Loading ...
DavidBCoe
Those of you who have read any of my books know that I like to tell a story from the perspective of several different point of view characters. (A point of view — POV – character, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is simply the character whose head we’re inside as we write or read a book. For the Harry Potter books the POV character is always Harry. For a book like Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, or with my Winds of the Forelands books, the POV shifts from character to character with each new chapter or chapter section. The alternative to writing with POV characters is writing with an omniscient narrative voice, which I just hate. Why? Because I find, as a reader, that it distances me from the characters, and it’s just not as interesting. I read — and write — because I like to get inside people’s minds, to see what makes them tick. An omniscient voice doesn’t really allow that.)
Writing in multiple points of view has many advantages. It allows an author to piece together a complex story without requiring a single character to know and see everything. It makes it possible to give more information to your reader than you’ve given to your main character, which in turn makes it possible to rachet up the tension and the sense that your beloved protagonist is in danger. And finally, as my comments about omniscient voice imply, it helps with character development, by putting your reader inside the thoughts and emotions of several characters.
And yet, with my new project I’ve chosen to limit myself to a single POV, and I’m finding it challenging. Why would I do this? After all the things I just said about how much I like writing in multiple POV, why would I choose to write from the viewpoint of a single character? Well, because this has certain advantages, too. With a single POV character, readers tend to grow quite attached to that character, and since this new project revolves around this one character, this is a good thing. Also, this new series has a strong mystery component, and by writing from a single POV, and keeping that character in the dark about certain things, I heighten the sense of mystery and perhaps make the implied but unseen threats faced by my character seem that much more frightening. So again, my POV choice is designed to increase the narrative tension.
The challenges I’m encountering relate back to the benefits of multiple POV. From the standpoint of narrative, giving my readers necessary information is complicated by the fact that I’m writing from the viewpoint of only the one character. I don’t want him to know too much, because I need to preserve certain aspects of the mystery. And logistically I simply can’t have him everywhere my readers might need him to be. So I have to keep my readers in the dark about certain things. I have to balance the need to maintain the sense of mystery with my desire not to tick readers off by telling them too little.
From the standpoint of character development, the challenge is in making the characters around my protagonist come to life. I can’t be in their heads, so I have to rely upon my POV character to “tell” my readers about them through his observations and the interactions he has with them.
Clearly, these challenges can be overcome, and I think that what I’ve written thus far works quite well. But this is new for me, and I’m finding that I’m having to learn some of the basics of good storytelling all over again. That’s not a complaint; not at all. I think I decided to go with single character POV, in part, because after writing eleven books in multiple POV, I was looking for new challenges.
But I’d be interested in hearing from readers and writers alike. Which do you prefer: multiple character point of view or single character POV? Why? What do you get from one that you miss in the other?
David B. Coe http://davidbcoe.livejournal.com http://magicalwords.net http://www.davidbcoe.com
An interesting challenge, David. I’m facing the opposite challenge. My first series was first person, so while I had to struggle to make some things known, I had pretty tight control of the camera (so to speak.) In my new series, I have multiple points of view and I’m finding it much harder to put the characters across.
Ideally, I’d like to write like Tolstoy, who wore omniscently, but told us wonderful character-evoking facts about everyone. But that doesn’t seem popular nowadays, and I haven’t figured out how to do it. So, currently, I’m stuck with mutli-point of view.
Hi David,
Great post! You did a lovely job explaining the beneifts and problems of each POV method. I too hate (just really *hate*) omnicient POV. I too want to see inside a character’s head.
I’ve written in both multiple limited third person POV, first person POV, and even first and third, which was a challenge, and isn’t much desired by editors today, but it worked. Right now I am writing with two first person POVs, controlling the switch solely by voice and text breaks. And it is a such a challenge! I am loving it! I think was bored with the same-ol-same-ol. This is fun!
Faith
I have always written in Third since I love complex stories. I recently started work on an Urban Fantasy piece that is First Person. Loved it. My critique partners loved it. However, as you pointed out, it limits what the hero/heroine and the readers can know at any given time. Knowing that this story will involve some complexity, I rewrote the piece into Third. The upshot is that most Urban Fantasy is First so this work will “seem” different.
Glad you’re trying the First Person POV. It’s always good to stretch oneself in new directions. First is definitely a stretch, at least for me.
Thanks for the comments, all. Jagi, I would refer you to the comment that Sherwood Smith left today on my Livejournal blog about this — http://davidbcoe.livejournal.com. She made the point that omniscient voice used to be the standard and that it was used to great effect to get into people’s thoughts and emotions. I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss it. Omniscient voice used carelessly is what I object to — done well, it can be great.
