Many Voices, One Song: How Writers Meet the Challenge of a Multi-POV Novel
By Barbara Linn Probst | April 19, 2023 |
As C.S. Lewis noted, reflecting on the idea that it’s useful to view something from multiple perspectives: “Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.”
In other words, two perspectives will inevitably diverge rather than corroborate. Complement—or contradict—rather than confirm.
Lewis’s remark calls to mind the “Rashomon effect,” named after the 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa, in which a murder is described in vastly different (and incompatible) ways by independent witnesses. The Rashomon effect is “a storytelling and writing method in which an event is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved, thereby providing different perspectives and points of view of the same incident” (Wikipedia).
The idea goes back even further than Kurosawa, at least as far back as the Indian folk tale about six blind men describing the same elephant. None of the men perceives the whole animal; each has access to a particular part of the truth, depending on where he’s positioned.
As writers, we can take that idea and apply it to the social, cultural, and psychological positioning our characters—which is the rationale for writing a novel from more than one point-of-view. As with the elephant, several subjectivities are simply that—several subjectivities, offering a richer tapestry but not (necessarily) adding up to a single objective reality.
Note: For the purpose of this essay, I’m differentiating multi-POV novels from dual timeline/dual protagonist novels. In the latter, there are two independent stories, usually taking place in different eras, that intersect because the contemporary protagonist finds a letter, diary, necklace, dress, photo, or other object that links her to an earlier character, whom she will never actually meet. Through her quest to learn more about this person’s story, her own inner journey is set in motion and ultimately resolved. A multi-POV novel, in contrast, is a single forward-moving narrative, told through the perspectives and voices of several characters.
Though I haven’t written a multi-POV novel myself, and may never do so, I’m finding that I like reading them. I became interested in why authors chose that format and how they structured the various perspectives. The discussion below draws on books I’ve read, as well as authors I’ve spoken with.
What does the structure look like?
How many perspectives are included, and how are they related?
There can be two, three, four, or even more POV characters, although two and three seem to be most common. When two perspectives are used, they tend to carry equal weight and alternate chapters. In Chris Whitaker’s novel We Begin at the End, for example, the two POV characters are the police chief in a small town and a fiercely independent thirteen-year-old girl; they have different views of what the world is like, and access to different experiences. In The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff, chapters alternate between the POVs of Sadie and Ella, as their separate—and vastly different—lives and fates become increasingly intertwined.
For a single coherent narrative, even if told from various perspectives, there needs to be a plausible relationship among the POV characters. They might be members of a family or linked through a shared experience, mystery, danger, or search. In Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code, for example, the three protagonists are different in background and temperament, and yet, together, tell the story of the female code-breakers of World War II. In The Baseball Widow by Suzanne Kamata, the four POV characters are related through a Japanese high school basketball team, while the characters in Romalyn Tilghman’s novel To the Stars Through Difficulties meet through a quilting group.
In A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella, the stories of the three POV characters seem to be only marginally connected—Ella delivers Chuck’s newspaper and lives in the apartment above David, who manages the animal shelter where Kirsten works; Chuck’s wife, whose death he is still grieving, was Kirsten’s teacher years ago. However, as the story unfolds, they become essential to each other’s healing.
Are all POVs of equal importance?
Sometimes one POV character is primary. At other times—generally when there are three or four POV characters—some are primary and others secondary.
Judith-Turner-Yamamoto, for example, uses four POV voices in Loving the Dead and Gone, but “Darlene and Aurilla definitely emerge as the primary voices. Their alternating stories of love, loss, and death builds to the unlikely collision of the two women’s yearnings, which frees them both from the past.”
For Penny Haw, in The Wilderness Between Us, two POVs are primary and two are secondary, although all are essential.
In addition to looking at the individual experiences of shame of the two primary characters, I wanted to explore inter-generational friendship. However, as I wrote, I saw the value of having the other two viewpoints as well, particularly since there were times when they were on their own during the story and it helped move the plot forward.
For Jen Craven, in Best Years of Your Life, “they’re mostly balanced, but I’d consider Christine to be the primary POV, since the book opens and closes in her voice. Each protagonist has her own storyline, but they’re connected and ultimately come crashing together toward the end.”
Romalyn Tilghman notes that word count doesn’t necessarily reflect a POV character’s importance. In her novel, “the three characters who are interacting in the present day are equal in importance, although one of the voices is represented in very short pieces.” She also includes a fourth POV, in the form of a found journal, which has its own section and isn’t part of the rotation among the other three.
