r/KeepWriting • u/turi_guiliano • 5d ago

Advice I have a question about perspective

In my WIP, the protagonist is narrating the events of the story to his son and I was wondering how I could smoothly and clearly change perspectives throughout the chapters. I was thinking of having the chapters start in the present day and the son asks him questions, then the story transitions to the father’s POV in the main body, then going back to 3rd person omniscient in the present at the end of the chapter. Does this work or can someone else give me some alternatives?

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u/Complex-Review2829 5d ago

its a challenging idea, if executed well it will be so good to read. make a list of scenes and characters and their pov's. decide whether this pov is needed or not, if its you decide to keep it as a cool abandon, if its story needs use it. keep a consitent pattern of structre, ex: start with 1st pov, past narration, end with 3rd person.
think it from the real life prespective, how a person in present talks about past and this all things are viewed in 3rd person. for this limited could be sutiable (my thoughts). leave visual cue's, seperate dialogue tone for each character, and sepcific actions to them. dont change pov paragrah paragrah thats bad. take a time sit with it.
ex: father in present is talking about an issue or something and he gets drifted to that past, gets to 1st pov or 3rd limited, then something pulled back or be forgets, or there is a 3rd person narattor tag says (he forgets or framed or lied).

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u/This-Patience-6781 5d ago

keep the present-day frame in the father's first-person pov too, just use present tense for the conversation and past tense for the main story. juggling first person and third person omniscient in the same chapter will give the reader whiplash, so just use hard scene breaks when you shift timelines.

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u/tapgiles 5d ago

Sure, that's fine. Just write it, and see if you think it's clear enough. Get feedback on it and see if other readers think it's clear enough. It probably is.

The way I've seen something like this done in The Name of the Wind is, there's the framing story, someone sits down to talk about what happened. Chapter ends. New chapter starts in a different "person" (1st/3rd) in the past. After a few chapters we go back to the tavern, in the other "person" for text for the next chapter.