Introducing known characters from a new POV

pickarooney

Have you ever had to do this thing where a chapter is written from the point of view of a character who has never previously met a person who is well known to the reader? If so, do you make a point of having the person introduce him/herself so you can start using his/her name again?

Mr E

The Song of Fire and Ice books are a bit like that, aren't they?
I haven't started A Game of Thrones yet (it's my next book in my reading pile), but how does George RR Martin handle it?

FewFew

Mr E wrote: »

The Song of Fire and Ice books are a bit like that, aren't they?
I haven't started A Game of Thrones yet (it's my next book in my reading pile), but how does George RR Martin handle it?

He titles the chapter with the character's name. So it's not chapter 1 etc, it's Joe Blogginton etc.
In later books he became very fond of using italics to signify when the named character is thinking something, which adds greatly to the amount of info he gets across.


Not entirely sure what pickarooney means though... what do ya mean Pickser?

Mr E

But isn't each chapter told from that person's point of view?
Really must finish the crap book I'm reading now so I can start it.

The Mad Hatter

I think he means having one chapter from the point of view of Jack Skellington, and another chapter from the point of view of William Tell, who at some point in the chapter meets Jack Skellington.

Pickarooney - you might want to try out some David Mitchell for this (and I know, I recommend him like crazy). Two of his novels, Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, are made up of several novellas in which characters and themes cross. Moreover, many of his characters tend to show up in more than one book, in more major or more minor roles - for instance, a young socialite from pre-first World War Belgium in Cloud Atlas shows up as an ageing crone in the 1980s-set Black Swan Green. It doesn't matter if you only read one of those books, but it's like a little bonus if you read both.

EileenG

I've written a few chapters where a new character is the POV character, and find it can be useful to give some of the sort of details that no character would give in their own POV. Just keep introductions brief "Hello, I'm Cytolene, sorry to call you out to this grisly murder. The body is in the bedroom."

viadah

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I think he means having one chapter from the point of view of Jack Skellington, and another chapter from the point of view of William Tell, who at some point in the chapter meets Jack Skellington.

This book sounds awesome.

pickarooney

EileenG wrote: »

I've written a few chapters where a new character is the POV character, and find it can be useful to give some of the sort of details that no character would give in their own POV. Just keep introductions brief "Hello, I'm Cytolene, sorry to call you out to this grisly murder. The body is in the bedroom."

Yeah, I've found this to be an advantage too, moreso in that you can give different impressions of the same character from multiple viewpoints and in turn show something about the new POV character. I just dislike the way it sometimes seems as though I'm playing some crappy game with the reader about who exactly is in the scene.

FewFew

Sometimes it's actually quite nice to deal with a character without introducing them. It happens a fair bit in Song of Ice and Fire (since it was brought up earlier) and it lends moments of "that sounds like..." "Could it be?" "oh my god it's!" etc.
Great fun can be had with it, if the other character is known to be a sadistic murderer but to the POV character he's just some friendly new face. Ooooh. The reader will be shouting "no don't trust him!!!" but the character can't possibly know the horrible truth etc.

Daleno

Robert Jordan does this a lot in his Wheel of Time series. He does it in a very nice way though. With most of his characters they are identified by what they wear. Take Matrim Cauthon; in the later books he wears a broad rimmed hat, black scarf and carries a spear of dark wood with a blade attached to the end of it.

When a new character meets Mat and we read it through his POV he is described as we know him, with the staff and whatnot, but because, after the first time we hear of him wearing each item of clothing or accessory we don't really think of it again, the re-description of the character brings him right back into our heads and we picture him well. Alongside that initial thrill when we think 'Oh cool, that's Mat he's meeting' we also see Mat in a different light.

I really like the idea of seeing a well known character through a new character's POV.