So, here's Bob. Bob is the viewpoint character of the story, and everything the reader sees is from his perspective. There's just one thing. Bob isn't exactly the main character. His best friend Frank is really the central character, the one the story revolves around.

Now, I did just throw random names into that, but I do have some stories that have this sort of set-up, and it's gotten me wondering. I've been told before that the protagonist should be active and the one to make the choice that decides the ending, and so on. When you have a viewpoint character and a central character, though, which one is the protagonist?

With one of my stories, Ark is very much the main character, the central one. So many of my ideas revolve around him and his past. However, while I may give him some viewpoint scenes, I really don't want him to have the viewpoint for most of the story. He has a lot of secrets, and I'd just as soon have the readers discover them along with the other characters instead of knowing the whole time.

This is going to leave me with a viewpoint character who isn't really the main character. I don't particularly want her to be passive, but I'm trying to figure out just how active she should be and how active a character Ark should be.

So anyway, that was a rather long build-up to the question: who else has dealt with this situation, and how did you handle it?

I'm dealing with that in my current project. I have my heroine who is the main character. The story starts in her perspective. (The story format isn't first person. I think it's third person...) Then I have my male lead (I wouldn't call him a hero). I also want the readers to know his thoughts and perspective on the heroine.

So I actually switch between both characters points of view as I work through the story. Some people (like me) will do the POV change in the same chapter but separate it by a double space paragraph. Other authors actually have a whole chapter for each character's point of view. It all depends in your personal preference. : )

I hope that was helpful. ^^

~Calen

Oh, oh, oh! I do this! I do this in Prince of Yen!

See, originally POY was supposed to be about Prince Derek and the princess he was wooing, etc. Janin just got thrown in for a different spice. But once he was in he wouldn't leave, he eventually stole the part of MC and even got the book names after him.

But, he never got a POV. He has one or two POV scenes, but he is not the POV character. This gives me a unique perspective, while also feeling like I'm still kind of in control of my story... and, like you, Janin has secrets.

So anyway, the first part of the book is from the third person perspective of Derek, who is not a minor character by any means. The first book is his story, his wooing of Katherine, etc. But it's set up for the second book...

Book Two is written from the first person POV of Janin's brother Yancy. Yancy is passive, and almost completely absent from the story. Most of it he didn't even witness first hand and is retelling from what he was told. It makes it very interesting when he is there; because most of the time he's just a narrator and you forget about him and then sometimes you remember that that the narrator is also in the story.

So yeah, I had a lot of fun coming up with that. I think it works quite well.