Faith, thanks for the comment. I love the idea of TWO first person narrators! What a terrific challenge you’re set for yourself. I bet it turns out wonderfully.
And Jana, I should clarify that I’m writing this from a SINGLE POV, but in THIRD person. I’ve toyed with shifting it to first person, because at times I find myself slipping into it by accident, but right now it’s third. I’m just not allowing myself to tell the story from more than one viewpoint. That’s what’s creating the challenges.
I just gave a really long-running project a rest (it was getting really unwieldy, and I don’t think I’m ready for it yet). It was, as I’ve written since my first story in grade school, multiple third person POV.
I’ve moved into a new project that is alternating 1st person. I’m beginning to think part of the “unwieldy” in the resting project was the number of people I was trying to deal with and the number of stories I was trying to tell. The new project already seems tighter and more focused. This is not entirely POV; some of it is definitely plot, but I’d like to think part of it is due to the style switch.
I’ve noticed this in reading multiple third POV as well. If done well, it can really move a story along quickly. If not, it can scramble things all over creation, and I have found myself wishing we could just stay in one person’s head more often.
I think multiple POV works best if it’s somewhat limited to a few main characters. I also have a real preference to keep the POVs separated by chapter if there is going to be more than one. Often (not always), I get thrown out of a story by being in more than one person’s head on the same page.
To conclude what really feels like cold-medicine fueled rambling, I think I like limited best. It makes the discoveries that happen more real, and gives a reader real loyalty to the narrating character(s).
Good luck with the new project. I’m excited to see how it turns out.
David,
Good points about the POV – I actually like writing in single POV for the positive reasons you mention – but I usually fall back on multiple POV for the negative reasons you mention. One of the main challenges I see with the single POV is that I like being able to break off and leave the reader hanging while dealing with another thread. With single POV, you finish a chapter with the POV character cliffhanging, then you start the next chapter and there he is again, so the cliffhanger seems artificial.
The only way I was able to accomplish it the one time that I did was by having the second thread be a parallel historical story that eventually ties in with the main action. Maybe you’ve found another way to address this?
As a reader, I prefer a single-character point of view. I find it’s easier for me to fall into the book and loose myself in the story.
However, I’ve never picked up a book and said “ewww, I don’t want to read this, it is told from X POV.” In fact, the only time I tend to notice POV is when it’s done badly. I dislike stories with multiple third person POV when the author doesn’t make it clear who’s on deck. Maybe I’m just a lazy reader, but if I have to stop and say “Wait. What? Who is this?” then I’m likely to leave the book where it is and go find something more enjoyable.
Also, sometimes with multiple third person POV the author doesn’t stay with character *I* am interested in long enough. She/he will go chasing off after Character B when I really want to know what happened to Character C. I don’t like Character B and if they fell off a cliff I could care less. That sends me flipping pages until I find where C’s story resumes to read for a while before I backtrack and sludge through B’s narrative.
Truthfully, though? If I find myself skipping around to catch up with my favorite character that is an indication that the author didn’t do his or her job well. I may not like every character the author created, but I will still enjoy reading their story because the author has created a world that is lively and exciting and magical and I want to be there, no matter who is storytelling.
Just a reader’s POV.
When I read, I don’t care what the POV is. I just enjoy the story. Even omniscient rarely bothers me.
As a writer, I am most comfortable writhing limited 3rd person, with multiple POV characters. I want to know what the hero is doing, and what the villain is doing to counter. I like showing the reader the hero is walking into a trap.
A few years ago I wrote a novel with a very limited 3rd person POV from just the protag’s POV. That was a challenge I enjoyed, so 2 years ago I took the plunge and wrote my first UF in 1st person. And female protag. It was the hardest thing I ever wrote, and thank God my wife was there to help with some female stuff because I was clueless on a few things…several…okay, a lot of things. I think I did a good job of it, but I think I am ready to go back to 3rd person.
David,
I think I like multiple POVs in enormous Fantasy Epics, but Single POV in Mystery/Suspense. I think it depends on what you want to do in your story. Can you write a huge story like Winds of the FOrelands from only one POV? I think you could but who would want to read it? There is only so much character building to carry through 5 books.
I have a question as a writer… How do you know how often to switch POVs in a multi book? Is there a rule or hint as to how often is a POV switch TOO often? I always fear switching it too often and confusing the reader. Then I worry about sticking with one too long and missing some great viewpoint.
Lots to chew on here — again, thanks for all the comments.
