Unintended Cultivator: POV Poll
Added 2023-05-29 17:06:30 +0000 UTCVolume One of Unintended Cultivator is told from Sen's general point of view. That has/had a lot of utility value for the first book, largely because Sen was transitioning from a state of near-total ignorance to one of knowledge. As Volume Two draws ever closer, though, I've been thinking that excluding other POVs will become more of a needless limitation than a benefit.
Still, I'd like to get a read on what you guys think about me introducing other POV characters. As a general rule, I don't like working with 17 POV characters. I'm not George R.R. Martin. But I do like to have two or three other POV characters I can switch to from time to time, just so you have a better idea of what you could expect. So, let me know where you stand on the multiple POV issue below. Also, feel free to sound off in the comments.
Comments
One thing I love about this story is that you do a great job with “show don’t tell.” This comes out, for example, in Sen’s interactions with other cultivators. Most stories in this genre would have explicit scenes saying exactly how much stronger he is - the sort of “reaction POV”. A lot of comments are saying that we’d benefit from an outside perspective on Sen’s ability. Would we? I think that shows through your writing already. Part of the fun of a good story is reading between the lines and figuring out the dynamics of the world even when they’re not spelled out. So if you’re going to introduce more POVs, I’d ask what they really add to the story that we can’t get through Sen’s perspective. I’d be interested, for example, in a perspective that humanized the cultivators and explained the perspective of someone in the Jianghu world.
Roshan
2023-05-31 00:57:31 +0000 UTCI, personally, think it'd benefit from other POVs. Sen's naivety makes him a bit of an unreliable narrator. I think having some other POVs peppered through out would give you a nice juxtaposition of his lack of common sense vs. reality and give some deeper meaning to interactions / Sen's choices. I'd hesitate to say you should do whole POV chapters. Maybe just some paragraphs here and there. For instance, if there's a big bad guy he's handily beating, it'd be interesting to show the bad guy's internal monologue to get a sense of how a "normal cultivator" would be experiencing things
ZackB
2023-05-30 17:55:49 +0000 UTCMost people do pov chapters poorly, they often just retell the same events from another perspective and provide no further narrative or story telling function. For example, it's clear Sen is abnormally skilled snd powerful for his level of cultivation. No one has outright said it or explained how advanced and different he is, but a pov from the minder Feng has sent of the Orchard's Reach events could clear some of that up. But a pov from falling leaf about why it followed Sen down the mountain? Not necessarily useful. It's clear she cares for Sen, it's clear she showed up and helped when Grandma Lu was in danger. It is clear that man Sen helped stepped in to aid Grandma Lu as well.
WigglesDoomius
2023-05-30 17:09:42 +0000 UTCI’d prefer only one POV but occasional (very occasional ) chapters from others in relation to him is fine. I usually skip chapters if there are too many from other POVs. I actually won’t read read multi lead stories anymore.
John O'Connor
2023-05-29 21:31:27 +0000 UTCThe occasional other POV can do wonders for providing perspective. I think Sen should always be the main focus but a differ view every now and again can bring a breath of fresh air. That’s my non-author two cents, anyways.
Elijah Overland
2023-05-29 18:41:04 +0000 UTCI don‘t read real MultiPOV Stories. Interludes are ok but with MultiPOV there are a lot of chapters about people you don‘t really care about. Skipping half the Book isn‘t worth my time and money.
Teee
2023-05-29 18:22:40 +0000 UTCIt's good in a story like this one of the other POV help and strengthen the main POV.
Lennert De Jaegher
2023-05-29 18:09:41 +0000 UTCI typically don't like multiple POVs. Mostly because they tend to shift away from the plot you are excited to read atm. I find them a lot more tolerable when they still advance the plot, but from a different perspective. Ex. Sen and side character X are away on an exciting mission. Doing a chapter from X's perspective add's depth. Switching from the exciting plot to do a chapter from another character's perspective adds frustration. And might cost you readers in a serialized format like this. Multi POV is not popular on RR and a few readers just skip those chapters.
Daniel Persson
2023-05-29 17:48:14 +0000 UTCI'm okay with having other perspectives but I do not like having more than one main character.
Gunmetalrhino
2023-05-29 17:47:25 +0000 UTCI love Sen, but half the hilarity of him experiencing the world is that he was raise by ridiculously strong experts. but *we* the reader don't have a good picture of the level of the outside world either... so we don't really realize what's normal for this cultivation setting. honestly before he left the mountain I was worried that Sen would be very behind and die of old age before he got a shot at immortality... now we see the kids around his age haven’t even hut foundation establishment. although these are backwaters. I think having other's pov would help us gage when he's doing something crazy.
MagicWafflez
2023-05-29 17:31:40 +0000 UTCI agree with Hugo, the vast majority should be from Sen, but it would also be fun to have a few external POVs. The classic being Sen feels like he isn't living up to expectations while Feng's perspective shows him to be quite proud, etc
CMGreenspon
2023-05-29 17:14:20 +0000 UTCI think as long as you keep the majority of the content, 60-70%, in sens pov, it's perfectly fine, and oftentimes even really cool (people love external povs that react on the crazyness of the main character). What you shouldn't do is mess with expectations; the book drawed people in because it's about Sen and his journey. If now it turns into game of thrones with dozens of povs and multiple chapters between each pov, each their own separate storyline with little overlap, well, that's no Bueno. There's surely readers out there for that type of stuff, but they're not reading this book - else they wouldn't have stuck through the beginning.
Hugo
2023-05-29 17:10:19 +0000 UTCI personally don't like big POV changes but I think throwing in a few changes throughout the story will be interesting as long as it isn't all the time and jarring. Plus it will possibly help you on the writing side with story progression.
Shadows_End
2023-05-29 17:10:04 +0000 UTC
