I've noticed, due to a few people pointing it out, that in a piece of my first person original work a perspective change was particularly jarring. I agreed once I read it back; I had literally dropped the new perspective onto the end. In my experience, it's something hard to accomplish in first person or third.

How do you think perspective shifts can be accomplished properly and without becoming jarring to the reader - especially in first person?

 

The best ways I've seen it handled are to keep the subject matter the same for the transition. Give one person's account, then give the other's of the same event. Ideally, the second continues the narrative directly from the end of the first. This smooths over a lot of the 'wtf just happened' inherent in perspective changes.

If you can't do that for whatever reason, then wait til the current scene is completely resolved. Dangling threads make the transition even harder IMO.

 

If you must I'd say end the chapter with the first perspective and start the next chapter with the second perspective. Keep 'em separate at all times.

 

Like Sesc said, you really shouldn't try for multiple POVs in a 1st person story - just write it in third person if that's the case.

As far as switching POVs in a third person story - never switch within a scene. If you start a scene in Harry's POV, for example, you must keep everything within that scene congruent with Harry's POV. Only when you end that scene, can you change to another character's POV. When you read a novel for instance, you know its a scene switch by either of the following: Either the chapter ends, or there is a line break that indicates a scene change. In fanfiction, it's often:

Harry blah blah blah blah blah....................

dies.

---------------------------------------------

Hermione..................


--> Some type of connection can be used - e.g. beginning the new POV scene from a similar standing as where the first scene left off - but it's not necessary. As long as the reader knows its a new scene, you're free to change. Just make sure that you stick with one POV per scene. If you're in Harry's POV, you should not write a paragraph about how Hermione feels deep inside...her loins -- unless this was outwardly obvious to Harry at the time.

 

Okay, this is all pretty helpful, thanks guys. And yeah Sesc, that's what I meant. You've got a point. For the record, I'm talking one POV shift at the very end of a first person short story, rather than multiple shifts.

 

I find that there are two main reasons to switch perspective in a non-omniscient narrator story.

1) You've got more than one protagonist and the story must be told from both their perspectives. Like, for example, in a buddy cop story where one of the protagonists heads off home to find his wife has been kidnapped in a typically corny way, while the other gets berated by the chief of police. This example may or may not have been influenced by the Lethal Weapon.

2) You've got a single protagonist (or a small group as above) but need to give some insight into the antagonists' plans. Terry Pratchett does this frequently, like in Guards Guards where he gave a point of view from the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night (and later from Vetinari's former employee when the dragon takes over) to show how close the story is from going entirely to hell. It works well if you want your protagonist to act against a time limit, since the reader will know near enough when it's going to happen, but the protagonist doesn't. Builds up tension in a similar way to a movie.

It's also a good way to get into the heads of the antagonists, humanize them a bit. In the Pratchett example above we see just how bumbling and incompetent the Elucidated Brethren are, so we know that something is going to go wrong before the end of the story that the protagonists will have to fix.

 

The smoothest perspective changes I've read have been in Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. She utilized a really interesting technique here of having a sort of omniscient narrator that helps connect the story as she moves from one character's perspective to the other.

Personally, first person perspective changes should not (or rarely) happen within the chapter. I've you wish to fit multiple points of view, 3rd person is recommended.