Multiple POV's

Has anyone else read your WIP yet? Has it confused them? Seven POVs can sometimes be overwhelming to the reader, especially if the reader doesn't have a clear understanding of who is who. It can also make it a little harder for the reader to really bond with just a few MC's.

Having said all that, it can be done brilliantly and add rather than detract from the story. If you think it works and makes a stronger story, then before you do any drastic changes, I would wait until you get opinions from beta readers and see if they feel the same.

Enna said:

Or is this a case of "use 100 POV's as long as it's well-written!"

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That.

As a reader, having completely throw-away POV characters bugs me a little, but that's a personal preference. As a writer, I'd caution you to make sure your minor POV characters are necessary and distinguishable. But seven is not really excessive, IMO.

Is that the only reason you have seven POV's?

I have several but they're used because at any given point that particular POV is felt to be the best to use to keep the story moving.

They're not used because I thought using them would be fun or different.

Enna said:

... thought it might be fun to let some of the other characters have a turn.

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I would think that as long as you have something binding them together, it could work.

Best example I can think of right now is like a car crash. A major accident happens somewhere in the city and there are 7 key players involved. A story that tells about the crash from each of the 7 players point of view could be interesting and could work.

I think the most important thing is to have a strong central theme like that that binds all the POVs together.

Enna said:

because I could edit it down to 3 or 4 if asked.

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There you go.

If you COULD edit it down to 3 or 4, then you PROBABLY (key word) should edit it down to 3 or 4.

To me, it seems like multiple points of view are to be used only if absolutely necessary.

But there are exceptions to everything. Probably the best advice is to have someone beta read your story for you and tell you what they think.

I'm with Andrew Jameson on trying to avoid "throwaway" POV characters, but aside from that, I haven't a problem at all with a zillion POV characters as long as 1. there's a reason for the scene to be told from that particular POV (as was already mentioned) and 2. it's done right (no headhopping).

I prefer multiple third-person POV myself. Only seven? Pshaw! I can't even count how many my stories must have...

If POV 1 is still present when POV 2 is used, and then POV3 is used while POV characters 1 and 2 are still present, that could become confusing insofar as the reader is being switched from character to character and there is a potential risk of weakening the reader's attachment to all the POV's.

The story may be the stronger by using less POV's

Only you can answer, and the question is intended as rhetorical, but are you sure it's not just a gimmick?

Good luck.

Enna said:

Well, I don't want to say it's "necessary" to have seven POV's, because I could edit it down to 3 or 4 if asked. But it wasn't just for fun, either.

Six of the seven (minus the antagonist) are traveling together most of the story, so the other characters (or at least some of them) are present in each scene. So hopefully that lessens the potential confusion. I suppose I just really like these characters, and certain scenes come across (IMO) better from a specific POV.

I haven't had anyone read yet- waiting to complete the 2nd draft first- but this is definitely a question high on my list when the time comes!

Thanks for the help, everyone!

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Enna said:

Hi everyone!

I'm working on the second draft of my YA sci-fi novel, and the story is told from seven POV's, all in 3rd person. When I first started out, I really only intended to speak through the protagonist, but I realized I wasn't tied down to that and thought it might be fun to let some of the other characters have a turn....When I read it I don't find it uncomfortable or jarring, but...it's my book! I've read some books that use five or six POV's and it never bothered me. But for some reason when I realized I was using seven...I don't know, will agents and editors find that off-putting? Or is it more common than I think?

Or is this a case of "use 100 POV's as long as it's well-written!"

Thanks!

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to me, "seven different third-person POV's" sounds more like an omniscient narrator than like seven actual different POV's. An omniscient narrator can get into any character's mind, say how any character is feeling, even notice things that no actual character notices (e.g. an omniscient narrator could describe a group of characters having a huge violent fight, and then cut to the police car that's approaching them but is still two blocks away...). If that's what's going on in your book, I don't think it should be confusing, because third-person omniscient is an ancient and classic way of telling a story. All you have to do to keep the reader oriented is make sure that, as each new chapter opens, the reader knows who the "focus character" (for lack of a better term) is.

Try googling these two phrases: "third person omniscient" and "third person limited." Which one applies best to your book?

Actually, ideagirl, 7 POV's does not make omniscient. Omniscient is very distant and not as tight into a person's head as a third person limited. It doesn't sound like that's what's going on, to me.