Are the voices in first person, third person, or a mixture?
In This Place of Wonder by Barbara O’Neal, all three POV voices are in the first person, present tense— thus inviting equal engagement, and minimizing the distance between reader and character. Adele Holmes, on the other hand, intentionally varies the “degree of closeness,” while staying within a third person perspective, for the three POV characters in Winter’s Reckoning.
Maddie, the protagonist, is definitely the primary character, and as such her POV is told in a very close fashion. The granddaughter, Hannah, who is used specifically as a literary device to tell the tale through the eyes of an unreliable narrator and a child’s innocent perspective, is told midway in closeness. Lastly, the antagonist, Carl, has a POV shown distantly—for the purpose of keeping some plot details silent until the appropriate time.
Sometimes authors use a mix of first and third person perspectives. JoAnne Tompkins’ novel What Comes After is told in the alternating voices of Isaac, a grieving father, and Evangeline, a runaway teenager. Isaac’s chapters are written in first-person, and Evangeline’s in third person. To me, as a reader, Isaac’s voice feels more introspective, and his POV is the one that gives the book its complete arc.
In The Orchid Tattoo by Carla Damron, the chapters from the perspective of Georgia, the primary protagonist, are rendered in first person, while the chapters for the other two POV characters are in close third person. This makes sense for the story, since the reader needs to get “inside Georgia’s head,” where she struggles with the voices she hears in her mind.
Why did you choose a multi-POV format?
How did you settle on this structure?
For many, the multi-POV structure was clear from the start. Judith Turner-Yamamoto, for example, “I’ve always been fascinated by how people experience the same event differently, so I always knew there would be multiple POV. My struggle was with who would speak first.”
For Suzanne Kamata, multiple voices were essential in order “to explore issues of duty to family, disability, basketball, and violence from differing cultural perspectives.” So too, for Penny Haw, writing about shame:
I was able to show how differently two people might experience it and what they might find in common … I also wanted to show how mistaken we can be about how others feel about and perceive us. While Derek is an unlikable character, having his POV showed what made him that way. His POV might not pardon his behavior, but it does elucidate it and provide context.
Others said that they tried a single POV, but saw that it didn’t work for the story they wanted to tell. Gloria Mattioni, for example, tried to write California Sister in a single POV but found that “it was missing a ‘mirror,’ often a divergent one.” She wanted the other sister’s perspective of the same choices and moments, and wanted to “give a voice back” to the sister who had lost hers through a tragic brain hemorrhage.
For Romalyn Tilghman, the structure of To the Stars Through Difficulties evolved in stages. “I wanted to represent the perspectives of both an artist and a librarian. The third perspective was added later. I always knew there would also be a found journal to represent the voices of women from a century earlier.”
What were the benefits?
According to the authors I spoke with, multiple POV adds complexity, nuance, texture, misunderstanding, and intrigue. Penny Haw told me: “It allows the four characters to examine their thoughts, emotions, and memories. It also worked for the plot, allowing me to ramp up the suspense, increase the drama and conflict, and deepen my subplots.”
For Maggie Ginsberg, author of Still True:
To me, single POV feels more limiting. If I’m stuck inside one character’s head, I only have my own perceptions of myself and they are so often wrong. I think multiple POVs helps paint a more nuanced picture for the reader. One reason I think it felt natural for me to start with multiple rotating POVs is because I’m a journalist in my day job and we rarely tell a story from a single source.
How did you help readers keep track of the POV shifts?
When there are two or three POVs …
Some authors label each chapter with the name of the POV character, others use “orienting cues,” and some do both.
Labeling chapters seems to be the most common way to indicate a new POV. Yet even when chapters rotate among several POVs, they don’t necessarily follow a regular pattern. In This Place of Wonder, for instance, Barbara O’Neal varies the order of the Norah, Maya, and Meadow chapters, and sometimes one of the women will have several chapters in a row.
In We Begin at the End, Chris Whitaker doesn’t name the chapters Walk and Duchess, but the reader understands right away because the first sentence or two (often the first word) names the character whose POV we are now in. Joella does the same thing in A Quiet Life, signaling that a POV shift has occurred.
