So, yeah. I want to write a novel where the culprit is the main character. Actually, one of them. I plan on having it switch back and forth between two POVs and one ends up being the culprit. Is that totally crazy? I don't actually know HOW I am going to do this...is it actually possible to do do that well? I can't figure out how to hide this huge part of a character's POV.
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50,062 / 50,000
Okt 4, 2007 - 19 41
If you haven't done so already, you might want to look at Agatha Christie's "Murder of Roger Ackroyd" for an idea of how this kind of novel might work. It's not exactly what you want to do, but it is an example of how it could be done.
----------6,040 / 50,000
Okt 4, 2007 - 21 54
Heh, I was going to suggest that novel as well. She does a very good job of narrating it through the murderer's POV (in first person, at that) without giving the ending away. If you're going to initiate a guessing game as to which MC committed the crime, I would advise you to look over Christie's book in order to see how it can be done subtlety.
----------"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."
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50,062 / 50,000
Okt 5, 2007 - 05 42
Now that I've had more time to think about it, there are also a couple of short stories that I can recommend with unreliable narrators, although they are not mysteries. Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman" and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" both have narrators that believe that they are sane although the reader comes to realize that the narrators' perception of reality is impaired. You might not be able to find anything that is precisely what you need, but there are probably quite a few works that can give you a good idea of how to approach what you want to do.
----------51,661 / 50,000
Okt 5, 2007 - 09 36
Thanks for the suggestions, I am definitely going to check out those books. I think I have read Yellow Wallpaper (a long time ago), and now that you mention it, I think there are elements that might help me. I'll have to look at it again.
52,755 / 50,000
Okt 5, 2007 - 18 29
I did that last year, with three, and the one was the bad guy. It worked really, really well. You didn't know it was him from memory but there were hints there, suspicion from one of the other characters telling the story, hints from his past...It works well, so go for it, give it a shot I say. [No pun intended]
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0 / 50,000
Okt 6, 2007 - 19 00
There are some novels (THE MALTESE FALCON is one) where the point of view is third person objective, like a camera is watching the events. You can hear what people say and see their expressions, but you aren't privy to their thoughts. If you used that viewpoint, you could probably get away w/ having a main character be a villain pretty easily. The writing style isn't noticeable. Read a few pages of MALTESE FALCON and see.
Don
----------"She looked hot enough to catch fire, but too lazy to do anything but just lie there and smoke."
--Gil Brewer, THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN
78,162 / 50,000
Okt 7, 2007 - 21 30
I'm doing this in my novel, although it's third person limited, and the MC is another char. The way I get away with it without giving it away is that the FMC (the culprit) doesn't actually KNOW she's the culprit. Kinda. Her mind is...unusual. Also, nothing is written from her POV, limited or first. In this story, she HAS no POV (again, her mind is...interesting).
When you don't know you did it, it's much harder to give it away...
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53,206 / 50,000
Okt 10, 2007 - 01 55
I'm actually going to do this, in a rather odd way. The reader is going to know it's her the entire time, but the ending is a real twist from the usual, so I'm not really giving anything away about it through out the novel. Always wanted to do this story.
----------Elspeth
First Time WriMo
2007: Falling Slowly Into Hell
34,037 / 50,000
Okt 16, 2007 - 08 30
Me too! One of my MC is the culprit too. But my novel actually starts with the murder, and then goes back in time to why the culprit did it, and switches back and forth between his and the victims point of view, so the reader should figure out about half way through that one of the pov's in from the culprit. I definitely think you should go for it, there are lots of different ways to have the pov from the culprit.
----------Nanowrimo 07: came close, but failed
Screnzy 08: determined to win!
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50,082 / 50,000
Okt 16, 2007 - 09 26
ooh! I'm doing something very similar to this and am having SUCH a hard time keeping everything untangled!
23,200 / 50,000
Okt 28, 2007 - 10 57
When I first heard of the perp being the POV or MC character, I thought, That's ridiculous.
Lawrence Block did one heck of a good job with his Hit List. By the time you've finished the story, you like the character and can overlook his killing.
Lucille
----------Lucille Perkins Robinson
http://lucilleperkinsrobinson.com
http://blog.lucilleperkinsrobinson.com
1,043 / 50,000
Okt 28, 2007 - 15 37
I'm going to try this for my novel.
I'll have 2 MC's. The villain being one of them -- his (or her) POV will be told in first person. But our protagonist will be told in 3rd. I plan to have the villain narrate approximately 1/4 of the novel....
*crosses fingers*
----------A poet who is cursed with sinful [color=purple]pride[/color], whose [color=purple]lust[/color] for fame he can’t suppress or hide,
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