Wendy: I agree entirely with the notion that one has to limit the number of POV characters if using multiple POV. Using too many is distracting and undercuts the main point, which is to deepen the character development of those particular characters. I think I might have used too many in Winds of the Forelands, though as Mark points out, it was a big series and so needed many narrative voices.
Chris, what I’m finding with the cliff-hanger issue in single POV is that sometimes chapter breaks work better at a moment of revelation. I allow the action to play itself out in a single chapter. But when the character learns something truly stunning, that’s a good stopping point. At other times, though, I just go with the cliff-hanger and return to the action from a different angle. So at the end of a chapter, he’s looking down the business end of a sword (this is entirely hypothetical). As the next chapter begins he’s remembering sword training as a youth that prepared him for this. Or maybe he recalls a recent conversation with the friend who is about to pop out of an alley to save his life. Something along those lines — similar, I think, to what you were suggesting.
Beatriz, I know exactly what you mean. You can’t change POV too much, and you need to make each POV character interesting enough to keep the reader from saying “Damn, I don’t want to be back in this guy’s head.” I have to admit that in reading some books — even great ones: Kay, Martin, etc. — I do feel that sense of “wait, I don’t want to leave so-and-so yet.” But within a paragraph or two they’ve won me over and I’m thinking, “Oh right. This plot thread rocks, too!” That’s what I shoot for in my own writing.
Tom, first person presents a whole other set of challenges that we should address here in future posts. With third person POV, even if it’s the only POV in the book, there is a certain distance between the character and the narrative. A story is being told. When you switch to first person, that voice becomes far more important and not only does the story have to work from the perspective of pacing, and giving information to the reader effectively, the narrative voice has to be the voice of that particular character. It’s much more intimate, and much more difficult in many ways.
Mark, excellent point about POV fitting the type and scope of the story being told. You’re right. I couldn’t possibly have written Winds, or even the LonTobyn books, from one POV. As to how often to switch, I really think it’s as individual as anything else, and often it depends on where you are in the story. There are parts of Winds where I remain in one character’s head for a whole chapter and other parts where I’m in two or three people’s POV in a chapter of the same length. In my final chapters of the last book in the series, I jumped around A LOT, but that matched the pacing at that point in the story. As with so much, I won’t try to state a hard and fast rule. But for me as a reader, if a book is switching POV too often I lose focus. As I was writing Winds and Blood of the Southlands, I switched POV when I found that the story needed to go to someone else’s voice (there, is that vague enough for you?). Let me put it this way. I treat multiple POV as a conversation of a sort. When it seems that one character has “talked” for too long, or when the narrative seems to demand that someone else do the talking, I switch. It’s a pacing question. And if I have written an entire chapter in one character’s POV, I will generally switch as I begin the next chapter, even if the action stays in the same place. If I’m writing Grinsa and Tavis chapters and one’s from G’s POV, I’ll switch to Tavis with the next chapter, just to keep that story thread fresh. Does that help at all?
re: How to choose which POV character to use for a scene…The best adivice I’ve seen is pick the character with the most to lose or gain in that scene.
Personally, I am not sure that is always the best way.
Here’s most of my response on this subject from over on Sherwood Smith’s blog:
Personally, I’ve come to prefer multiple tight third-person POV narratives. I understand what you mean about having to remember what Bob was doing the last time you read his POV chapter (which, depending upon the size of the POV cast, can prove problematic), but, overall, it works best for me.
I think (as I’ve mentioned many times) George R.R. Martin has the best current examples of this in his A Song of Ice and Fire series.
As I’m halfway through The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, I’d have to add him to this list as well. So far there are 5 POV characters and each has a very unique voice.
I think it is that uniqueness, an almost 1st person level personality told in tight 3rd person, which makes Martin’s and Abercrombie’s books work so well.
I can’t even begin to imagine how to tell Martin’s story with an Omni narrative. I think it would (while end up shorter) lose the depth of the dramatic and emotional impact it currently has.
re: How to choose which POV character to use for a scene…The best adivice I’ve seen is pick the character with the most to lose or gain in that scene.
Though I don’t know how valid it is, I’d also heard that it helps to pick whichever character knows the least about what is going on to be the POV character when more than one POV character is present in the same scene.
As to choosing which character to use, I’m not quite sure how I go about making that decision. I simply *know* before I start a scene who has to be the POV character. Usually it has to do with the plot point around which the scene revolves and who it impacts more, though that’s not a hard an fast rule. Sometimes it’s just a matter of which character I feel will be the more interesting observer for the events about which I’ll be writing, and that’s a matter of instinct, mostly.