Similarly, in What Comes After there are no chapter titles, but the reader is immediately oriented by the use of first or third person, as well as by a cue in the first line (naming Evangeline as the subject of the opening sentence for her chapters, and using the word “I” in the first sentence for the Isaac chapters).
Suzanne Kamata does both. In addition to labeling each chapter, she also mentions the POV character in the first or second sentence of each new chapter.
Ayobami Adebayo, on the other hand, does neither. In her novel Stay with Me, told in the alternating voices of Akin and Yejide, husband and wife, there are no chapter titles. Both POVs are written in the first person, so the POV character is not even named in the first sentence. Yet the reader quickly understands who is speaking because the characters see and feel and think so differently.
When the structure is more complex …
In Ethan Joella’s first novel, A Little Hope, there are actually twelve POVs, all written in close third person, present tense. Of these, the two women, Freddie, and Ginger, are the hubs, the centers, that connect the other voices, half of which have only a single scene or two, depicted through their eyes. And yet—to me—the structure absolutely “works:” the characters are present in each other’s scenes; the POV shifts among them are never jarring or confusing; and no one disappears from the overall story. The impression is that of a camera, scanning a party and zooming in-and-out to focus on interactions among the various attendees. And then, in the final chapter, Joella brings them all together as a kind of omniscient POV, letting us glimpse the resolution of each arc, and ending the book in the POV of the person who began it.
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro is another example of a complex novel that might not work, but does. There are two main POV characters: Ben Wilf, a retired doctor, and Waldo Shenkman, an oddly brilliant and lonely boy. But there also chapters in the POV of Ben’s children, separately and together; his wife Mimi; and each of Waldo’s parents, as well as sections shared by two of the characters, in different combinations and at different ages. The story also zigzags through time; it’s nonlinear as well as multi-vocal.
A final reflection …
Adele Holmes reminds us to be mindful about adding unnecessary narrators and that POV voices “should be pared down to the bare minimum necessary to get the story told.” More isn’t always better for the reader.
Each voice must be necessary and unique—perceive or contribute something that the others cannot. The “chorus” of voices needs to serve the story, and the transitions need to be seamless and organic, necessary for the story to move forward. As Maggie Ginsberg notes:
I relied on each character’s POV to reveal things about the others that they were too stunted or in denial about to see in themselves, especially since this was a story about secrecy and privacy, and the gap between who we believe we are and how we’re behaving.
And one final question, the question I didn’t think to ask the authors I interviewed …Whose voice is not heard?
We rarely hear from every character in a story, and I can’t help speculating about the voices that were not included—and what the novel would have been like if they had been. Think about a multi-POV book you’ve read (or are working on). Is there a character we see only through someone else’s eyes? One whose inner life we never gain access to? Whose story are we missing?
Over to you now … Do you like multi-POV novels? If so, why? If not, why not? Are you writing a multi-POV yourself? What is your biggest challenge? What surprises are you finding?
Barbara (she/her) is an author of contemporary women’s fiction living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each of her acclaimed novels (Queen of the Owls, 2020; The Sound Between the Notes, 2021; and The Color of Ice, 2022) was a medalist for prestigious national awards, including the Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, the Independent Book Publishers Award, the Hawthorne Prize, and the Nautilus Award for Fiction. Her fourth novel, Roll the Sun Across the Sky, launches in May 2025 and has received stellar advance praise. Barbara has also published more than 80 articles on the craft of writing and the writing life. She has a PhD in Clinical Social Work and has been a therapist, teacher, researcher, and advocate for out-of-the-box kids and their families. When not writing, she’s a serious amateur pianist and a traveler to spots from Iceland to the Himalayas. Learn more on her website .
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Fascinating piece. Thank you, Barbara. It reiterates how many different ways there are to tell stories and how there are no rights and wrongs.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, which added so much to the piece! As you say, no “right” or “wrong.” The question is always: is this the best way to tell this particular story?
Hi Barbra! I like multi-POV stories, as they show that there is always more than one perspective. Of course it needs to be done skilfully.
I have written one novel where I have more than one POV: the main protagonist gets most of the POV time, and when he is present in a scene, this scenes is described through his eyes. But in scenes where the second most important character is present without the main protagonist, he gets center stage. Plus there are two or three scenes playing on a different continent that are told through the eyes of the main character’s love interest.
I found that by looking through more than one characters eyes I got to know them better myself, while writing them.
Cheers from over the Atlantic!
