Fast paced multiple povs

[Reivax26]

My wip is a fast paced multiple pov fantasy story. I was wondering if anyone had read something similar in style and how they liked it.

Any comments are appreciated.

 

[Shorewalker]

By fast-paced, do you mean all-action, or we quickly run from start to finish?

 

[Reivax26]

I am meaning minimum info dumps and fast paced action

 

[Mouse]

Just finished reading Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman which is fast-paced, multi-pov, and I liked it very much. I think most people would.

 

[The Big Peat]

My wip is a fast paced multiple pov fantasy story. I was wondering if anyone had read something similar in style and how they liked it.

Any comments are appreciated.

That would be a very good description of David Gemmell's Legend, a book that spawned a career as good as just about anyone in Fantasy's.

I'd quibble with Mouse over the pacing of Gaiman, but otherwise agree and would posit him as one of the living giants of fantasy.

Sir Terry Pratchett would routinely use 5+ PoVs, moved quick, and is my favourite author.

I could go on and on, but I hope I've made my point. In case I haven't, to me, this is like you saying "I've got a culinary product that's mostly frozen dairy product, does anyone else do this and does it sound good?".

To which I say "Yes, its called Ice Cream, its rather popular, give me your Ice Cream"

 

[Brian G Turner]

My wip is a fast paced multiple pov fantasy story.

I aimed for this with Gathering, and originally set up each POV as its own short chapter. However, since then I've changed it so that POV's are bundled together in chapters, and separated from each other by scene breaks.

My concern was that the POV breaks as chapters could be too jarring for some readers - by using scene breaks to separate some it would allow the reader to still feel inside the world rather than yanked out.

David Gemmell - mentioned above - does exactly this, and I think it makes for a smoother narrative.

As some reviewers noted, the story was heavily influenced by fast-paced thrillers - though the caveat is a single leading character will give a stronger sense of forward movement than multiple characters.

For example, there are 11 POV's in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code - but most people will only remember it as about the main character, whose POV scenes dominate.

Tom Clancy's The Hunt For Red October also has many POVs, but remains focused on a single main character.

Ralph Kern's The Locus Trilogy is a SF thriller in which there are multiple protagonists, but he handles that really well and manages to retain a strong sense of pace. This especially shows in books 2 & 3.

I'm not sure if I'm getting at the point you wanted, so I'll stop now.

 

[The Big Peat]

I'm pretty sure gemmell shifts pov in scene at times.

Abercrombie is quick paced and not shy of multiple PoVs, or playing games with them. Fonda Lee uses six in Jade city.

And on and on.

 

[Mouse]

I'd quibble with Mouse over the pacing of Gaiman, but otherwise agree and would posit him as one of the living giants of fantasy.

American Gods is slow pacing, I guess, but I thought Anansi Boys was pretty fast paced.

But yeah, there are a ton of books like this and a ton of people who like them.

 

[Reivax26]

It would make sense that I am writing in a style similar to Gemmell since he is my favorite author. I didn't realize I was doing that actually. I might need to go back and reread some of his books to see how he pulled it off so easily.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Check out Jonathan Maberry's superb JOE LEDGER series. It's SF/Horror and very fast-paced. Joe is the main character but Maberry often includes up to 4 other POVs in it.