In my critique group, I’m known as the Point-of-View Nazi. I try to catch when other writers stray from the point of view they established in each scene. I sometimes get caught making this mistake myself, though not very often. I wrote so many affidavits for so many witnesses during my days as a lawyer that I can write from a single person’s perspective fairly easily.
The novels I have published have all been written in third-person POV. I might try writing a novel in first person sometime—one of my critique partners has written a couple of books in first person, and they are done very nicely. But so far, I haven’t been willing to spend a whole 300-plus pages in one person’s head.
I’ve published four historical novels, one contemporary corporate thriller, and my work-in-progress is a sequel to that thriller. Three of my four historicals (Lead Me Home, Now I’m Found, and My Hope Secured) have only two POV characters. Like many romances, they have a male and a female protagonist, and each of the two gets POV chapters. In these three books, the two characters get roughly equal time over the course of the novel.
But in Forever Mine, my other historical novel, I decided to use six POV characters. I started out thinking of Forever Mine as a romance novel—in fact, it might have the most typical romance plot of any of my books. But the teenage couple, Esther Pershing and Daniel Abercrombie, didn’t interest me as much as their parents did. (Maybe I’m too old to write about teenagers.) Much of the conflict in the novel came from the thorny relationship between the young couple’s fathers. Samuel Abercrombie, Daniel’s father, had been a difficult character in the books I’d written earlier, and when I wrote Forever Mine, I wanted to let Samuel have his say. Why was he as cantankerous as he was? So I used six points of view—Esther and Daniel, and all four of their parents. I think it made a richer story—as if in Romeo and Juliet, you got to hear from their parents as well as the young lovers.
And in both of my contemporary thrillers, I’ve used six points of view. Those novels are fast-paced and the scenes are generally short. They are set in a corporation, and I’m trying to give the feel of a bustling commercial enterprise with many things happening at the same time.
As I indicated above, I don’t think I’d like being limited to a single POV in a novel. But which do I like better—limiting the POV characters to two or having several?
Two is easier than six, particularly when there is a rhythm of alternating POVs by chapter. That back-and-forth lets readers see both characters’ impressions of the events of the story close to when the events happen. Either the events take place in a character’s point of view, or the other character reacts to the events in the next chapter. With six POVs, it’s sometimes hard to catch up. But then, not every character has to react to everything.
I do think it is important to limit the number of points of view in a novel. Some epics and fantasies are written in omniscient POV or have a wide range of POVs over long periods of time. That can work. But for stories that are limited in time span and have a focused plot, there is no need to see the events from twenty or more perspectives.
I once heard a writer say that you should use the fewest POVs it takes to tell the story you want to tell.
And when you have several POV characters, they don’t all have to be given the same number of scenes. In Forever Mine, Harriet Abercrombie had the point of view in the fewest scenes, but I still thought she added a dimension to the story as a foil to her husband Samuel, someone who could explain things Samuel wouldn’t even admit to himself. And in my thrillers, the villains have had a few POV scenes to try to make them seem human, rather than total dirt bags.
In choosing the POV character, a writer should look for which character is most important to the scene. It might be the most active character in the scene or the one most changed by the scene. But sometimes in meshing the plot development with my pattern of alternating POVs, I found that it isn’t the “turn” of this most important character to have the point of view. In Lead Me Home, for example, one chapter was supposed to be in Mac McDougall's POV, but he was unconscious with cholera, so he really couldn’t be the POV character. So I varied my pattern for that chapter. In other situations, where I thought it could work, I had the POV character walk into a situation so he or she could continue my POV pattern, then later had the more impacted character reflect on those events.
So even if you have a pattern to your POVs, be prepared to be flexible. The story should govern, not your artificial pattern.
Another issue I have with POV is getting into deep POV—to really feel the emotions from the POV character’s perspective. My first drafts are almost never deep enough. I get the actions and words on the page, then when I edit, I have to layer in the sensory impressions and feelings of the POV character. And sometimes I’m still told I should write deeper. I think this problem stems from those affidavits I wrote—as an attorney, I dealt with facts, not feelings.
Writers, what have you found easy and difficult about managing points of view in a novel?
