Rewiting a multiple POV YA

Provrb1810meggy · Jul 24, 2006

I'm taking my manuscript and changing into present tense, first person, multiple point of view. The three characters we see the point of views are Fareeda, Tamma, and Dwight. They're the main trio in the story. However, in the original manuscript, we take a look at some of the story's villains actions. How do I go about showing the villain's actions, when none of the other characters are around? Do I need to add another POV, the villain's? Should I eliminate showing her actions and just show the effect on the characters, them eventually finding out who did it? Any suggestions would be helpful!

katiemac · Jul 24, 2006

Well, that's part of the trouble with present tense. You can't really get away with any other actions that the POV character isn't a part of.

First of all, some questions:

Why are you changing your POV?
What's more important: what the villain does, or how it affects the characters?

Based on the little info you gave us, I'd be leaning toward cutting the villains actions as opposed to adding another POV. (Three can be a lot, one more might be more damaging than helpful.) Even though you're writing in first person, you can use third person examples. Harry Potter, for one, is in almost every single scene of that series, and it's in his POV. We almost never get to see the villains' plans beforehand. We only know what Harry knows, and that works pretty well.

Sage · Jul 31, 2006

There's no one set way to write POV. Use one person or twenty, whatever works best. As you add POVs, though, you do risk losing the reader's focus on your MC(s). I had a similar problem to yours in one novel, & chose to make a character who worked with the villain take on a more significant role, which brought me up to three POVs. In another novel, I had too many POVs to start out with, I decided, so I tried to focus it in on fewer characters.

Whether you want the villain's POV shown will also depend on how much mystery you want to give the MCs. The reason it works well in HP for us to (usually) not know anything but what Harry knows is because we are supposed to be solving the mystery with him. Yet in the sixth book, we are given other POVs & don't have as much of a mystery throughout the novel.

If you want to keep it out of the villain's POV, I suggest having the MCs figure out what the villain was doing by finding clues to it, either throughout the novel or near the climax, which will allow them to explain it for themselves.

But tell it the way it needs to be told. Only you know the right way.

Rewiting a multiple POV YA

Provrb1810meggy

katiemac

Five by Five

Sage

Our Lady of Parentheticals