Lemma Soft Forums

I have a story which is told primarily in the protagonist's point of view, but in order to "set the stage" so to speak, the prologue is written in the POV of the protagonist's romantic interest. I have no intention of ever switching to the romantic interest's POV at any other point in the story.

What are your guys' opinions on this? Do you think this would seem jarring (or just plain weird) to readers/players? If so, what would you suggest I do to fix it?


Thank you for your time~ ^^

If it helps to get into the story better or as you said "setting the stage" i think its perfectly fine. In general, i think there is nothing wrong with swiching POV's in prologue or on rare occasions in game (for example: to show what happend to someone else in the meantime etc).

I think it is interesting introduction too, but you need to keep in mind that it have to be VERY clear who we are playing right now. In situation like this there is nothing worse tham confusion around who are you playing right now.

Sometimes it's necessary or just the best approach. The most important thing is making it clear that the POV shift happens, for example by changing the color or font of the text, or making quite clear with only the love interest on screen that they're talking to themself and therefore the new POV for the moment.

I think it's totally fine to switch POV given that it translates to a more understandable script. There are many ways to present information to the reader, and every option should be at your disposal even if you're writing fiction. (That includes letter and report writing) You shouldn't use only one style while writing to convey your message to the audience. But as noted from the previous posters, it's good if your audience is given some kind of visual cue to allow them to know that the 'switch' had occurred. What you want to try avoiding is confusing your reader on who is talking as it may cause some kind of confusion in between of what is known and what is not later on in the dialogue. Good luck with yer writing!

A separate POV for the prologue is fine, and is often done in novels and movies. Same with epilogues.

Just be careful about changing it later on. If you've done only one POV throughout and you suddenly switch it is jarring and breaks immersion. This is because you've established a pattern and have broken it. Regularly alternating POVs is cool, regularly dipping into other POVs is cool, but a sudden breaking of a long established pattern draws notice to itself and comes off as heavy handed.

And like others said, make sure you make the change in POV clear immediately.

APkittis wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:25 am I have a story which is told primarily in the protagonist's point of view, but in order to "set the stage" so to speak, the prologue is written in the POV of the protagonist's romantic interest. I have no intention of ever switching to the romantic interest's POV at any other point in the story.

What are your guys' opinions on this? Do you think this would seem jarring (or just plain weird) to readers/players? If so, what would you suggest I do to fix it?


Thank you for your time~ ^^

It's worth noting that the Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works anime (maybe the FSN VN as well, I don't know, I haven't played it yet...) does just this. It's an excellent idea for getting the player some information they need to understand what is going on from the beginning which the protagonist may not be privy to. This will help the player understand the events and you can run the exposition off-screen during a scene, with the player's perspective returning at the end of the conversation so that they know the protagonist was caught up on what they don't know.

I think doing this right at the beginning makes it feel less weird (if you did it in the middle of the story only once, it might have felt like cheating because it's breaking pre-established "rules" you've set up for the reader).

Remember to give each of your main characters distinct personalities and speech patterns, as that can also show the player who's narration/dialogue they're reading. Games and novels like Undertale and the Discworld series are very good at doing this. Both of them even go as far as using special fonts for specific characters (in Undertale, Sans speaks in "Comic Sans" and Papyrus speaks in "Papyrus" and the Discworld series has Death speak in SMALL CAPS, to imply that he speaks telepathically, while virtually all the other characters use a standard font).