Thanks for sharing your experience and for pointing out that sometimes there is a scene that really needs to be depicted “on the page” but for which the main POV is not present. Shifting to the POV of someone who is present tends to bring it to life in a way that (for example) having the person tell about it in dialogue does not. It’s also interesting to have characters in each other’s scenes. So many possibilities, which is what makes it so alive!
I haven’t written a multipl POV novel yet although my next one will, almost by necessity, be one (woman’s step-daughter is kidnapped and she works to get her back – POV of mother and POV of daughter; maybe add one for the kidnaper as well). So I’ll save your column to study again when I get to the planning stage. Thanks, Barbara!
Thanks, Maggie! And for sure, there are so many pieces here on WU that I too have kept “for later.” Blogs, like books, are like bottles of wine rather than bottles of milk—they keep for a long time!
Thank you, Barbara, for writing so well on a topic near and dear to my heart. You say you’ve never written a novel with multiple PsOV and may never do so. I’m wondering why this is. It’s all I use. You provide explanations for how multiple POV stories serve the reader. I use this technique because I think most writers are repressed actors. That’s true for me, and I want to take all the parts. The only way to do this is to–take all the parts.
Thanks again for a great post.
Thanks, Barry. I love your remark about “taking all the parts!” As for your question of why I haven’t, written and am unlikely to write, a multi-POV story … all I can say is that it doesn’t seem to be my way. I tried once, and ended up abandoning the WIP. I seem to prefer the sense of immersion I experience when a protagonist “lives inside me” and I become her vehicle. That said, never say never :-)
Wow Barry! Authors are repressed actors. There’s profound truth in that. I the way I write profoundly influenced by my life as an actor and director in community theater. And you are right that in my case my mind is always staging story in the actions and reactions of those in scene as if they were on stage.
Hi Barbara. Thanks for laying out the POV possibilities and their potentials (and potential downfalls). I published a multi-POV novel, Aftershock, several years ago. There is a first-person character and two close thirds, all tossed together by the S.F. earthquake of 1989. One character is a homeless guy, one an office worker, and one the office-worker’s boss. All of them have some serious issues, many of which emerge because of how their lives are unexpectedly—and often painfully—entwined by the quake and its consequences.
The POV characters each have alternating chapters, and they are essentially given equal character weight. I’m unsure if I’d write a book like this again, or if I’d try two characters rather than three, because it was complicated, but I did enjoy being in each character’s distinct heads. Though they did get a trifle unruly. Thanks!
Interesting mix of first person and third person in your story – I can’t help wondering if that affected your experience of “being in each character’s distinct head.” Did that make a difference?
It did make a difference, but less so toward the end. I didn’t go POV-hopping in the individual chapters, sticking with the head established in the chapter. Their distinct, discrete voices became more pronounced over time, so I had to adjust some things in the earlier chapters for that, but I guess that’s known as editing. I thought it all came out OK.
Thanks, Tom. I was just curious. I suspect that the “head immersion” simply grows as one gets deeper into the story, regardless of whether writing in first or third person. :-)
thank you for featuring my comments, Barbara! Always wonderful to talk writing with you! Loved hearing what other authors have to say about multiple POV.
We learn from each other!! I am also a huge believer that one of the ways we learn to write is by reading really good books. I wrote about that right here: https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2023/02/15/what-actually-makes-you-a-better-writer/
Thank you Barbara. I’m fell unexpectedly into writing multiple POV in my first novel, definitely a work in progress and it is so interesting and helpful to read how and why these wonderful authors use it successfully. This is the first discussion like this I’ve seen and it’s heartening. I found multiple POV essential to grounding the conflict and power dynamics of the story world and it is especially helpful to hear how these authors are handling transitions between both types of POV and the different characters. I smiled to see Maggie Ginsberg’s comment, “One reason I think it felt natural for me to start with multiple rotating POVs is because I’m a journalist in my day job and we rarely tell a story from a single source.” Guilty as charged.
So glad you found the post useful, Torrie! I agree that there hasn’t been a lot written on the subject—certainly not on the question of how one does it—so that’s why it sparked my interest. And I love you comment that you found “multiple POV essential to grounding the conflict and power dynamics of the story world.” The matter of power dynamics is so fundamental, yet I didn’t think to include it in the piece. Thanks for that!
Thank you for including me in this piece, Barbara, I learned so much reading it! Really great perspectives here and I appreciate the variety and scope of those perspectives. Inspiring!
