Thread: Switching Between 1st Person and Omniscient

Is it too confusing for the reader? Im thinking of writing part of a story in 1st person (from the MC's POV), with the rest being omniscient, following the other characters.

I am not sure thats a good idea. First person is very close to the character and omniscient has the capability of going far away from the character. The reader could end up feeling confused going from very close and limited, to very wide. Try using third person instead.

I agree, this sounds like a poor idea. I think you should pick one POV and stick with it - otherwise, even if you do manage to make the alteration work and your story ends up decent, it will still probably be worse than it would have been had you stuck to one particular style. The contrast between styles is bound to poke the reader's eye out!

General rules are all very well for the general writer, the particular writer may be able to break them to good effect. If you think you have the ability try it and see, if it doesn't work you can always re write and you will have the framework to work from.

Thanks for the responses. I will probably end up running with whichever POV feels right at the time, reason being that my MC is dead. I've written a few of her scenes, and it just came out in first person and is reading really nicely. But then there are parts of the story that need to follow living characters, and I dont want the MC there "watching" them, so I figured that those would be best told via third person omniscient, because I need the reader to know what those characters are thinking in those scenes. Each of those scenes could focus on one of the living characters, though. Maybe third person limited could work...

I've actually read a very good book that switches between first person, third limited, and third omniscient, and it works very well for that particular book. But really, it's all about the execution. It's generally accepted that switches in POV work better if there's a break between. Whether it's just a blank space between paragraphs or a whole chapter break. My advice is always try it out and see how it goes. It's fun to experiment, and even if it doesn't end up working, you'll probably learn a few things along the way. Much luck!

Oh yes, I would definitely be breaking all POV changes up with either chapter breaks, or a visual break of some kind (I tend to like a line of 5 asterisks).

Currently playing with this as I am, I'm not really sure what to tell you. My bread and butter style, personally, is first-person, but after reading some third-person stuff which I really liked, I decided to try and mix the two in one story. The result is... kind of a mess. The change in pace between the two is a little startling, and it leads to me ending up with two different tones in the sections written in each style. Neither of them is particularly bad, but they simply don't mesh well.

Of course, this is more of a judgement against the materials I'm trying to fit together more than the tools I'm using, but I still feel to warn you to watch that you keep the tone level as you switch.

Originally Posted by justbishop

Is it too confusing for the reader?

No, you just need to ground the reader when you switch.

If by first person you mean "I did this, and then I thought that," I don't like first person very much. You need a POV, but it can be from the view of any number of characters (as long as you can "establish" their character.) I think this is perfectly acceptable:

I can't do this, Jackson thought. He wanted to take that chair and throw it through the window. The big man stood up and walked over to the table...

The "thought" adds a first person aspect, but otherwise, I believe this is considered "third person omniscient", and I like it.

Most of the first person stuff would not be dialogue heavy. Not sure if that helps. A lot of it is characters recalling memories of times past.

Example of a memory being told:

"Eventually, he started coming home from school on my bus most days. I wondered why he preferred to be at my house until the his Mom offered to watch Rowe and I one day when my Dad was going to have to work exceptionally late and our regular babysitter wasn't going to be able to keep us that long. We had hot dogs and orange macaroni and cheese for dinner that night, sitting on the floor at their living room coffee table in front of the television. I remember wondering why the carpet was sticky in spots, and being confused about their lack of a dining room table. Rowe didn't seem to mind, and she and Christian laughed hysterically with mouths full of food at the cartoon we were watching. Ms. Marx was in her bedroom with the door closed most of the night. I had to remind her that we needed to brush our teeth before bed, and when the lights in Christian's room went out, I laid there awake on the pallet of musty blankets she'd laid on the floor for Rowe and I, waiting anxiously to hear Dad's car pull up outside. It seemed to take forever."

Example of a first person present situation:

"I suddenly found myself in my own bedroom. The curtains were drawn, and I could tell that the air was stale. How long had I been gone? A thin film of dust covered my nightstand, and my alarm clock blinked 4:32pm. There must have been a storm.

Nothing new had been added, no unexpected changes, but my familiar bedroom looked oddly different. I could feel a void. A room with no life in it is truly a unique experience. There is just no way a living being could possibly understand such a feeling. Even if they were able to be statue still, there's still a heartbeat, breathing. Even a plant is growing at it's own excruciatingly slow rate. Regardless of what is visible, every living thing affects a room simply by being alive.

But I could feel it all. There was stillness, a vacuum that indicated a lack of anything alive, but there were also memories. Impressions left behind by the energies of living things, and they came flooding through my mind as my thoughts relaxed and allowed them in."

I haven't written any of the omniscient parts yet.

If your writing a book, either use a blank space between paragraphs, or use the following chapter.

if your writing something to post of Fanfiction or Fictionpress, a linebreak is good enough.