First Person / Third Person

[Khadrian]

Alright, I'll start off with saying that this is the first time I have ever posted anything on any form of forum. That being said I have a question that, as the subject suggests, involves first and third person perspectives.

So I just started re-brainstorming an idea that I have had for a story, one that has taken form in my head first as a manga, then a novel, and now I have decided that the story fits best as a visual novel. My problem, or rather question, is that I am unsure on whether it is safe (acceptable) to switch between perspectives in mid-story. An example word be that, let's say the story flows in a first person perspective, but there are times when the protagonist is unconscious or simply not present. During these times the events taking place still need to be told using a third person narrative. Is there a way to accomplish this without making the transitions between perspectives confusing?

I hope my rambling was understandable, and thank you in advance.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Alright, I'll start off with saying that this is the first time I have ever posted anything on any form of forum. That being said I have a question that, as the subject suggests, involves first and third person perspectives.

So I just started re-brainstorming an idea that I have had for a story, one that has taken form in my head first as a manga, then a novel, and now I have decided that the story fits best as a visual novel. My problem, or rather question, is that I am unsure on whether it is safe (acceptable) to switch between perspectives in mid-story. An example word be that, let's say the story flows in a first person perspective, but there are times when the protagonist is unconscious or simply not present. During these times the events taking place still need to be told using a third person narrative. Is there a way to accomplish this without making the transitions between perspectives confusing?

I hope my rambling was understandable, and thank you in advance.

Switching between first and third person perspectives isn't advised. It can be confusing and clunky, plus it can interfere with the "fiction" of the narrative. By that I mean first person perspective always has a reason it is in first person - it is a diary, a debriefing, a letter, a story being told to an audience, a reminiscence, a memory, etc. You can generally get away with multiple first person narrators if you make them distinct and don't mix them at the same time, but switching to third person just raises too many questions - how did the character know what was happening to them when unconscious? How do they know about events they weren't present for?

You can still write scenes where the character is unconscious or not present from the first person perspective by doing something similar to this:

"I learned enemy agents upended my apartment while I was unconscious. Partly because I knew even drunk as I was the night before, I wouldn't rearrange the contents of every drawer. Mostly, however, due to the fact the dossier file I kept on their activities was missing from the fridge crisper. I suspected three agents, perhaps one per pilfered apple, but I didn't discount the idea it could have been one very greedy or hungry agent. Either way, I was hungover and in trouble."

Obviously you can't include as much detail as you might have liked for a scene summarized in this way, but generally stories using first person perspective are plotted so that you never have to leave the perspective of the narrator. If you really want to write a story that goes everywhere and follows a lot of different people, then first person is probably the wrong perspective to use.

I suspect you are trying to pigeon-hole the same story you created for one medium into a different one. Changes always need to be made to create the best fit for different mediums. For instance, a manga story might have less dialogue and more action to take advantage of the visual medium. A novel might go into depth with characters thoughts and motivations, etc. I would try rewriting your story to remove the need to switch perspectives.

[Khadrian]

I suspect you are trying to pigeon-hole the same story you created for one medium into a different one. Changes always need to be made to create the best fit for different mediums. For instance, a manga story might have less dialogue and more action to take advantage of the visual medium. A novel might go into depth with characters thoughts and motivations, etc. I would try rewriting your story to remove the need to switch perspectives.

You're exactly right! Thanks for the input. I was also planning on writing a scene where another character explains prior events (a back story) where the scene would reflect the story being told by said character. Is this also unadvised? And if not, would it be plausible to use the same method to explain what happened to the protagonist when they were in a state of unawareness?

[CheeryMoya]

It's an unspoken rule to keep the point of view consistent. I read one book where the narration would switch between 1st and 3rd person frequently, and it was very distracting to me. I thought it didn't flow too well, and as LateWhiteRabbit said, it was clunky.

I was also planning on writing a scene where another character explains prior events (a back story) where the scene would reflect the story being told by said character. Is this also unadvised? And if not, would it be plausible to use the same method to explain what happened to the protagonist when they were in a state of unawareness?

That's perfectly alright. It wouldn't confuse the reader (or maybe just me >_<) at all since no change in POV has occurred.

[Khadrian]

Thanks for your help. I gave it some thought and decided that the only way to keep from breaking the story or the perspective in the specific scene I was having trouble with, would be to change the order of events from the original,

Protagonist is knocked unconscious --> events in 3rd person --> protagonist awakes, continues 1st person. to
Events in 1st person --> protagonist knocked unconscious --> protagonist awakes with memory loss.

Seeing it like this shows me just how broken the first method was, it is definitely too confusing, and even though the order I've changed it into is a little cliche, it works without causing problems in either perspective or the story line.

--edit--
The reason I used memory loss is because the protagonist is not supposed to know what happened, but the reader is.

[VagueZ]

Well, swapping from one to the other has been done before. Fate/Stay Night does so--when the first person narrator isn't available, the game flashes up a notice that there's an interlude, and we go to third person until it goes back to him. There's also no choices during interludes, ever--you only make choices for the main character, who you get in first person mode.

I don't think it worked very well, but if you felt the need, something like that is probably necessary.

Tortured justifications for mentioning information now bugs me unless the story is framed in such a way that the narrator is telling his story long after the fact and has had time to arrange his notes and research things, though having someone else narrate and flashing up graphics is just fine, and probably preferred if it's longer than a couple of lines. What I don't like is more like "I woke up, not knowing that someone had gone through my apartment while I was out". It's not hard to avoid if you think about it.

If you really need to cut to events that don't feature the main character, though, it's worth considering just writing it in third person.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I have read a case of switching between first and third perspective that I thought was done quite well and that was Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy. The perspectives were divided by chapters and were identified so you knew which one it was. It was very interesting in some cases, especially when there were differences between the reality of the omnipresent narrator of third person and the much more personal and bias version provided by the first person.