I love that you were both contributor and learner. That reciprocity is what this writing community is all about, and the longer I am part of it, the more I see that my “position” is always changing. As you say, it is so helpful and refreshing to see that others have found ways to tackle an aspect of writing that never occurred to me!
Barbara: I enjoy multi-POV novels, for all the reasons you mentioned. I know, and appreciate, that the author consciously chooses how and when to present each character’s story, but I do find it jarring when different sections are told from different POVs — one in first person, for example, the next in third. Maybe the shift makes me too aware of the author’s presence. Another problem I’ve come across is that the characters’ voices all sound the same — the same tone, temperament, turns of phrase. They’re almost interchangeable.
Thank you for your two excellent comments, Christine. I couldn’t agree more that ANY “writer-ly technique” that makes the reader ” too aware of the author’s presence,” and thus pulls her out of the story, weakens the narrative instead of enhancing it. And yes, how to make each POV character speak in a distinctive voice that, again, adds to the spell of the story-world without seeming contrived? To me, you are making the important point that we always have to put ourselves in the shoes of the reader. The best way to write is to think like a reader!
As a writer, I can sometimes get around the problem by bringing in secondary characters who tell parts of the story through dialogue with the main, POV character, either by relating something they experienced personally or were told by someone else.
Yep, I do that too, even while writing in a single POV. That’s exactly what just happened, in fact, with my WIP. There was a crucial scene where my protagonist was not present, so I had to find a way to get it into the story that was still part of a forward-moving scene. I had her daughter tell it BUT within a scene that itself had dramatic action.
Barbara, one of the first craft books I ever bought was Character and POV by Orson Scott Card and I still refer to it when I begin a new story because it helps me to understand whose it is to tell. As a reader, I have a preference for single POV stories or omniscient (esp. in the hands of a master storyteller) and there are very few books I’ve enjoyed with multiple viewpoints mostly because I tend to like one character a lot more than another and feel impatient to get to my favored character and hate having to switch once I’m there. An exception is All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood–it has something like 15 or 16 POVs and you get to see this child growing up from so many different lenses. It paints a fuller picture. Not once was I tempted to put it down and each of the voices was distinct. As a writer, I also prefer a more immersive experience. And I’m not yet accomplished enough to tackle omniscient viewpoint except with short stories. I’ll keep at it. Thank you for shining a light on the multi-POV novel. I have some books to read and study when one of my stories demands it.
Like you, Vijaya, I “prefer a more immersive experience” as a writer (in fact, I wrote that in a reply to Barry Knister’s comment above). If you liked Bryn Greenwood’s book, I think you might also like Signal Fires and A Little Hope, referred to in the piece. Your point about the 15-16 voices serving to “paint a fuller picture” is such a good one—because that’s a use of multi-POV to create a kind of landscape, rather than as an alternation between two protagonists, a sort of “he said/she said” approach or a pair of twinned journeys. They’re actually quite different, so thank you for pointing that out!
I’ve been writing a multi POV story for twenty-three years now, and have a few more to go to finish the trilogy’s last volume.
The biggest problem is always, for me, switching from one pov character to a different one. I have an elaborate setup in my written process to do this, because I write in such deep third person pov that I feel I’m CHANNELING each character.
I started with six pov characters – three main ones, and a sidekick each so that I would have an external way to view each of the main characters. It didn’t take too long to realize that wouldn’t work AND would make the trilogy even longer, because I didn’t care much about those three sidekicks, except as a reflection of the main characters, so readers would probably find it just as jarring. And have easily incorporated those viewpoints in their dialogue or interactions.
Kept the three main characters and tell the story irregularly from their roughly alternating scenes, not chapters, with a ‘right behind the eyeballs’ of each perspective. In a single scene and character pov, I can fit in the internal monologue both general and specific for that character, so we also alternate getting a chance to BE that character, thoughts and all.
It is supported by an extreme structure so that I have a place to let each character express how their pov is RIGHT, which helps braid the three perspectives. For example, I don’t need head-hopping if I engineer a switch from one of the characters involved in a two-part interaction by having it be two sequential scenes, one from each pov, and the reader gets the thoughts of each in a fairly quick alternation. I don’t want to do it in the same scene, not for literary fiction, and the other option, omniscient pov with a narrator, is much too remote for me. I have NO narrator, by design.
