: How to quickly change people in first person view? So, I'm trying to write a book in first person, but have trouble when there's any form of action involving in groups. After all, it's about

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My advice is to set your scene(s) up so that your group is split into two (or more as needed) subsets which each have an action scene that is out of view of the other group. Consider the Star Wars film "Return of the Jedi" which, at the end, had three different action elements in the destruction of the Death Star: A.) Han, Leia, Chewie, Droids, and Ewoks fight to eliminate the shield generator protecting the Death Star. B.). Lando, Akbar, and the weird alien I can't remember his name and he never spoke English Fight in space and try to survive long enough to blow up the Death Star. C.) Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader fighting the Emperor.

All three fights occur simultaneously but are unable to see the other fight all that well. Here the scene will shift and the person who is POV may shift as well. Consider in the first example fight where we actually further divide it as Chewie and Ewoks steal an AT-ST while Han and Leia try to open the Bunker, unaware of what the furrier teammates are up too. To switch perspective, the scene will shift to the B or C fights and then back to the A fight, along with switching who we are watching in the A fight (So if A1 is Chewie and A2 is Han and Leia, it would look like A1 to B to C to A2 OR A1 to B to A2 to C.

Another option is to do a "Relay fight" or "Oner Scene". The concept in film is shot that is ideally moving through the set in one take (though some might be faked so the audience can't see the cut). The best example of this is Marvel's Avengers with the scene where we pan through the fight, starting with Black Widow flying the alien skiff, Iron Man joins her. She veers off and Iron Man lands by Captain America, and assists him in blasting a few aliens on the ground before taking flight again and passing by Hawkeye, who is sniping aliens with his bows and arrows. We then follow one arrow from shot to to sticking an alien on the back of a Leviathan which is then finished off by Thor and Hulk, who fend off the aliens attempting to dislodge the heroes while they tag team the Leviathan, causing it to crash into Grand Central Station. Hulk closes the scene by punching Thor off screen because Hulk is petty like that.

Here the perspective character changes, but the change is passed off as everyone moves through the scene, much like a baton is passed off in a relay race. This style shows that multiple things are going on in one set that are independent of each other but have an intersections. "Oners" like this can also follow one character as he or she move through the various intersections. A great example of this is from the film "Serenity" where the opening scene featuring the heroes follows Mal from the Bridge on the top forward deck of the titular ship to the medbay at the lower aft deck. Mal is the singular POV, but he goes from the pilot realizing they're in for a rough landing, through the crew decks where the pilot's Wife and the ships muscle both ask if the ship is really crashing, to the engine room where the engineer says she's got a handle on that mess, but can't talk, turns to meet the doctor, who is pissed because the latest scheme will use his sister (who isn't the picture of mental health) on a bank heist, and their argument goes down the stairs, into the cargo bay, and into the medbay. This method is less relay race but shows multiple things are happening but not on screen.

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I don't know that there is a single answer to this dilemma; the most common advice you'll likely hear tossed about for rapid POV switches is 'don't, unless you really need to.' That said, one can make just about anything work with enough skill, so if it's necessary for your story, there are a few things that can help.

Hard Breaks: Horizontal rules, extra line breaks, whatever makes sense for the format you're publishing in. Give the reader a clear signal of discontinuity in the narrative so they're primed to accept the change.

Internal References: Consider a team of six with an even gender split. A scene opens with the following sentences: "The remaining flights of stairs up to the observation point could best be described as 'far too many.' I wasn't exactly an athletic girl like Ann and Beth." Process of elimination immediately tells the reader this must be Carol. You can't overuse this, of course, as it would start to stand out, but it's a useful tool where it fits.

Context Clues: People dress differently, carry different equipment. If it's relevant to the scene, mentioning a unique accessory can give the reader a point of reference. If the team is split up, some of them may also be in visually distinctive locations that would warrant immediate mention in the narration.

Narration Style: It's difficult for this to make an immediate impact on the reader; for most narrators, the differences could take a few sentences or even paragraphs to jar the reader out of their assumptions. That said, sufficiently unique narrators can make their presence known earlier; perhaps they use words the others wouldn't, or have a tendency to slip into foreign-language references. Maybe they just swear a lot.

Just Say It: This is generally only useful at chapter breaks, but if you make a habit of switching characters along with chapters, it's not necessarily a bad thing to simply include the character's name as a subtitle to the chapter. This can occasionally work at scene breaks as well, but usually only in certain types of fiction; stories written as a log, for example, might preface every scene with the time and location, and in such a case could include the character as well.

A hard break is the only element I'd say to always use; of the rest, pick whatever fits the scene. Whatever you do, however, do it as early as possible, and then, if you can, reinforce it after a couple paragraphs. Sometimes readers need a couple knocks to the head to change tracks.

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