The Viewpoint

[leo9]

I have had to give up reading several stories because the author has not chosen and stuck to a viewpoint. I read stories where the author changes from first to third person and even changes tense as casually as changing his/her underwear.

Oh, I hate this! Maybe it's meant to be clever, but it looks illiterate to me. Like you, I just give up.

It is not because switching viewpoints is ‘cheating’ that I object to it but because it destroys the illusion of the story.

It doesn't have to, but it has to be clearly structured. I'm writing a long story at the moment which switches between the Dom and the sub's voices, but each change is a new chapter and is headed with the character's name. They also have very different "tones", one literary and educated, the other stream of consciousness with a limited vocabulary and lots of slang, so even if you missed the header you can tell who it is. It's when the reader thinks "Hang on, who's talking now?" that it breaks the spell.

When I revised the latest one - “End Game” - I deliberately put it into the first person to see how difficult it is to show the feelings of characters other than the narrator.

Yes, though it can be interesting to show how the narrator knows - or doesn't know - what the other characters are feeling.