The discussion CE references at Sherwood Smith’s blog is well worth checking out — it grew out of this post and has gone interesting places. http://sartorias.livejournal.com.
Thanks, Tom and CE!
David said, “And yet, with my new project I’ve chosen to limit myself to a single POV, and I’m finding it challenging.”
When I started writing MK, I chose to put the whole thing only in Kestrel’s POV, because I thought it would be easier.
I’ll wait while everyone finishes laughing.
Well, you didn’t say you thought it would be *easy*, just easier. And one person’s challenge is another person’s piece-of-cake. I think of multiple POV as being easier, but a lot of people say they can’t handle it. Have I mentioned that there’s no right way to do any of this….?
I like first for flavor and humor because it allows me to editorialize, single third for maximizing suspense because it sharply limits the information the reader has while minimizing the digressions of first, and multiple third for big sprawling stories with a lot of historical context.
Kelly wrote: “I like first for flavor and humor because it allows me to editorialize, single third for maximizing suspense because it sharply limits the information the reader has while minimizing the digressions of first, and multiple third for big sprawling stories with a lot of historical context.”
And that, my friends, is why Kelly McCullough does so well in this business. Concise, to the point, elegantly simple. Well said, Kelly.
I’m in the process of changing my long suffering novel from third person over into first. A reader convinced me to do this because although it was written in third, I was writing from the protagonist’s pov most of the time anyway, so it might as well go into first. When I showed the beginning of the new draft to Rob he said something along the lines of ‘yes, your characters seem like real people now’. D’oH!
I believe that there is a correct voice for every story, and if you don’t find the right one at first the story won’t work quite the way it should until you do. And if Rob says it’s working, it must be true. His taste in literature is almost as good as his taste in women….
Thanks David. I just keep typing and hope that every so often something useful or entertaining shows up on the page.
BTW: I linked to this post because you’re saying really smart things here.
Thanks, Kelly.
Sorry, didn’t catch you were doing Third but with a single POV character. I couldn’t do that. Too much of a temptation to just spend a few minutes in someone else’s head and then it would spin out of control. I admire you. You got guts.
Well, either guts or a serious lack of brains.
Overall, I see this as a simple equation. I write in first person if I really need to dig deeply into the feelings and personality of a person. This works very well for literary works. Also there’s an advantage to being partly blind to what other people are feeling. This works well in mystery and cop fiction. We only know what the detective knows. But, let’s face it folks. We all REALLY see in first person. That’s real life.
Third person is easier, in general, because we are allowed to tell the reader what other people in our story are thinking and feeling. In this way we can impart a lot of information without sounding “preachy”.
In my opinion, the difference between single or multiple POV, is in your story itself. Write the thing. Too many excuses to procrastinate. When you are going through for a first edit, decide if you need something (or if you accidentally put in someone else’s) that can only be derived from inside a different person’s head.
If you put in something from another character and it is extraneous, take it out. If you find it critical to your story, adjust your writing to accommodate a second point of view.
Best of luck in whatever ventures you pursue.
DavidBCoe,
Nice distinction on POV vs. Character thought. I too have stumbled into the first book writer’s desire for multiple POV. Sometimes called, Revolving First Person–I understand. I too don’t really like the Third person omniscience unless I have to. In my case–I have a romantic interest between the main character a woman and a secret agent. It seems impossible to discuss his spy stuff from her words. Additionally, it gives the reader more insight I believe into his feelings once they come together. For me 4 chapters are his out of 27. My reconciliation and challenge is to make sure as I switch chapters, the reader can tell two things. 1) A definite change in people and who they are! 2) I think a hint in the previous chapter close to the end and almost picking up on that hint in the new chapter with the new voice keeps the story line focused. It is the same story and same path just separate at times until they are together. That seems to make it read better and cause less confusion. I am still researching it and adapting an already written book to facilitate these changes with more unity for the reader!
Nice article and great comments by your group!!!!
Many thanks for the comments, Al and Jeff. Jess, I tend to write multiple POV in limited third person, rather than first, but I can see where the approach you describe could be innovative and very interesting. Best of luck with it, and welcome to the site.
For me the POV is dictated almost always by what I’m writing. It’s like, whatever feels right for telling the story is what I use. If I’m going Noir-ish I’ll tend to use first person limited. My latest is third person subjective, I guess it would be called. My Urban Fantasy is first person.
Thinking about it, much of what I write is either Third subjective or first person. Long ago I did a little Third Omniscient, but I don’t do it often anymore. Still, if the story feels right that way, I’ll probably use it.