So, I'm writing a book, and I can't decide whether or not to include this idea...

[infinity^infinity]

Isaac Asimov did PoV switching all the time and his books are highly succesful. I would say that it is only annoying if the switch is done poorly ie. the reader needs to know when you switch. I think it sounds kind of cool, I prefer the officer though it seems like there could be more room for growth with that character and a deeply engaging storyline. My second choice would be the basic soldier. I would advise you to not go with the other choice, the criminal, because as a writer your job is to draw the reader in and get them engaged with the character and it helps if the reader can see themselves as said character. With the criminal who commits crimes and murders and tortures civilians it would distance the reader from your work and even if the rest of your characters are engaging and thought provoking, that shift into a radical extreme will just pull your readers out of what was hopefully, a good read. Good luck with your work.

Also, speaking as a reader now and not a writer, I always find it interesting when the different PoVs intersect for a kickass climax. Which, if you decide on doing, would turn out smoother with someone who wasn't a ruthless killing machine.

 

[droid]

It is possible to do well. I can think of the first Ender's game where chapters would start with a short scene from the instructors' point of view, also some of the first few Dune books had similar chapter introductions.

If you can find instances of authors you admire using this device then you have a good chance of using it well.

 

[Stalk3rchief]

I'd go with the soldier. A story, to me, is best partly left to the readers own imagination. Foot soldiers never really know what's going on, they're just given small tasks one after another and aren't allowed to see the bigger picture. He could easily have been told they were lethal terrorists that have already killed billions, or that they're pirates stealing from travelers, never leaving survivors. Or hell ,they could just be using chemical weapons on adorable house pets.
My point is, a soldier only knows what his superiors want him to know, and that knowledge is usually falsified to make sure he does his job correctly and without mercy. The fight from his point of view could be interesting, and it gives a lot of good development opportunities.
That's just my opinion though, take from it what you will.

 

[averydeeadaccount]

perhaps you could show the 'invaders' as not just pure evil without switching sides, let the main character witness an act of mercy. you could create the effect without multiple points of views

 

[Quaidis]

Include what you want to include. If you decide further down the line that you hate it or that it really gets in the way, then write [No longer include _] right then and there and continue on without writing it anymore.

When you finish the book and find a respectable editor with your agent, the editor will remove the crap for you. If you write it and it doesn't fit according to the publisher/editor, they will take it out.

Remember that it's the editor that takes out stuff, moves shit around, and tells you to add more. It leaves no grime or worry on your hands. You could write a ton of absolute crap and, if your agent/publisher likes it, they will hire someone to dig through that crap and find gold. It's why even people with the worst grammatical skills in history can write a book.




On the by, if you ever get hung up on the book, then skip forward to a part you want to write and stitch together the middle part afterwards. Can't begin to express how alienating it is to write something two-hundred pages in to get stuck and drop it.

 

[Stalk3rchief]

Cardboard-cut-out evil nasty enemies who do irrationally bad things at huge expense and logistic cost just because they can when there are other far easier options available are very unbelievable and chip away severely at your story's credibility. That's the real problem you're going to have with this story, not "what perspective do I tell it from".

As harsh as this may sound, he does have a point. Unless there's some kind of real profit in this I can't see a legal body wanting this type of thing. Of course it has happened in the past (The Vietnam War and just about everything the Romans did.) but in the future I'd hope politicians would have more sense. Also, this is sounding a lot like The Galactic Empire to me.

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

Write the story how the story should be told.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

The first guy- the state officer fella- sounds like he could throw an interesting wrench or two into the plot.

Don't know about the other two, especially the psycho criminals. I mean you'd have to pull off a pretty crazy "psychotic" vernacular for it to seem convincing enough, but then you run the risk of it being incomprehensible if it's too psychotic. I wouldn't go with that one if I were you.

The first idea is pretty cool though, if you can pull it off. Best of luck to ya!

 

[I Have No Idea]

First off, I highly recommend joining a writing forum. I don't think I can advertise sites on here, so all I'm going to say is search YWO on Google.

Second: I think that it depends on what you want to happen with the story. Do you want the enemy soldier to see the error of his ways? Or something else? Remember, an audience has to like a main character so they want to read more. Having a complete douche-canoe of a main character will just put the reader off. I'd suggest doing the Officer if you want to take the "error of his ways" route.

And lastly, just write! Write everything down on paper with as little editing as possible. Resist the urge to change stuff as you write it. You will always have time for that later.

Personally, I think switching between someone on the survivor's side and the Officer would work well, because it gives a cat-and-mouse sort of feel to it.


If you couldn't tell, I love writing.

 

[NinjaDuckie]

So every single one of those 800,000 people was a genius rebel mastermind? Because waging an entire war to kill 2,000 people doesn't sound pretty bright, to be honest. [...] It seems like it would be a lot of an effort to make on the off chance that you might kill Malcolm X.

Also, why would you need an army to eradicate that planet's population in the first place? Just chuck a good-sized asteroid at a planet and your job is already done.

Or maybe you could build a large space station with enough built-in firepower to destroy the entire planet. I think that one's been done, though.


On-topic, I've tried writing from multiple people's perspectives and it can work, and done right it's very dynamic, readable and enjoyable (at least from my course tutors and fellow students). It's just a bit, well, hard. Stick to it for long enough and make enough edits and it'll pull through eventually.