Enna, I'm with James on this one. If you have these POV's simply because you like the characters and you wanted them to have a say and you can edit them out, you probably should. Two or three scenes in one book of a person's POV can be very jarring to a reader, especially if the scenes arent the most dire thing ever and it could have been told from someone's POV whom they are familiar with. Do these switches happen at the end? Or randomly throughout the book. You can have as many POV's as you can make work, but if a POV is given just because and is not needed to move the plot along when the same can be done from the MC POV then you need to think about the need for that switch. Because you like the character is not a need. Good luck and welcome to AW. THere's tons of stuff here, all of it useful, a lot of it fun.

Enna said:

Well, I don't want to say it's "necessary" to have seven POV's, because I could edit it down to 3 or 4 if asked. But it wasn't just for fun, either.

Six of the seven (minus the antagonist) are traveling together most of the story, so the other characters (or at least some of them) are present in each scene.

...

and certain scenes come across (IMO) better from a specific POV.

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You could be right.

"Necessary" goes beyond just who's present in a scene. A very general rule of thumb--with numerous exceptions--is that the best POV is the character who has most at stake in the outcome of that scene.

Enna said:

thought it might be fun to let some of the other characters have a turn

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Enna said:

I suppose I just really like these characters

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Still, these two comments ring a warning bell for me.

As you've probably guessed, there are multiple ways to approach the POV issue. My sense from your comments about liking the characters and letting them have a turn make me think perhaps you should pare down the numbers, but it's hard to know without looking at the text. So I thought I'd mention a couple of examples.

C.S. Friedman has a book called In Conquest Born that uses multiple POVs, some of whom are people you never see again. It's a great book, though. The important thing for me in that book was that the thrust of the story was clear, as was the identity of the main protagonists. The additional POV's added to that because they provided insight into how people who weren't insiders viewed the protagonists - and that was very helpful to what she was trying to achieve.

Kij Johnson's book The Fox Woman has three distinct points of view, all of whom are protagonists and many of whom appear in the same scenes with one another multiple times. In this case the issue is less of "who is present to see these events" but "how each viewpoint understands what's going on." In this book they are all treated (somewhat abstractly) as diary entries.

I have a book, as yet unpublished, in which I use three points of view for very particular reasons. These reasons are essentially the cultural differences between the characters and their differing moral drives, because each character has a tendency to pull the main thrust of the story in a different direction, often in opposition to the others while the others are present and watching. Often I create suspense by switching POV's in the midst of an interaction between two people, showing first what one person understands about the interaction and then with the switch showing that the other is understanding something totally different - a misunderstanding which then propels the plot.

So as you go about deciding which points of view to use and which not to use, I'd encourage you to ask yourself not whether the character is cool and whether you like them or they need a turn, but what exactly that character's viewpoint is doing for the story, and doing for the reader's understanding or suspense, etc. These are the considerations which should be primary, because in the end the reader is reading to follow the story (main conflict) first, and the characters themselves afterward.

I hope this helps.

Setting up your POVs is one of the most difficult things I've encountered in writing my novels.
I've Googled POV and there are literally hundreds of responses.
Some people say omniscent third if not acceptable to publishers while others say it's the only way to go.
My current story deals primarily two MCs and I frequently present their point of view by their comments or thoughts.
That, to me, works and those who've beta read my stuff also feel it makes the stories interesting.

(Now, if I could only get an agent interested in them - 3 complete, 1 being written and another needing major revision.)

Ok, before getting into a technical discussion of POV, I think the main issue here is actually not POV. The main issue is, how many major characters can you have without confusing the reader or dissipating the story's momentum? Regardless of point of view, the only way it could work to draw so much of the reader's attention to seven different characters is:

(1) if there are seven different, closely connected storylines. There need to be seven; if you've only got six storylines, you simply don't need that seventh major character. He can either disappear or be relegated to a bit part or supporting role in one of the six storylines. Or...

(2) if there's one storyline in which all characters are involved and some of those seven characters are antagonists, so your main characters can be grouped into protagonists and antagonists, and it makes sense in the story that there would be teams of protagonists and antagonists... The Da Vinci Code is a good example of this. (Not saying it's a great book, but it is a good example of "teams" of protagonists and antagonists. Ditto Lord of the Rings, about which more below.)

