First Person, Two Submissions, One Story

[Black_Bird]

I currently have a story in the works where two individuals both describe what happens in the first person. I planned on submitting it as two seperate stories and asking that a link would be placed on each story to it's partner.

There are only two characters, so we get character developement from each of the characters from each of the two submissions.

A week after both sides of the story had been published to Literotica, I plan on writing a conclusion to the story in third person.

Is that format too complex? Do you think you would enjoy seeing a story in that format?

 

[Weird Harold]

I currently have a story in the works where two individuals both describe what happens in the first person. I planned on submitting it as two seperate stories and asking that a link would be placed on each story to it's partner.

First, I think the link in the story to your author page will suffice to let readers get to the companion piece without the extra editing required to obtain and include the links.

Second, I am not a big fan of the "same story told twice format," although I have seen several stories here that use it.

The he said/she said format works best when two characters alternate the narrative covering new ground with very little overlap. It is very difficult to maintain any suspense in the second viewpoint when you already know what's going to happen from the first viewpoint.

What you propose is "thyree versions of the truth," which is interesting from a philosophical perspective but does not make for a good story in most cases. You'll really have to work hard at making the repeated scenes interesting as a story.

 

[Alex De Kok]

I tried a similar approach, only I tried to do it from three points of view, the boy, the girl, and the girl's mother. I had so many problems trying to keep the plot and the dialogue aligned that I gave up in the end, it was just too much hassle.

The stories weren't wasted, as I posted the two female stories - after editing them as completely independent tales - as Kate and Meg

I wouldn't try again. Alternating viewpoints, as Weird Harold suggested, is something I would like to try.

Alex

 

[Bob Peale]

HillbillyGirl and I did a similar project, if you'd like to see how it came out - we've gotten pretty decent reviews.

The story, written from the woman's point of view, is Karma & The Cowboy; written from the man's point of view, it's The Cowboy & Karma Ch. 1 and The Cowboy & Karma Ch. 2

 

[Whispersecret]

It's been often said that there are no new stories. True enough. All romances can be boiled down to boy meets girl, etc. Mysteries? Someone gets killed. They find out who did it.

The trick is to combine characters, setting, plot, etc. in a different way. This is difficult enough without chaining yourself to the same plot, characters, etc, with the only difference being point of view.

A good rule of thumb that I picked up somewhere is to choose which character has the most invested in a particular scene, and then to write the scene from that character's point of view. Then you get the most impact from the scene. Or, simply pull back and use an omniscient p.o.v. These are both more concise ways of showing how a scene affects different characters.

So, in case you haven't guessed already, I, like Weird Harold, don't care for the same story, told twice format. Every time I read stories paired up like this, the second telling is already old hat.

 

[Black_Bird]

I'm going to do it anyway...

What the hell? Why not? I think it's going to be interesting to see the type of responses I get. I just submitted the two parts... I'm yet to write the ending, although I already have it planned out in my head. I didn't, however, make it clear to the reader that there is another part... Chances are, different people will start with different halves of the story and, not knowing that its the other half, read the second part as well.

And if it doesn't work out? Oh well. It was an interesting experiment.