I wasn't really sure where to put this, as it's a structure question more than anything else. Mods please move if appropriate! I have this vague idea of a 'the life and times' type thing, but following two separate characters. They would grow up together (friends, siblings or sweethearts, haven't decided yet), quarrel at 18ish and separate to pursue totally different lives in which they only meet briefly with years in between, before finally having some kind reunion/resolution in middle age. The thread of their relationship would be what ties the book together, but I'd want the reader to be invested in each of their lives as a whole. Basically I want to do two life stories in one book, but I'm worried it'll be hard for the reader to care about either when they have to flit between the two, so I'm tryimg to research how other writers have pulled it off. I was wondering if anyone knew of any examples of a structure like this being done well (or at all, really)? I'm looking for anything in any genre which follows multiple largely separate POVs without a grand overarching plot of something like GOT. Thanks in advance!
It sounds like a really solid idea. I think it could be pulled off very well indeed, if you manage to get around that issue. Depending on how you do it (and how you actually want to do it), it could probably turn into a downright classic if given the right circumstances and nuance of plot. In terms of an example, I'm not entirely sure - it may not be an example of literature per se, but I do remember a few old Doctor Who books that dealt with a similar idea (where one chapter would be dedicated to one POV, and the next would be for the second POV, and so on repeatedly). The difficulty I had was that I found myself only ever invested in one POV rather than the other, and so I ended up skipping whole chapters and trusting myself to vaguely work out what had happened with the other POV through various clues. As a reader, I didn't care. One of the characters/POVs (obviously the Doctor's one) was much more detailed than the other - I didn't have the slightest drip of interest about the smaller characters, although I feel terrible to admit it. So I guess that's an example of where it wasn't really done well. Perhaps one way that you deal with that potential problem is by making each POV of equal richness and importance. Another way might be to let them 'interact' with each other, even if they're not together: either in the typical way of phone calls, meetings, messages, etc., or something as subtle as one character thinking of the other (and vice versa - it would probably only work if both of them were doing this in equal measure, so that neither character is guilty of not pulling their weight in the story), and then that thought of Character A ends up influencing Character B's decision making and furthering the plot - and we, as the reader, get to see that happening in real time. I know that if I was writing a romance and the sooner-or-later couple-to-be were to be separated for most of the book (and a little something like this is happening in my own life right now), I'd be making sure that they thought of one another, through a car passing or a song on the radio, that they knew what each other would say in moments of crisis, that they worried about whether the other one was happy or lonely, etc. So that basically, Character 1 is still appearing alongside Character 2, even when it's not Character 1's POV/chapter/scene. (and this definitely didn't happen in those Doctor Who books - each chapter/POV was void of any mention of the other - my favourite - characters, who actually had depth to their personality, which couldn't be said for the secondary characters. And so I lost interest pretty quickly). Long reply lol. Hope this helps!
The first book of the Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes, deals with two characters who's POVs alternate between chapters. They meet near the end of the book and have joint adventures. Then, they separate.
