Okay, I have a dilemma. In my new novel, I want it to be about two people who come from different perspectives but are having the same thoughts on the inside.
For example,
Bill turns to Grace and says, “Okay Grace for your partner I choose…,” Anyone except him Grace thinks Anyone except me Tom hopes
“Tom.” Bill finishes.
obviously those are bad sentences but do you guys catch my drift? My issue is that is there a POV that only shows 2 people’s thoughts? Can this be done?
I’ve thought of writing the first chapter multiple times to see how I’d flesh it out but I want to know if I’m totally out of my league here.
I think it would only work if it was third-person omniscient or if this was a comic format. Novel format-wise, if you’re not a fan of that, you may want to write it as separate chapters with the character’s names at the top to differentiate who is narrating
I did think of that but I’m not a huge fan of that. Mainly because I want it to show in the moment that they both are thinking that. Not to mention, sometimes flip flopping between characters can get confusing. Maybe I can put in subtle hints like. Bill turns to Grace and says, “Okay Grace for your partner I choose…,” Anyone except Tom Grace notices Tom’s crossed fingers and shut eyes, hoping he too is wishing for her partner to be someone else.
or something like that. (This is just off the bat) i could even have them back track like later when they do the quest be like
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you hoping you’d be my partner.”
“How daft can you be? I was hoping for anybody but me!”
Do you think that would work better? (Again, just throwing things out there I know this isn’t top quality writing here lol)
Third person omniscient is the way to go here—that way you can flip between character’s internal dialogues as needed, which seems to be what you’re aiming to do.
My only issue with that is that their coven leader and trusted friend is actually the one behind it all and I wasn’t sure I wanted to reveal that until much later. But perhaps I can just put hints in the beginning or not so much inner thoughts on his end?
Third person omniscient doesn’t mean everything is revealed all at once, it just means that narration could reveal information regardless of the characters themselves knowing. You can still save your big twists!!
The way I handle this is by indicative statements and italics, just like you have up there. Italics without “quotes” are unspoken, but treated like a voice, that way. I remember that being standard in the 90s.
So:
Grace twirled a strand of hair around her finger in nervous anticipation. I hope I get a guy…well, not Tom.
Tom slammed his book shut behind the girl, a small grin on his lips.She’s fun to mess with, but can’t string two sentences together. I don’t think I could handle working with her.
I’ve only seen pov switches be done in seperate chapters not in the span of a sentence, and when it happens, there’s always a POV switch announcement before. I see it on Wattpad but it’s a bit uncommon these days
