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Topic : Re: How can multiple viewpoints be used without breaking the flow of the story? I'm currently writing a story in first-person that has a connection to a series of external events - things that - selfpublishingguru.com

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Is there a way to frame the first person narrative within the third person narrative? For instance, Person A is in prison. He can write outgoing letters, but not receive them. So the frame story is the third person narrative on the outside, and the first-person narrative is contained within the letters. Or, the whole story is being told, after the fact, by Person A, who now has access to the information he didn't know at the time, and can fill it in as needed.
Another strategy is to have events take place that Person A experiences but doesn't understand. This is tricky to pull off, but was done effectively in the novel Room, which features a lot of events understandable to the adult reader, but not to the child narrator.
A final thing to consider is whether the reader really needs to know things the POV character doesn't know. It might be a more compelling story if much of what goes on in it is a mystery. Try dropping the 3rd person sections entirely, and then asking yourself, honestly, if you're really missing them. Many of my favorite books (Dhalgren, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Raw Shark Texts, Zelazny's Amber sequence) are filled with mysterious circumstances that the main character understands only at the end --or maybe never really understands. This may feel like a cheat or a betrayal if the reader comes to feel there's no real answer, and the events are just random, but can make for a lot of genuine suspense when there are actual (inaccessible) answers to the questions.


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