Hi! I'm currently writing a novel with two alternating narrators and even though I try, the whole really feels like a patchwork of scenes sewn together by short transition. I know it's hard to advise someone for that without reading their thing, but do you have any general idea as to how make it flow more smoothly?
Hi! I’m terribly sorry for not getting back to you sooner, AP tests are coming up and I’ve been paying less attention to this account in order to study. (Learning like 500 years of US history in one weekend is… challenging.)
To start off, I’d like to know whether or not you are alternating the narrators between chapters or switching inbetween scenes. I haven’t written many stories (in general, but also) with alternating narratives, but what I usually do is split it between the chapters. We get all of what character 1 experiences in chapter 1, then we get all of what character 2 experiences in chapter 2.
(Which is the most basic way of splitting the narratives, you can be fancy and split it up by having 5 chapters devoted to one, then maybe one or two devoted to the other, ect.)
Also, consider why you are writing with two alternating narrators. Is it really necessary for the story, or is it slowing you down? If your work is really patchy then maybe two narrators just isn’t working for this particular work?
Use dividers. If you’ve ever read books with split narratives (which you should, always keep reading if you want to write), sometimes they have little dividers in between certain scenes. You may already be using these and know what they are, but for anyone else out there it’s usually something that just breaks up the writing and separates scenes. (here’s a link about scene dividers)
Try to end one scene with something that could lead into the next. For example, maybe Jenna has a revelation about who the bad person is, which leads into Kelly’s narrative where she bumps in to said bad person. The two people are not near each other, and Jenna isn’t able to contact Kelly for some odd reason, leading into a mess that needs to be solved.
Try not to switch in the middle of a scene involving both characters. While this can probably be done well, I personally find it difficult to do this without making it feel like a patchwork of random scenes put together. Maybe only get one perspective of a conversation, and have the other character give their perspective later on, but typically stick to one narrative during an event. (If you’re switching during a chapter, and not switching between chapters, which is much easier-though I’ve usually seen it done during battle scenes)
Read, like, a lot. I’ll link some articles and such and other books that have split narratives in it at the end. But really, you should read other books. Nobody becomes perfect at a skill just by reading about it, (or maybe they do because they’re superhuman, I don’t know) people who practice skills watch a lot of of people do this skill. There’s probably something psychological to talk about here, but I’m not about to pull up sources for that right now. So just know this; reading books that have split narratives does help, reading in general helps with your writing because you will be exposed to different techniques and styles and it will influence your writing (hopefully) for the better.
I didn’t mention every single thing that you can do, because some of these people just articulate it better than me! So here are some other articles you can cruize through for some other tips:
Split Narratives: Dividing Your Story Between Two or More Narrators (this one lists some books with multiple narrators in it, for extra reading)
Writing a Multiple Viewpoint Novel (this person believes that multiple viewpoints are not as good for your characters and helping them connect with the reader, however I don’t believe that, I think that multiple characters brings depth to the story.)
Writing a Novel with Multiple Narrators
A list of popular multiple narrators books (I haven’t read all… or any of these books really, but of course that shouldn’t stop you to seek out some of these books to see how these authors have written with their multiple narrators)
Best of luck with your novel! And again I’m so sorry I’ve taken so long to reply!
