Standing Alone

Since I made the decision to turn my trilogy into a stand alone novel I've been trying to choose between the options of interweaving the three related stories or running them separately as Parts 1, 2, and 3.

My heart likes the former. It will make for a fuller, rounder story, and it will take more writing skill. My head likes the latter option. It's easier and means all I need to do is shorten book one and tag books two and three on the end.

The other issue my head has with interweaving the three stories is that I don't get to write swathes of the book from one point of view at a time. This is something I really love about my draft of the first third of the book; there is only one viewpoint throughout and it makes for a very personal and intense ride. I'm reluctant to lose that. But my original trilogy idea involved three characters each with his or her own book told entirely from a single viewpoint. Now the three story strands are tied together with a theme that makes them far stronger and with that comes three different viewpoints.

So, subconsciously, I went looking for examples of stories told from multiple viewpoints. First I was reminded of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders Trilogy, which I found rich with the layers of characters each thinking theirs was the life that was important and worth fighting for. But I also remember the frustration of having to leave a character at a crucial moment in order to ride with the next character. I felt taken against my will until I settled again into the story. But Liveship used many characters' viewpoints; with only three I will be able to treat my readers to a number of chapters in one viewpoint at a time.

That was in the back of my mind yesterday when I picked up Inkspell* by Cornelia Funke; a much simpler book and one that has the same reader age range as my story. It was much easier to see my dilemma tackled in a book like this, and handled satisfactorily. Inkspell's viewpoint characters have as many chapters as necessary to follow a plot strand until there is a logical segue to the next character. There is no rigidity to locking the characters into a single chapter at a time because the next chapter must switch point of view. It's fluid, and I think that comes from the way it was written: Funke says that she free wrote this book so quickly she could barely type fast enough to keep up with the story.

Another trilogy told from alternate viewpoints is Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy*. Although there are only two viewpoint characters in the first book, and three in the second and third, the viewpoint character's name appears in the header of every page of the chapters he or she owns so the reader always knows whose story is being told. So this is another way of presenting it. However, what I did find slightly off putting is that the author relies on this to alert the reader so that he doesn't have to start the chapter with the viewpoint character's name. But the header doesn't appear on the first page of a chapter so occasionally it requires turning the page to check which character we're on in order to imagine the scene properly. I think I would rather just use the character's name in the first line.

So my plan of attack is to continue writing the rest of this story from whichever point of view is required, preferably several chapters per character though. Then when I have a rough first draft completed I will redo my synopsis and fit in parts of the second book (which I'd already started before deciding to consolidate), and then work out where I need to write scenes from the point of view of the second and third characters to slot into the first part. And sand and varnish.

I think it's doable.

*Book Depository is a better option for non-US book buyers.