As anything, once you see why, and figure out how, it just becomes your process – ‘how you write things’ – and happens fairly automatically, except for those incarnations into the pov character in the next scene, which I STILL, after all these years, have to do consciously. I like the results – so it works for me, for this story.
What a wonderfully vivid description of your process, Alicia! I especially love how you realized what was and wasn’t working for you, the author, and what would best serve your story. As you say, if you don’t care about a POV character, the reader won’t either. And maybe that character isn’t really needed. I love your reflection that “we also alternate getting a chance to BE that character, thoughts and all” in order to keep it intimate and immersive, not remote. And yes, we find our own process.
What remains so interesting to me, personally, is that what I like to write and what I like to read aren’t necessarily the same,. The latter is a broader, more diverse landscape. Thanks again for weighing in!
“intimate and immersive, not remote” Exactly.
Unfortunately, with chronic illness I don’t have the option of doing much reading (it interferes with using my two neurons for WRITING), so I tend to have an old favorite handy (currently a Travis McGee novel) I can put down any time I have enough energy to write.
I envy you that ability. I’m glad I read EVERYTHING when I was younger, but I’m out of date. The database is deep and wide but not current. Which suits the writing of a trilogy set in 2005/2006. Until it’s finished. I miss it, but writing is more important to me. I figure, if there is a heaven, it will have a fully stocked library – and I’ll have plenty of time (assuming I end up there) to catch up.
I may write a book on writing – some day. I can’t be the only one like me.
That is an awesome idea.! Maybe you could collaborate with others who have different kinds of challenges, so that each of you would just need to write a chapter with strategies specific to your illness or neuro-divergence? That would be an incredible contribution, and I’ll bet someone would jump at the chance to publish it!
This isn’t something I’ve struggled with, because my favorite authors tend to write multiple POV. When I pick up a new book, I’m usually disappointed when I see it’s written in the first person. Why? I’m not entirely sure. Personal preference, I guess. Perhaps I like to know what’s going on in the life and mind of each of the major characters. Perhaps in my own writing, it has to do with the fact that my books are mysteries, and using multiple viewpoints lets me plant clues that the protagonist himself hasn’t yet come across, or build some suspense that might otherwise not be there.
As I begin to build a new novel in my mystery series, other than the main recurring characters who always get at least some POV scenes, I choose which non-recurring but major characters will become POV characters as I build the plot. There usually end up being at least two or three. They all have their own voices, which means the vocabulary, sentence structure and dialogue will usually differ from one POV to the next.
One of my fellow finalists for the Whistler Independent Book Award for Fiction in 2019 described my novels as structured like a film. The scenes as written are easy to visualize, and each scene adds to the plot or a subplot, but with the POV of different characters so scenes aren’t limited to the presence of one single character. Even within the same chapter, the POV can switch from scene to scene. A change of scene (with or without change of POV) is always marked by an extra space, and the POV character in each scene is made clear in the first paragraph, if not in the first sentence. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but it was my natural choice.
Thanks for addressing this topic.
Very cool, and thank you for this detailed description of how you work, and why. I love your point about “using multiple viewpoints lets me plant clues that the protagonist himself hasn’t yet come across.” As someone who write in a single POV third-person, I do that too— the protagonist herself has no idea, although the reader might. Or might realize it later in one of those Homer Simpson DOH moments. And yes, I agree that we need to visualize our scenes as if they were taking place on a stage. What can the viewer see? That helps to minimize the time spent in someone’s head. And “spending time in a character’s head a-thinking” is not the same as “seeing the world/scene from that character’s perspective!
Hi Barbara:
Sorry I’m late to the seminar, but yesterday was a train wreck. This is quite possibly one of the best if not THE best breakdown of this issue I have ever encountered. I hope you’re working on a craft book because this belongs in there as a chapter. I also hope you don’t mind if I share it with my current students at Litreactor. I couldn’t present this material any better.
And your comment is quite possibly one of the best comments I’ve ever received! Thank you so much, Dave! And of course you can share the link with anyone who might find it helpful …
As for writing a craft book—I leave that to you, but I would be delighted to contribute a chapter (or two, as I have quite a collection of essays now) if the time comes when that would be appropriate.
I do see that more and more people are trying their hand at multi-POV, but it’s harder to do well than it first appears. I was especially interested in the idea that arose in my exchange with Vijaya, above, that the use of multi-POV as texture or landscape is very different from a simple alternation of two stories.
These conversations are why we love Writer Unboxed so much!!
