Scope is definitely tempting to dive into; a very early draft of my old work used a different character’s perspective for every single chapter.
I did write it that way for as long as I could but I gave up when there were so many fine details, so many important potential character moments, so many story beats that I had to sacrifice to pursue the scope I was originally reaching for.
I couldn’t paint any particular trees to my liking because I had such a forest left to paint, metaphorically.
If you can do it, awesome. But I decided to focus on one primary character. Well, then two. Then three. I guess a vestige of the old approach came back there.
I was thinking of doing POV chapters too but I’m not sure that works in Kinetic novel form because I want the charachter on scene, though I could have only one charachter expressing inner thoughts per chapter and just bounce around as necessary? Not a new character per chapter though no.
The other problem is some key characters have secrets lol. Which I’m not sure how to handle. Like it would seem kinda suspicious to have those characters never have POVs, or have their story be told through the eye of a bodyguard or something when other characters are not.
I think I’m probably still going to do something POV-esque because I do want SOMEONE giving personal perspective on events and I dont know that I want it to just be a handful of them. I guess i’ll just have to be careful with the scope of WHO is getting POVs so its not so broad that its really suspicious when a particular character isn’t.
I wonder if you could do a sort of conditionally-unreliable narrator where from a character’s POV they almost reveal their secret but not quite for the reader, and then when it shifts out, it can still be a surprise when it’s finally delivered.
Secrets pay off best, usually, when they’re from someone else’s POV when they finally are revealed than the secret-haver.
Scope is definitely tempting to dive into; a very early draft of my old work used a different character’s perspective for every single chapter.
I did write it that way for as long as I could but I gave up when there were so many fine details, so many important potential character moments, so many story beats that I had to sacrifice to pursue the scope I was originally reaching for.
I couldn’t paint any particular trees to my liking because I had such a forest left to paint, metaphorically.
If you can do it, awesome. But I decided to focus on one primary character. Well, then two. Then three. I guess a vestige of the old approach came back there.
I was thinking of doing POV chapters too but I’m not sure that works in Kinetic novel form because I want the charachter on scene, though I could have only one charachter expressing inner thoughts per chapter and just bounce around as necessary? Not a new character per chapter though no.
The other problem is some key characters have secrets lol. Which I’m not sure how to handle. Like it would seem kinda suspicious to have those characters never have POVs, or have their story be told through the eye of a bodyguard or something when other characters are not.
I think I’m probably still going to do something POV-esque because I do want SOMEONE giving personal perspective on events and I dont know that I want it to just be a handful of them. I guess i’ll just have to be careful with the scope of WHO is getting POVs so its not so broad that its really suspicious when a particular character isn’t.
I wonder if you could do a sort of conditionally-unreliable narrator where from a character’s POV they almost reveal their secret but not quite for the reader, and then when it shifts out, it can still be a surprise when it’s finally delivered.
Secrets pay off best, usually, when they’re from someone else’s POV when they finally are revealed than the secret-haver.