(3) if you're trying to write something like The Seven Samurai in which the issue of point of view IS a big theme in your book. If your point is "different people can experience and remember the same events in completely different and contradictory ways," then sure, illustrate that by having a bunch of characters go through the same experience and remember it differently.

But basically... even The Lord of the Rings doesn't have seven main characters who each get chapters where they're the main focus. Even the Lord of the Rings, which is a three-volume epic! If you count each of the three main hobbits as a major character you could hit seven, but really, Samwise and Merry have no stories of their own; they're just there as Frodo's friends, participating in his journey--i.e. in his story. They're not main characters. The MC's are Frodo, Gollum, Gandalf, Lord Sauron, maybe Aragorn, maybe Legolas (but that's a stretch). You have to throw in the dwarf Gimli to hit seven, and I can't see any rationale for calling Gimli a major or main character. And even counting this way, you still won't find one chapter per each of those characters; it would be confusing to go off into Gimli-land for a chapter, then off into Aragorn-land, etc.

So if even a sprawling three-volume fantasy epic with easily a hundred characters in it (if you count each elf, hobbit etc. that's mentioned by name), if even that kind of book sticks to a handful of main characters and would likely be confusing or unfocused if it didn't, then you have to wonder, how on earth can the OP's book work with seven main characters?

nevada said:

Actually, ideagirl, 7 POV's does not make omniscient. Omniscient is very distant and not as tight into a person's head as a third person limited.

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Omniscient (a.k.a. "third person omniscient") CAN be distant and not in a person's head--and it's the only POV that can do that--but it's not necessarily distant. By definition, an omniscient narrator can "get into" any character's head, whereas a third-person limited narrator can only get into the head of one character. So what's going on here is either seven different third-person limited POV's, or one third-person omniscient POV that shifts its focus between seven different characters.

Basically, "omniscient," "first person," or "third-person limited" tells you the POSSIBLE scope of the narration; it tells you where the limits are, but it doesn't tell you exactly what the narrator does within those limits. An omniscient narrator can discuss absolutely anything, from the innermost feelings of a character to the formation of galaxies 10 billion years before the character's birth... anything. But just as you don't use all the words in the English language every time you write a book, an omniscient narrator doesn't do in one single book EVERYTHING that an omniscient character COULD do. An omniscient narrator is free to focus on just one character, and limit itself so much that you could almost call it third-person limited--but if that narrator, even just once, talks about something that is not or could not be in the consciousness of that character, then it's an omniscient narrator.

Third-person limited is limited to the awareness of the focus character; it's like the narrator is sitting on that character's shoulder or in their head--they CAN'T pull back to some other character's consciousness or to things outside the knowledge of the focus character. Third-person omniscient can be distant, sure, but it can also feel to the reader almost the same as third-person limited, with this difference: it CAN move around if it wants to, and it can talk about things outside the focus character's knowledge.

Here's an example--the Golden Compass trilogy, by Philip Pullman. The first book focuses on Lyra, while the second focuses on the boy who will eventually become her friend/comrade/etc., and as I recall in the second book there are also some chapters that switch back to focusing on Lyra. Both books are VERY focused on their main characters (Lyra, and then the boy and Lyra) in almost every scene... but not quite every scene. There are scenes in each book where the focus character does not appear. The narrator describes a few things that the focus character is not aware of. The books are therefore third-person omniscient, but with a very strong focus on those two characters.

If we want to get technical, here's the clincher: the OP said the narrator spends each chapter focused on one of the seven characters. Given that premise, if at any point in the book the narrator mentions ANYTHING that the chapter's "focus character" doesn't know and is never going to know, then what you have is an omniscient narrator. (When I say "is never going to know," I mean that, for example, if the MC is in the hospital, a 3d person limited narrator could write, "It was months before he discovered that while he was in the hospital, his best friend was emptying his bank account and going on a shopping spree in Rio." But a 3d-person limited narrator could not write about something that the MC never finds out about.)

ideagirl said:

the OP said the narrator spends each chapter focused on one of the seven characters.

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Color me confused. I can't find where the OP said that.

no actually the OP said that several characters got a couple of scenes each.

