Hi folks
New to the boards and posting my first question. I've started a short story where I think changing the viewpoint of the story from one character to another would be appropriate. How would you suggest I format this? One suggestion I had was having a few asterisks between the paragraphs with the different viewpoints.
Has anyone else done this with their own work?
Thanks
I wouldn't keep switching character point of view. You could confuse or lose the reader. But it can work if it's skilfully written.
In a short story you will be constrained by word count. I would have each character have their say and leave it at that. Where possible combine Show Don't Tell with dialogue to create tension - conflict if its two characters talking.
Novelists have more latitude. Melvin Burgess, author of Junk, devoted individual chapters to his characters points of view. Alan Bennet's,Talking Heads is another example.
When it comes to a change of time, place, scene or point of view, I prefer asterisks to icons or white space. There's no point using icons in a short story.
I think it is difficult having multiple points of view in a short story. In a novel it can be achieved on a chapter by chapter basis, but with a short story you can easily confuse the reader unless it is clearly done. Also it gives you less scope to convey each person's point of view which may weaken the story. Depends how short your short story is.
Just read your question again and realised it's a short story so you probably don't have chapters! Oooops. Sorry!