see how the POV switches, how the motivations of the character are seen internally and externally.

The mechanism is what has always stymied me. There are a dozen ways you could do it, but none of them feel right.

Do you attempt to mix the POVs in a single book or do you have multiple stories, each with a single POV? In a print book, it could be something as simple as a colored page, different for each character and white for the Narrator.

Electronically would be easier, with the ability to switch between viewpoints at will, never losing your place in the story, but software would have to be developed to do that.

What other challenges would be involved in writing something like this?

Switch Blayde ๐Ÿšซ

@Reluctant_Sir

The author would have to rewrite the same story over and over, each time from the viewpoint of a new character

When I talk about how important POV is, I use "To Kill a Mockingbird" as an example. The POV is the young girl's (Scout) and is a coming of age story. Imagine how the story would change if it were from her father's POV, a lawyer's. That would be the book John Grisham would write. Or imagine the story from the black man's POV. For that matter, imagine the story told by the girl who claimed she was raped.

Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@Reluctant_Sir

Something I would love to see done well, though I admit I wouldn't do it because of the amount of drudgery involved, is a multi POV tale in which the user could choose which viewpoint, which character is the MC.

I was considering another PA (Post-Apocalypse) story, detailing the adventures of three different groups, where each group has it's own POV, reflecting their perspectives (i.e. those looking forward speak in future tense, those focusing on the present speak in present tense, while those cemented to the past use past-tense). It seemed like a challenging opportunity, but I've never gotten back to it, as the underlying story had some major outstanding issues. :(

REP ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

@Reluctant_Sir

I agree with you that as an author it would be an interesting project. However, as a reader I would probably get bored around the 3rd POV.

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@REP

as a reader I would probably get bored around the 3rd POV.

Unless it's with significant time between rereads and you choose a different POV for the whole reread, not switching during a read.

Switch Blayde ๐Ÿšซ

@Reluctant_Sir

Something I would love to see done well, though I admit I wouldn't do it because of the amount of drudgery involved, is a multi POV tale in which the user could choose which viewpoint, which character is the MC.

The movie "Vantage Point" is about the attempted assassination of the American President told and re-told from several different perspectives. I didn't like the movie. I found it boring.

There was another movie I hated (I don't remember the name) where a scene was told from the boy's POV and then repeated from the girl's POV. I really hated that one. Talk about boring.

And "Courage Under Fire" tells what happened in a battle from different people's POVs. That one is different because it's about someone (Denzel Washington's character) investigating what really happened. So it was sort of a mystery.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@Switch Blayde

The movie "Vantage Point" is about the attempted assassination of the American President told and re-told from several different perspectives. I didn't like the movie. I found it boring.

The reason that most alternating POV stories are 'boring' isn't because of the technique, but because the authors typically regurgitate the exact scenes from each perspective. The only way to carry it off is to have each POV character recount completely different details, so they're not repeating whole episodes, but are reflecting the actual character's perspective as events unfold. However, that's easier said than accomplished, which is why successful multiple POV stories are SO rare.

That's the aspect I saw as I challenge in my unwritten story idea, using the different perspectives to focus on each group's unique perspective of events, and how those perspectives color their interpretation of events, effectively blinding them to any other view. Unfortunately, carrying it off requires an extremely difficult balancing act of showing/hiding revenant details so the readers won't even truly know wtf is going on until they reach the end of the book, which is guaranteed to annoy most everyone!

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

The only way to carry it off is to have each POV character recount completely different details, so they're not repeating whole episodes, but are reflecting the actual character's perspective as events unfold.

That would be true if you wrote the different POV's in the same story without the reader switching. If I understood the concept that Reluctant_Sir presented correctly the details would need to be the same (mostly) because the reader would NOT read the other POV's at that time because he is reading his chosen POV.

Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Reluctant_Sir

What other challenges would be involved in writing something like this?

The first question is: are there readers interested in reading a story with those choices in POV? I can't answer that except that for me it would depend on the story. There are several stories I have read multiple times and I can imagine that it would be interesting to reread a story but with a different POV.
Then you would need authors with the desire to write the same story multiple times from the different POV's without changing the story line and details. I have no idea if that's an attractive way to write for an author.

Technically it goes from very easy to very difficult, depending on how far you want to take it.
The easiest way is to have the same chapter for each of the POV's and at the end of a chapter you select the next chapter with the POV you as a reader want to read. Very little need for special software for that just a way to create multiple "next" links at the end of each chapter. If you want to change POV in the middle of a chapter it becomes a bit more tricky. I can think of a few ways but it would depend on reader interest in the concept if it's worth the effort to create a solution for it. And that's for a stories in html format.
For an ebook it becomes a lot more difficult since most ebooks are more or less a continual read without "next" links. You can use javascript in an epub but it's very limited and doesn't have the same support on every reader, if it's supported at all. You would probably need new reader software to support the concept.

Dinsdale ๐Ÿšซ

a multi POV tale in which the user could choose which viewpoint, which character is the MC.

That has been done here on SOL, although "multi" never exceeded "two". At the moment I'm trying to remember who the authors were, Oyster50 and Wes Boyd spring to mind (Wes' stories are mostly on his own site). Lubrican may also have experimented with this.

Replies:   hiltonls16
hiltonls16 ๐Ÿšซ

@Dinsdale

Oyster50 has successfully used many characters as narrator in his current Community - Moving On, that is not repeating the scene.

In other works he has switched between the two main characters and repeated a scene without adding much. There are probably ways of providing the additions without repeating the whole scene.

Jason Samson ๐Ÿšซ

An excellent example of girl boy alternating POV is the newly posted https://storiesonline.net/s/21982/no-strings-attached-by-cheryl-terra

Warmly recommended.

It's by two authors, each taking a POV and not repeating same details.

It's their second collaboration. The first was also great.

Uther_Pendragon ๐Ÿšซ

@Reluctant_Sir

Something I would love to see done well, though I admit I wouldn't do it because of the amount of drudgery involved, is a multi POV tale in which the user could choose which viewpoint, which character is the MC.

I usually don't go beyond two,but the universe I've been posting for about the last year has matching stories from a guy's POV and a girl's POV. Sometimes, one r will have experiences the other doesn't share. The stories which start after Easter ultimately get the POV of 4 different people.

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