Same Story, Two Points of View

[shadowbox]

Okay, this is an idea I have been dying to throw around.

I am currently well into a story I have been working on for a while. I am writing it in the first person, which has proven to be tricky, but I like the way it reads.

What I ask here is...


Would you read the same story twice, if each time it was written in a different point of view?

Like, if there were two significant Main Characters, and the same story was written from each point of view. So technically, they would be different.

Is there really even marketing for this, or am I waisting my time?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's been done before, successfully, so there is no reason why you shouldn't do it if you can make it work.

Were you thinking of alternating the viewpoints, or dividing the story right down the middle?

 

[MistingWolf]

I think it sounds like a neat idea, and it seems to work fine. Seeing events through different points of view could clarify things from the first viewpoint, if you know what I mean. Such as: Character A is confused about something, but Character B knows what it's about.

 

[Threddy]

I have also thought that writing a book like that would be fun. I'd like to write it from the viewpoint of the bad guy cos then people would get confused as to whether he's actually a good guy, if you see what i mean.

 

[Ursa major]

Okay, this is an idea I have been dying to throw around.

I am currently well into a story I have been working on for a while. I am writing it in the first person, which has proven to be tricky, but I like the way it reads.

What I ask here is...


Would you read the same story twice, if each time it was written in a different point of view?

Like, if there were two significant Main Characters, and the same story was written from each point of view. So technically, they would be different.

Is there really even marketing for this, or am I waisting my time?

It seems to me that you're not asking about the POV hopping between two characters and sharing the narrative (which is not a novel approach, no pun intended), but two tellings of the same story.


Bearing that in mind.... For me, it depends mainly on two things:

• How long the story is; the risk is that the reader will become irritated if too many scenes are retold with not enough new information being introduced.
• How different the two POV perspectives are; which, in turn, suggests that only certain stories - such as ones where the reader is continually being baffled (in a 'pleasing' manner, which depends on the context) - could support this structure.

 

[New Ray Tech]

I am sure there was an episode of a TV series that did the same thing. Once I cottoned onto what was happening it worked fine for me, but of course the story was designed in such a way that it was told more completely by the different view points. I think it would work better in a book since you can explain things more fully.
Maybe there's a movie in the making here.

 

[HareBrain]

Galling though it is to admit that I know this, I think Stephanie Meyer has done something similar with her vampire romance - Twilight, a first-person narrative from the girl's POV, is retold from the boy's POV in a book called Midnight Sun (I think still a WIP).

But this is info picked up from reviews so I could be wrong.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Maybe there's a movie in the making here.

Rashomon had five viewpoints, and it's a classic.

As a matter of fact, I remember a movie that was told in two parts from two different viewpoints. It was Little Dorrit, with Derek Jacobi -- not to be confused with the new version with (be still my heart) Matthew Macfadyen, that tells the story in the traditional way.

It was interesting to see how differently the two characters, Arthur and Amy, viewed some of the same scenes. I seem to remember that he saw himself as somewhat older and more worn-out than he appeared through her eyes, which was very telling. There were little details that gave great insight into both their personalities.

 

[Professor 0110]

Would you read the same story twice, if each time it was written in a different point of view?

Like, if there were two significant Main Characters, and the same story was written from each point of view. So technically, they would be different.

Is there really even marketing for this, or am I waisting my time?

What you're planning to do is kind of like some of the books in the New Testament, specifically Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In each of those four books, the story of most of Jesus' life is retold through different Point of Views, and though the story is essentially the same, there are some differences because of that significant factor of separate POVs.

So, I think if you can some how weave your tale so it remains unique to each POV, you may be onto something good. For example, one of the POV characters may see something happen while the other POV character may interpret the same event as something entirely different.

Good luck!

 

[shadowbox]

Thank you every one.

I do actually mean to write two very separate stories.
There are two different M.C. Mainly a girl, lead buy a man.
And I do believe that the stories could be totally different, and yet still the same, because what each MC is experiencing is different and solely their own. And too, they spend a bit of time apart.

Thanks for the support. I am actually pretty excited to try this.