All three characters have potential to be written well, but only one IMO has the depth to be a driving force for the story - the officer rank. With the officer you have the chance to develop his character further, have him suffer moral quandaries, defect to the resistance fighters, call off bombardments on areas where peaceful women & children reside or in hospitals where they are treating the wounded (it's good to note that, at least in our current time, bombing a hospital or other place of healing is considered a very serious war crime).

If you continue with it, you'll also need to consider which -person you're going to be using to narrate. First-person usually only works with a single character's perspective, so probably in third-person, but then you need to establish whether you're an omniscient third-person or just a regular third-person: the difference between being God and being an audience member; the former will know the ins and outs, the why and wherefore of each and every thing, person or place. The latter will be equivalent to the reader- only seeing what the written characters would see, hear or know.


I'm also echoing back something one of my tutors said last year, which is "Show, don't tell." If something's really bugging you and you want to show it off, demonstrate it with good writing. Don't throw in an infodump - a big paragraph where one of the characters explains everything right down to the tiniest detail - it's better to give the reader something to think about. Your giant atmosphere machine or orbital laser death ray or clockwork hyperdrive may not get explained in detail, but it'll certainly be more memorable to the reader than a print-out thirty page manual.

 

[TheJesus89]

Most definately.

IMO it would be the only interesting thing in the story. Sorry to say, but the premise is incredibly boring. Seriously, I almost fell asleep reading it.

sure, you've got a sci-fi setting, but how often have you heard "Evil something killing poor but nice something, only for the poor something to be saved by a third force". It's really, really, bland.

 

[X10J]

All three characters have potential to be written well, but only one IMO has the depth to be a driving force for the story - the officer rank. With the officer you have the chance to develop his character further, have him suffer moral quandaries, defect to the resistance fighters, call off bombardments on areas where peaceful women & children reside or in hospitals where they are treating the wounded (it's good to note that, at least in our current time, bombing a hospital or other place of healing is considered a very serious war crime).

I agree. What also might be fun would be to have the characters develop in such a way that the hero becomes the villain and the villain becomes the hero.

 

[spartan231490]

The year is 2457. Humanity lives on dozens of worlds, and almost everything is controlled by the state. I say "almost" because a few colonies broke away. One such colony is Sola, an inhospitable ice-ball of 800,000 inhabitants. The government send an army to obliterate Sola. Within in two days, the population has been reduced to less than 2,000 and what little of it remains hides in shadow, praying for a miracle. However, it is quickly becoming clear that the invaders aren't the most dangerous thing on the planet, and that the new threat might also be Sola's salvation...

I can't decide whether or not to tell part of the story from the perspective of an enemy. He could be:
Part of the officer cadre, highly educated, and under pressure to eliminate last vestiges of local resistance. They have three months to confirm the deaths of the last locals, or they will face a firing squad.
Part of the criminal company, so he'd be one of many convicts. Between them, they have committed every crime under the sun, and now they have guns and have been set loose on the locals. Characters witness them torture and then execute captured civilians. Almost all of them choose to flood their systems with steroids and combat drugs, which make them even more psychotic and merciless.
Ordinary soldier. Very indoctrinated, basic education only, most are conscripts. They make up bulk of the invasion/occupation force.

Do you think I should include this kind thing? It might help make the enemy seem less two-dimensional, but it's already seen through the eyes of both the protagonist and, on occasion the deuteragonist, and I heard a lot of people find POV switching annoying.

POV switching can be an interesting tool, but it has a lot of drawbacks as well. check out this site: it's a bunch of tips from a published author and what she says makes a lot of sense: http://www.sfwa.org/members/bell/writingtips/index.html
Specifically, she has a tip page on villain pov that you might find interesting, and she has 3 or 4 tip pages on pov in general.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I think it could work. If you read the Earthborn trilogy then you can get a good idea of it. Also you gt to read 3 really awesome books.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

As awesome as it would be to include the points of view of all involved, it could easily turn schizophrenic and diminish the experience. If possible, I'd write as many notes as possible about what everyone else is up to while you focus on the main narrative in case you do have an opportunity to write sequels.

 

[NinjaDuckie]

sure, you've got a sci-fi setting, but how often have you heard "Evil something killing poor but nice something, only for the poor something to be saved by a third force". It's really, really, bland-

-and it sells really well. Evil killing the good, but the good are saved by external forces? Hmm.

Star Trek: First Contact. Borg kill humans, Picard saves humans; kills Borg.
Star Wars: Sith kill rebels, Luke Skywalker saves rebels; destroys death star.
Lord of the Rings: Orcs kill everyone, Gandalf and some eagles show up from nowhere.
(Alternatively Orcs and Saruman burn down forest, kill everyone; Ents show up from nowhere.)
(Alternatively Orcs kill everyone, Aragorn and undead pirate ghost army show up from nowhere.)

Don't get me wrong, it's a valid point. The same plot has been done repeatedly, but the fact that it continues to be done surely stands for something?
I read once that there are only seven plots and we're all plagiarising the dictionary.

(Not to put a dampener on the OP's work; I think it's a good concept and has the potential to grow into something much more impressive.)