What happens with Third Person Limited characters meet?

LearningTwoWrite · Oct 3, 2012

From what I read, unless every single scene you have is with your main character, then sooner or later you have to have Third Person Limited with at least some other character, but what happens when all the characters meet up? What do you do?

Example. Children separated from parents. The children group has a main character, who is also the main, main

character of the book. It's about him/her.

But, when the kids get lost the parents go searching. They go through their own small thing to find them. It's not near as big as the kids' adventure, but it's present. In this parent group, I have a TPL for one of the characters.

But when the parents and kids meet up, what do I do? I stay in one head? Go between the two, just not in the same scene? Should I have Third Person Omnisicent outside of the main adventure that has the TPL of the main characters.

It's getting complicated.... :Shrug:

Thanks for any guidance.

mayqueen · Oct 3, 2012

You either write it all third person omniscient or all third person limited. Mixing the two will be confusing, I think. I don't know. I'm open to being proven wrong. But I think for ease of reading, you should stay in one perspective for each scene.

BethS · Oct 3, 2012

As a general guideline, use the POV of the character who has the most at stake in the scene. Or the character who has knowledge of certain things and you need to bring that knowledge to the forefront.

You can also alternate scenes, if the story calls for it.

Springs · Oct 3, 2012

Since the child is the main protagonist, I would primarily use him/her once the two groups meet up again. However, if the adult POV character has things to add after they meet up, decide which scenes would be best told from each and divide it that way.

Ellielle · Oct 3, 2012

LearningTwoWrite said:
But when the parents and kids meet up, what do I do? I stay in one head? Go between the two, just not in the same scene? Should I have Third Person Omnisicent outside of the main adventure that has the TPL of the main characters.

Don't switch between Third Limited and Third Omnisicent--that seems like it would be really confusing.

If you have multiple scenes with the kids and parents, you can switch between the limited POVs between scenes (as in, scene 1 follows the viewpoint kid, scene 2 follows the viewpoint adult etc). You can choose for each scene whether it would be best told from the child or adult's POV

BBBurke · Oct 3, 2012

LearningTwoWrite said:
But when the parents and kids meet up, what do I do? I stay in one head? Go between the two, just not in the same scene? Should I have Third Person Omnisicent outside of the main adventure that has the TPL of the main characters.

It's getting complicated.... Thanks for any guidance.

Keep it simple. Don't switch from limited to omniscient. Choose one character for the scene and write from their POV. Choose which character by deciding what you want out of the scene and which character will deliver that. It doesn't have to be complicated unless you want to make it so.

[FONT=&quot]"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated." -Poul Anderson
[/FONT]

Kerosene · Oct 3, 2012

Use the best camera angle. (Agreeing with BethS). You can change angles, with page breaks too.

My current WIP, has 6 POV, and at the end they all meet up. I just chose the best camera to see the action from, and maybe relieve problems that the reader might not understand.

leahzero · Oct 4, 2012

LearningTwoWrite said:
But when the parents and kids meet up, what do I do? I stay in one head? Go between the two, just not in the same scene? Should I have Third Person Omnisicent outside of the main adventure that has the TPL of the main characters.

You stay with the same POV until you reach the type of transition you've been using to switch POVs--a scene break, chapter break, whatever. Then you switch to another POV.

Suddenly switching to omni will be very confusing. Omni generally needs to be established early on for the reader to get into it.

Becky Black · Oct 4, 2012

A few years ago when I was writing a story with rather a lot of characters, several of them having a chance at the POV at some time, I ranked them into groups, and in any given scene the character in the highest ranking group got the POV unless there was a good reason to do otherwise. If they were of the same rank I'd go for a tiebreaker, which in the end would come down to "whose POV would be more interesting in this scene?" It worked nicely. It kept the focus on the most important characters.

James D. Macdonald · Oct 4, 2012

Line-breaks are your friends.

jaksen · Oct 4, 2012

James D. Macdonald said:
Line-breaks are your friends.

Yup. I've written and sold a few stories this way as have many, many, many (did I say many?) other writers.

kuwisdelu · Oct 4, 2012

Don't break POV. Describing one of the POV characters from another POV character can be quite revealing about the characters.

LJD · Oct 4, 2012

This happens in nearly every romance novel...
As in, both the hero and heroine are POV characters, and they are regularly in scenes together.

Merenwen · Oct 4, 2012

Unless you've established omniscient from the beginning, it will be wildly confusing to the reader, and also for yourself. As other's have said, line breaks work wonders. I also have two protagonists (out of several), that meet later in the book, after every other relationship has been established. To me, one isn't more imporant than the other, eventhough I do have a "main" character. All I did was decide who's perspective was the best for the story in that particular scene.

Bufty · Oct 4, 2012

Hi, LearningTwo Write.

It's perfectly normal for two or more POV characters to meet at any time in a tale. Each time, the writer has to decide from whose POV any particular section is best related.

If the scene you mention is the climax of the tale it seems to me the POV should be with your main POV character in the children's group simply because it is her story - no?

In such a meeting there's nothing like dialogue for keeping the interest and tension alive. Constantly switching POV simply to show what someone else is thinking will, I suspect, be both distracting and unnecessary.

Good luck.

LearningTwoWrite said:
From what I read, unless every single scene you have is with your main character, then sooner or later you have to have Third Person Limited with at least some other character, but what happens when all the characters meet up? What do you do?

Example. Children separated from parents. The children group has a main character, who is also the main, main character of the book. It's about him/her.

But, when the kids get lost the parents go searching. They go through their own small thing to find them. It's not near as big as the kids' adventure, but it's present. In this parent group, I have a TPL for one of the characters.

But when the parents and kids meet up, what do I do? I stay in one head? Go between the two, just not in the same scene? Should I have Third Person Omnisicent outside of the main adventure that has the TPL of the main characters.

It's getting complicated....

Thanks for any guidance.

rwm4768 · Oct 4, 2012

As others have said, I would stick with one character. I've used scene breaks in my books in these kinds of situations. But if you use too many scene breaks, it's pretty much head-hopping. I'm talking a scene break after every paragraph or so. That would get annoying quickly.

Polenth · Oct 4, 2012

LearningTwoWrite said:
From what I read, unless every single scene you have is with your main character, then sooner or later you have to have Third Person Limited with at least some other character

It's not inevitable that books in third limited or first person will have more than one viewpoint character. There are plenty of books that stick to one viewpoint character only, even though there are important things going on when they're not around. They find out the same way we do in the real world... someone tells them or they piece it together from what they can see.

The start is asking whether the other viewpoint characters add something to the story. Not to assume they will.

Bufty · Oct 5, 2012

Don't confuse scene-breaks with line-breaks.

And the former don't necessarily equate to head-hopping, because they warn of the impending change.

Context is everything.

rwm4768 said:
As others have said, I would stick with one character. I've used scene breaks in my books in these kinds of situations. But if you use too many scene breaks, it's pretty much head-hopping. I'm talking a scene break after every paragraph or so. That would get annoying quickly.

What happens with Third Person Limited characters meet?

LearningTwoWrite

mayqueen

practical experience, FTW

BethS

Springs

Ellielle

needs something clever to put here

BBBurke

Along for the ride

Kerosene

Your Pixie Queen

leahzero

The colors! THE COLORS!

Becky Black

Writing my way off the B Ark

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

jaksen

Caped Codder

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

LJD

Merenwen

Expositionist

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW

Polenth

Mushroom

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?