The antagonist has three short scenes. The two next most important characters have about four each, and the last three characters, two or three scenes each. I

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Also Lord Of The Rings is omniscient POV so technically it has a POV cast of thousands. There are scenes written from Merry's POV and Pip's POV and Gimly and the guy on the road and the innkeeper has his say and the guy at the gate, etc. Just because they don't have their own scene doesn't mean they don't have POV. The reason why 3rd person omniscient is distant is that even though you can be in the head of a character, it is filtered through the narrator, who is not the character. i hate 3rd person omniscient. and of course, omniscient done badly is headhopping because there is no unseen narrator binding it all together.

Third-person limited is limited to the awareness of the focus character; it's like the narrator is sitting on that character's shoulder or in their head--

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There is no secondary narrator in third person limited. the narrator is the character. even though it is not first-person it is basically the same. the narration comes from within the character. there is not another unseen narrator. if there is, you are writing omniscient even if you only limit yourself to one character.

if the writer is writing 3rd limited and not using only the language the character would use he/she is breaking POV and author intrusion occurs. if the writer feels the need to do that, then it should be omniscient.

lol before it gets totally derailed, i think we all agree, if the scenes are only a few, and they don't forward the plot and you can edit them out, then you probably should. I question the need to give the antagonist only three scenes. either give him an equal say, or don't give him any at all. but that's just my opinion.

If you do it well, anything is possible.

That said, you have to ask yourself why you're using these POV characters -- from the readers' perspective, not yours. POVs automatically draw the readers closer to those characters because you're allowing them to see/experience/know things through these characters. So by creating that bond, you give your readers better experience and hopefully they'll root for those characters better.

But if you're only using those POVs to reveal information that the other characters can't know otherwise, then I think you're misusing POVs. It doesn't mean you can't do it, but you really have to ask yourself: what does it matter to the readers?

To me, it seems like you have four or five true POV characters: the protagonist, the antagonist, and a couple of major characters. It seems to me that your last three characters are throwaway POVs, especially since you said you could pare the whole thing down to four POVs. In that case, I would suggest you do just that -- rewrite the story so you're down to only four POV characters. Because, otherwise, it would feel gratuitous to have seven, instead of four.

FWIW, the MS I have out now started off with a rotating 1st person POV among about 5 characters. It worked Okay, but also drove me batty keeping in voice on different characters. 3rd person fixed the problem - and kept me from wanting to kill my more annoying charrie.

FennelGiraffe said:

Color me confused. I can't find where the OP said that.

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Replace "chapter" with "scene." Sorry, I just mentally glided from "scene" to "chapter" somehow. The basic concept of going from one passage focusing on one character's POV to another passage focusing on another character's POV was what I absorbed.

If this really is just a matter of the occasional scene--i.e. most of the book is centered on one or two characters' POV's, but occasionally it dips into another character--then it might not be a problem, as long as the first shift happens early in the book, so that the reader knows "Oh, this book shifts from character to character." What's jarring is where a book seems to be operating under one rule for 150 pages and then suddenly it turns out it's operating under a different rule. (I'm speaking generally because that is true of many things other than POV shifts; for example, if you start out writing what seems like a totally normal, realistic novel and then on page 100 spiritual entities show up and take the MC to another universe, um, that's a little jarring. Some genius somewhere can probably make it work, but generally it's not going to work.)

Thank you!

FennelGiraffe said:

A very general rule of thumb--with numerous exceptions--is that the best POV is the character who has most at stake in the outcome of that scene.

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Thank you so much for this, FennelGiraffe. I was just struggling with a scene that won't work in my own multiple POV WIP, logged onto the forum to rest my brain - and found this. It totally solves my problem. A brilliant rule, and one I won't forget.

Sorry for the digression, everyone. As you were...

Incidentally, I have ten POVs in mine, but they're multiple first, not third, and the book is 200,000 words long which I hope is enough to engage them all properly. And in answer to the OP, the same was true of my last book and no agent or editor were in the least deterred by it. It seems it's getting more common all the time.

In my experience, multiple third-person POVs are pretty common, but I think it's rare for the number to go as high as seven. The most I've ever read in a single book was, I believe five--and each character had quite a long chapter devoted to his or her POV, and in most cases was in a different part of the world from the other characters. He or she was the main character in the region in which he or she was hanging out.

In my opinion, it doesn't work well to use a minor character as a POV. If the story doesn't involve them in some significant way, it feels pretty pointless to have their input.

nevada said:

The reason why 3rd person omniscient is distant is that even though you can be in the head of a character, it is filtered through the narrator, who is not the character.

