Multiple MCs and Changing POV

There are lots of resources about POV. My general rule of thumb (of course, rules are meant to be broken, but this is what I usually stick to):

--1 POV per scene at the minimum. The longer in a POV, the better acquainted the reader gets with the character, so if I can stay in for a chapter or more, that's preferable. Shifting POV too often can be jarring and pull the reader out.
--Use as few POVs as needed to tell the story effectively.
--Choose the POV of the character who has the most to lose or gain in that particular scene.

Hope my guidelines help you a bit!!! I'd say go for it if your story needs it--I've seen stories with a half dozen or more characters, so as long as it's COMPLETELY clear to your reader whose POV it is, give it a whirl!

Here's a great resource for this topic.

Personally, I don't think it's distracting, provided it's handled well. From what you've said, it looks like it could work quite well for your story.

John Scalzi's The Android's Dream has a whole host of POVs. If you're looking for a good example of how to do it right, I recommend picking up a copy. Keith R.A. DiCandido's Articles of the Federation handles it pretty well, too (I don't usually read tie-ins, but this was the best six bucks I've ever spent before getting on a plane. It's a Star Trek take on The West Wing, and it's freakin' hilarious).

I usually agree with the above that you should use as few POVs as possible and stay with them for as long as possible, but the above two books manage fabulously with many between-scene shifts. Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, on the other hand, dedicates several consecutive chapters to each POV, and I didn't think it was effective at all. I loved the book, but every time there was a POV shift I ended up putting it down and walking away for a week or more before coming back to it. The story stayed with each character just long enough to get me interested in them and their story before it switched to someone else, forcing me to get into the book all over again.

That's not an issue when the author is alternating or rotating POVs so that I know I'll see the character again soon, but a lot of the Red Mars characters narrated only one section, and sections with the same narrator were spread far apart through the book. I really wish the author hadn't chosen to do it that way. (It's a great book though and you should totally read it-- if it wasn't so damn good, I would have just given up once I realized the POV was going to keep doing that).

So basically it all depends on what you're doing and what your book needs. I'd say if you're going to rotate through a small cast of narrators, so that we'll get each POV repeatedly throughout the story, chapter breaks are fine. The trick is, when you change perspectives, you have to make sure the reader wants to go with you-- or is at least willing to stay with you long enough for you to give them a reason to continue.

I am a fan of multiple POV's and use the format in most of my books.

I find it particularly useful as I have tight timelines - one novel takes place over 24 hours.

If the writer doesn't bounce around from character to character (head hopping)... I like multiple points of view. I think it adds texture to the action.

I tend to switch POV's too, but only if it's the best way - in my opinion at least - to get that particular scene across. If the previous POV character is still in the following scene, I find it hard to justify switching to another POV simply to show another character's take on the scene. That 'take' can normally still be shown through his observed reactions during the scene.

But...each to his own, and if it works...

I haven't tried this yet, but am about to. In George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, he changes POV every chapter and it works quite well.

I like multiple POVs, and I think they work very well if used correctly (what you're doing reminds me of George Martin and his 'Ice/Fire' series, with one POV per chapter). Barring that, a couple of spaces between one POV and another to actually designate a switch works.

Just please, please, please don't head-hop in the middle of a scene.

I like multiple main characters and changing POV as long as there's some seperation. I read a book recently where the POV changed my paragraph sometimes and it was terrible annoying, especially since there was still only one main character and something secondary characters had the floor...whatever you do, don't do that, please.

Otherwise, I think it's a good thing.

Mania said:

I haven't tried this yet, but am about to. In George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, he changes POV every chapter and it works quite well.

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This is a good example. Except that now he's pissing me off because he's accumulated so many characters that it takes 400 pages before you find out what happens to someone. I know I'm not the only person flipping ahead.

Which illustrates one of the dangers of this style... you have to switch off frequently enough that a reader who has become attached to ONE of your characters will retain interest in the others. I've talked to many people who do this-- even if the author doesn't have one "main" character, the reader will attach themselves to the character they like best. If the other characters are not interested enough, the reader may start flipping ahead to find out what happens with the favored character.

exactly, Jo. That's what I was talking about above. If we're not going to come back to a character's POV sometime relatively soon (within the next few chapters), it's good to have some closure on the character. If you leave them dangling off the edge of a cliff, it's going to be hard for me as a reader to care at all about other plotlines until that one's resolved.

Though even if you get attached to one character you might still be interested about the others, leading to mounting anticipation, which feels amazing when reading a book.

I read a book that switched main characters. The first one used was the one I wanted to know the most about, and she didn't come up again until the last chapter. But all the way through the other characters were still interesting and had compelling stories, even if I only really wanted to know about the first.

I like multiple POVs, but I do like only one per scene, unless it is absolutely necessary to switch for a good reason. I don't like jumping around more than once, even when it is clear where the switch is, or head-hopping.

I use multiple POVs and a couple MCs in my fantasy series. It was the only way to tell the story on the scale it needed to be told. However, I did limit the POV characters to those who were necessary and only added POVs in the later books when I couldn't write a scene any other way or skip it. Writing the books was a pain at times to get into different characters' heads, but I would go back to previous scenes from that POV and recapture what had faded from writing the previous POV. I'm glad I did it the way I did, and I've made sure the beginning of each scene makes it clear which character is experiencing the action. I would do it again.

In fact, I find books from only one POV to be a bit dull, or not as interesting as they could be if I knew what other character's were thinking or doing when the MC isn't around.

I don't mind multiple POVs, especially when there are many interesting characters. I want to know more about them. However, even with chapter breaks, I'm not sure I'd like it much if it was in first person.

As others have said, writing entire chapters from different POVs can get annoying if I prefer one character over the others. I've quit reading several fantasy novels because they did this and I disliked one POV character and got sick of being stuck with him for entire chapters. I'll have to check, but I think I only have one chapter that is done entirely from a single POV. Normally I switch POVs at least every few scenes, and don't have a problem switching in the middle of a scene if I see a good reason to. This is how most of my favorite books were written, so it's how I write. I'm a very impatient person and hate having to wait for the POV to come back around to the character who interests me.

Switching on chapter breaks can work if all your characters are interesting and the chapters aren't ridiculously long, though. I'm a firm believer in writing your book in the style you would most enjoy reading yourself, so if this is what you like and it seems to be working, then go for it no matter what others think.