Barbara, I found your post fascinating to read, as I also write multi-POV. (See below.) Thank you so much for addressing this storytelling method in such an enlightening way.
I’m writing a multi-POV, multi-volume fantasy story, seat-of-the-pants all the way. (The only way I can write, as it happens.) I didn’t make a conscious decision to do that. (If I had, I think I would have talked myself out of it.) I started with one POV character and then another one showed up, followed by a third…I now have a total of eight POV characters, and write each one in a tight, third-person perspective. Each voice came to me clearly and each one had his or her own story to tell. These intertwined narratives are like a wild sort of braid, strands that weave around one another and then separate only to come back in later. It’s been enormously fun and enormously challenging, especially now that I’m writing the ending. Hardest part for me.
Other writers have done this, George RR Martin in his Game of Thrones series, for one. I do have far fewer viewpoint characters than he does, heh.
“Enormously fun and enormously challenging” = the perfect combination for a writer! I too experience my characters “showing up,” each with a story to tell. Yet, for me, I tell their stories through their actions and the consequences of those actions, so that works for me :-) And I love your image of a wild braid, separating and coming back together later! Thanks so much for joining the conversation and sharing how you work …
I prefer one POV (both for reading and writing), but I have enjoyed many books with multiple POVs. Again, I cite my writing hero, Alice McDermott, who moves effortlessly from POV to POV, and in her masterwork (IMHO), “Charming Billy,” hopping through time and place seamlessly. The reader — at least this reader — never loses track of the story, or the poignancy of the characters, and it’s all done in less than 300 pages. I also enjoy just about anything Ann Patchett writes, often from multiple POVs. But on the whole I want to stick with seeing through one person’s eyes. Likwise, nearly everything I write has one close third POV. Using first person makes the character sound too much like me, one of my many writerly shortcomings. My WIP has three POVs, though: each one gets their own section. The character is the middle section is the lynchpin of the story. I made at least four false starts on his story, writing the section about halfway to the end and then trashing it (no, actually I saved it for reference, in my “Outtakes” file). I simply could not get his voice right until I let him speak for himself. But the other two POVs are in third person, which I just enjoy writing more than first, and #1 came out just fine (I’m working on #3 now).
Thank you for these great reflections! Sometimes a story tells us what it needs, just as you describe—a particular POV may take a while to emerge, with a few “false starts,” and then a switch from third person to first person. It’s always a journey of discovery !
PoV to me is like a camera. Scenes in differing angles, the best to present the story. I thrive in seeing the action from unique aspects, and how differing each may be seen.
I have tried a single PoV, now that is hard. So limiting. I guess we writers are as diverse as the characters we portray.
A can not recall the book but I have read one which had a dozen PoV characters show the story about the main character, who is not a PoV. It take ever kind of book.
Perfectly said – that a POV is like a camera! Sometimes we need a zoom lens, sometimes a wide angle, sometimes black & white, sometimes bright color. Your reflections make me think of a well-edited film, which uses different cameras from different angles, depending on the scene, purpose, emotion, and desired impact. Thank you so much for joining our conversation!
Ms. Probst,
This post was recommended by a friend who knew I’d find it especially interesting. An avid reader, I’m also working on my first mystery/suspense novel. Your subject matter is fascinating! The idea that readers may expect that POV should (or should not) be singular within a book never occurred to me.
As you pointed out, whatever best tells the story should be the way to go for the reader’s benefit. It’s also the natural way for a writer to include some of the more relevant clues and herrings, especially if a character is an individual of few words. More can be shown with POV options than that character would be likely to say to another.
Your comments above also referred to using a character’s name (or a detail within the first sentence or two) as a cue for the reader, and/or changing POV at a scene or chapter break. As a reader, it prepares me for the switch, and avoids difficulties with identification. As a writer, I like to provide that assist for the reader’s convenience. Taken a step further, word choices and speech quirks (acronyms, etc.) used by police vs an amateur sleuth or witness are often very different. Without much effort, writers can clarify POV for readers without distracting them from the story.
Thank you for a wonderful reminder of the symbiotic relationship between readers and writers. Happy reading (and writing) everyone!
So glad you found the post helpful! Great point that seeing an event directly through a POV character’s own eyes is usually better than one character telling another about the event . And I couldn’t agree more that POV shifts should enhance the story, not draw attention to themselves :-) Thanks for commenting!