Thread: Would this pose a problem to the "flow" of my novel?

Wanted to get the opinions of other writers on a question I have been thinking about recently.

My main protagonist, Phil, is introduced in the first part of the story. The narration is third-person omniscient, although I'm pretty much sticking to narrating only Phil's thoughts, recollections, sights, etc. At one point, Phil finds a letter from his long-deceased father, Ethan.

The letter is one of those long, expository type of plot devices that reveals information about Ethan. Initially, I wrote the letter as though Phil would actually read it, so I switched to Ethan's first-person narrative until the letter was over. (Dear Phil, I wanted to explain to you... blah blah...)

However, I was thinking it might be more insightful into Ethan's character if I narrated the events described in the letter as third-person omniscient, but just switched the focus to Ethan to relay his story.

I have seen tons of books that switch third-person back-and-forth between multiple characters (lots of Stephen King books do that) but that would not quite be the case here. Essentially what I would have would be the first few chapters third-person Phil, then one or two chapters third-person Ethan, then the rest of the book would be third-person Phil. Does this sound like it might interrupt the flow of the story? Or should I just go with my original plan of writing out Ethan's exposition as a letter?

What do you all think?

I'm not completely feeling the viewpoint shifting away from Phil for the letter, going to third-person for Ethan. It could work—of course it all depends on the execution—but I'm leaning towards Phil reading the text of the letter. One reason supporting this is, it will give the reader a better idea of how the letter affects Phil if we see it word-for-word. If we get the third-person view of Ethan's experience, we may be wondering how much of that Phil got from the letter. I can see either working though, frankly.

Hi Vanishing Spy, I don't see a problem either way, but I'd stick with Phil reading the letter and show his reactions to it.

Thank you for your input, caelum and mockingbird. So far the consensus seems to be to have it be conveyed through the letter... I will probably stick with that. I had my reservations about switching it to third-person and focusing on Ethan for those one or two chapters. Maybe if I was alternating chapters back and forth between them or something it would've worked better.

I had my reservations

When either could work it usually pays to take heed of your intuition.

I don't see a problem with giving one chapter to third-person Ethan prior to Phil reading the letter but only if that chapter reveals something about Ethan or Ethan's relationship with Phil that is important and that we wouldn't have been able to understand without the chapter.

Doing this may allow you to write the letter in a way that is a bit more nuanced (rather than just an information dump in the form of a letter). So for the reader to fully understand what has been written in the letter, we must first have been shown some character trait of Ethan in an earlier chapter.

That being said, I would only do this in order to avoid the letter being used as an info dump.

Either way is just fine, it dosent really bother me at all.

@Bad Craziness:
The chapter with third-person Ethan would actually be in place of the letter. It would reveal the same information as the letter (i.e., nothing would be revealed that Phil couldn't glean from reading the letter.) The main reason I had thought about doing it third-person was because, like you said, it would be more nuanced than just having Ethan's "voice" describing the events. It would explain the reasons for much of Ethan's behavior that had been relayed in the story up until this point. (Specifically, in the first part of the story Phil recalls his father's mental instability when Phil was a child, and the Ethan chapter would be a direct explanation for this behavior.)

@everyone:
I guess I'm still kind of on-the-fence about the issue.

I've seen movies where the main character finds something, usually a letter, and upon reading it, the movie cuts to a flashback scene where it shows the events described in the letter. More often than not, it's accompanied by the author of the letter's voice-over narration (I keep thinking about the character Brooks from the Shawshank Redemption, how his letter to Andy and the other inmates was read over footage of his failure to re-acclimate to the outside world and subsequent suicide. Andy and the inmates would not have "seen" that sequence of events, even though we, the viewers, were privy to it, but they still received the same information from the letter... the visual sequence of Brook's suicide did not show anything that the inmates couldn't have gleaned from the letter, with the exception of his scratching "Brooks Was Here" into the wooden plank.)

I would not have the voice-over-action option, seeing as how my work is a novel, but I think that the movie actually SHOWING Brooks doing these things is more powerful and emotional than just depicting the inmates sitting around reading his letter. I was thinking that my having the third-person Ethan chapter or two might be similar, might make the reader feel more like they were "there" with Ethan, perceiving these events.

Maybe this is a case of where a technique in a movie doesn't translate so well to the written page..?

I appreciate everyone's comments and advice and welcome further suggestions... I guess I'm still kind of on-the-fence about the matter, but everyone's input has given me a lot to consider. Sorry for my long posts and I appreciate people's reading them... I'm a blabbermouth.

Ah, I understand now. So your choices are basically:

1. Phil opened the envelope and started reading the letter left by his father. The contents of which revealed that period of Ethan's life he'd always wondered about...

New Chapter with 3rd person Ethan.

or;

2. Phil opened the envelope and started reading the letter left behind by his late father, Ethan.

"Dear Phillip,
I know you've probably..."

Tough one. Like you said, it may be easier to involve the reader by adopting the "show don't tell" rule that number 1 allows you. It also allows for Ethan to be a little less self-aware (by that I mean he hasn't written a letter that states "I did X because of Y, and A because of B, and I'm sorry").

You could always write it both ways and see what works, but for fear of the dreaded info dump I'd probably lean towards option 1. There's nothing worse than a writer who jams information down the throat of the reader in less-than-subtle ways...

You could try writing it both ways (at least a few pages to get the feel) and see which one works best for you.