Generally novels have one person telling the story when the first person point of view is used. I read today about a novel that uses an interesting variation--haven't read the book yet but I'm planning to. It's "The Fates Will Find Their Way," by Hannah Pittard. Here's what Mary Houlihan wrote about it in the Chicago Sun-Times:
"The novel is uniquely narrated in an intimate first-person plural. When the themes of regret, loss and the difficulty of becoming an adult started playing over and over in her head, Pittard says it was in an “infinitely plural voice.”
In the first pages of the book, Pittard sets up the premise: 16-year-old Nora Lindell has gone missing on Halloween night. As the story unfolds, the boys spend so much time pondering Nora’s fate that they leave little room to imagine their own futures as they grow into men.
Throughout the book, Nora is the ghost who wafts through the boys’ lives, an ethereal being whose unknown life is obsessively forged in fantasy, rumor and speculation. Pittard fleshes out “what if” scenarios that show Nora in a series of different situations — as a kidnapping victim, a waitress, a mother in Arizona and a witness to the Mumbai bombings."
I sometimes get emails from newer writers who feel afraid to break "the rules," so I like to point out authors who come up with different ways of telling a story. The only rule is make the reader want to keep reading.
(For more on ways to write your novel, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," and for guidance in setting and achieving your writing goals, join my online Writing Breakthrough Strategy Program--see www.jurgenwolff.com for details.)