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That's true of 3rd person limited, too. "Third person" means "the narrator is not a character." As opposed to first person, where the narrator is a character (often, but not always, the main character). A first-person story is not necessarily ABOUT the narrator (think of The Great Gatsby, for example--mainly about Gatsby), but the narrator is actually there in the story. In a third-person narration, the narrator could be very close or very distant, but either way the narrator is not there in the story, not a character. Third-person limited can be written in the voice of the focus character, or it can be written in a more distant style. Merely choosing a distant style isn't what turns third-person limited into third-person omniscient. What makes that switch is writing something the focus character doesn't know and either cannot possibly know or will never find out. Once you do that, you're beyond the bounds of one character's knowledge and experience, and off into the land of third-person omniscient.

Like you said, a third-person narrator can be so close to one character that the writing is basically in the voice of that character--it can be very intimate in that respect. The narration can come from within the character. But it can also be quite distant; Google "third-person objective" to see what I mean--there are some books, especially French ones written in about the 1960s (also google "nouveau roman"), in which the narrator just watches the character or characters and has no access to their thoughts and feelings at all. Personally I pretty much hate the nouveau roman/third-person objective style, for about the same reasons you say you hate third-person omniscient: it's too distant to capture my interest.

For an example of third-person omniscient that's very close to each character it focuses on, check out Ann Patchett's Bel Canto. It's an amazing novel that switches between--well hey! probably at least seven characters, now that I think about it. It works because all the characters are tightly connected: they're all either being held hostage, or holding the other characters hostage, in a single hostage-taking event that lasts a couple of weeks. It's truly a fabulous book, and each time the narrator floats over to a different person, you really feel and see that person. It's not distant at all.

I do seem to recall one weird novel by Tom Robbins, whose novels are all weird but I love them, in which the narrator was a character but if I'm remembering correctly it was written mostly in the 3rd person. It was Another Roadside Attraction, in which the narrator was like a reporter chronicling the events of the story, and he often referred to himself in the third person: "Your humble chronicler then said to her... and then he yada yada..." etc. But that was arguably just a first-person novel in which the narrator had the slightly annoying verbal tic of sometimes referring to himself in the third person. Tom Robbins has also published a novel written in the second person... now that one, I gotta say, is hard to read. It'll say on the page, "you were doing XYZ," and I think, "No I wasn't, dude!"--it's very hard to get absorbed in a story that's written in the second person.

nevada said:

I question the need to give the antagonist only three scenes. either give him an equal say, or don't give him any at all. but that's just my opinion.

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I agree--three scenes doesn't make for much of an antagonist.

okay what you're talking about are very different things. 3rd objective is a totally different POV than 3rd limited which is what you said first. and in the case of Tom Robbins book, you're discussing meta fiction which is something different all together. Those are 3 very distinct types of POV and can't be lumped together. 3rd Limited is just that. Limited to only the thoughts, feelings, observations of one or more characters. It is from their head, not from a narrator. third person does not mean the narrator is not a character, depending on what 3rd person you're talking about. 3rd person limited the narrator is the character.

As an aside, I've done stuff in 2nd person and it's kinda cool to write. really difficult but really kind of cool.

maestrowork said:

you have to ask yourself why you're using these POV characters -- from the readers' perspective, not yours. POVs automatically draw the readers closer to those characters because you're allowing them to see/experience/know things through these characters. So by creating that bond, you give your readers better experience and hopefully they'll root for those characters better.

But if you're only using those POVs to reveal information that the other characters can't know otherwise, then I think you're misusing POVs. It doesn't mean you can't do it, but you really have to ask yourself: what does it matter to the readers?

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I totally agree. Bel Canto (just mentioned above) is the best example I can think of where what the OP is describing actually works, and the reason it works is because--well, two reasons, but the second one is most relevant to your point:

(1) Because all the characters are very closely tied to each other, being involved in the same event at the same place at the same time, and by floating from character to character the reader understands this event in a way you couldn't possibly understand if the narrator stuck to just one or two characters; and

(2) Because the narrator keeps coming back to the same characters--there are a lot of them, but they each have their own story that develops over the course of the book. They're not just there to provide information that wouldn't be available from the main POV. They're there because they have their own stories.