: Should i have four points of view for my novel? I have four friends who all have roles to play in my novel. Person A is why things start to happen to the whole group. Person B has protected

Vote Up Vote Down

This isn't a full answer, just some thoughts and ideas that may help you make a decision.

First of all, I often use different PoVs when writing. Do keep in mind that I prefer narrators that are limited to the knowledge (and only have mind access) to one single character. In that sense, adding chapters with different PoVs is useful because:

It allows the reader to learn things the character has no knowledge about
Better understand the personality and motivations of other characters

I typically have one or two main characters (A and B) and several secundary (C, D, E, F). Let's imagine one main character for an example. I can have chapters that go: A - A - C - A - D - A - A - D - A.

I particularly enjoy setting a secondary character as bitchy and then getting inside their mind and revealing their human motivation, thus making them less bitchy while cutting down on the righteousness of the main character. (Because, let's face it, we often see people around us almost as evil antagonists when in reality they believe they've got lots of good reasons to get on our case. And sometimes they actually do.) It's also a good way of explaining misunderstandings (A talks to B on the phone in one chapter, then in the next C is telling D about this conversation he overheard and what he concluded was happening).

It's also a great strategy to create tension if you have two or three characters running around eachother to achieve something (e.g. A is having second thoughts about going out with B, C is getting ready to break into A's house, B is eagerly getting ready for the date when A phones to call it off (cue reaction), C approaches the house, ...). Although in this case, short chapters or sections within a chapter work best.

Another thing I do is have lots of people be present for certain plot points so then I have to decide which character PoV would most benefit the reader. Sometimes I'll have an event start with a character's PoV then create a pause that allows me to skip to another character PoV. Each are experiencing the same event but can give wildly different interpretations (say: A is a romantic girl loving her sweet sixteen party and the attention her soon-to-be boyfriend (let's call him B) is lavishing on her; while C, apparently partying normally with his friends, is cynically seeing B making cold moves to seduce A. Later on we may even find out B is honestly fond of A.).

From your description, I get the impression A and B are the protagonists and C and D can make do with less time under the limelight. I wouldn't start off with four chapters, four PoVs. I'd try to have A - A - B or A - B - B. This would avoid the dizzying effect of getting inside a new character with every chapter. It also allows the reader to settle before jumping to other PoVs. That way you have the basic PoV you always come back to and the others that pop up are just 'voices on the side', if you will.

No matter what, do make sure their voices are clearly different.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

To decide how many points of view (POVs) you can handle, you need to take into account the demands a new POV makes on you.

Each POV needs character and voice. When you have more than one or two POVs, then it's important that each one of the characters feels recognizable and distinct, with his own personality and voice that shines through everything they do.

If you don't manage this kind of richness, then multiple POVs draw attention to their sameness or dullness. If you've got good voice for some characters but not others, readers may enjoy some POVs and find others dull, or feel some of the POVs are a distraction from the "real" story.

Every POV needs their own plot arc. It's pretty much assumed that if a character has a POV, that's because their own goals and actions make a plot arc of their own. (It's hard to follow along with a character who doesn't feel like they've got a story, like they've got an arc that's headed somewhere.) So, more POVs means your story is going to be more complicated and multithreaded than one with fewer.

Keeping readers engaged with multiple POVs is harder. The more POVs you have, the longer gap you have between one and the other. Four POVs is likely to mean a four-chapter gap between one POV's chapter, and his next one. That can be hard to follow, or just feel choppy and disjointed. To accomplish this, you need to do really good work weaving the various POVs together, so the reader feels like all the arcs are moving forwards all the time -- or do some other authorial juggling to make the structure work.

In contrast to all these, multiple POVs can be a way to make your story richer, more varied, more colorful. It can make it bigger, with more characters who are truly key and get screentime. It can also let you tell stories with knowledge differences between the characters -- like the examples you give, of B helping A without A's knowledge. or C betraying the others.

These are the considerations you need to weigh against each other. Ultimately, you need to decide whether the added richness is worth the extra complexity, and whether you have enough material to sustain a multi-POV book for its entire length.

Another option that might be appropriate is using omniscient POV -- where you don't have any one POV character, but instead a single omniscient, omnipresent narrator voice, who can dip in and out of all the characters' POVs and knowledge at will. This has its own challenges (particularly, it's not very popular these days), but it effectively lets you skip between POVs constantly, and might be a good solution to the problem you're facing.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

Point Of View is nothing more than a perspective angle at which you show your story to your readers. It is for you to decide whether you need more than one, and which flavor of the POV to pick–first person, third person, etc. Ultimately it is your story which should factor into your choice and any so-called rule e.g. "do-not-use-more-than-three-POVs-ever", just like any other canned writing recipe ("show-not-tell", "never-diversify-dialog-tags", "if-your-first-novel-is-longer-than-100,000-words-you-are-doomed", etc.) is nothing more than a suggestion.

Chefs do not cook by someone else's recipes. Line cooks do.

If the events in your story require being viewed from different angles, you have to provide those angles; even if all of your characters are in the same room all the time, each person's reaction to the same situation will be different, based on their background and experience.

Another way of dealing with that would be telling the story from a single omniscient point of view, where you know what everyone thinks and feels, but it often results in a less personal feeling of the narrative.

The choice is always yours.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

That depends on two things. First is your audience. As a general rule, YA (Young Adult) books should not have multiple PoVs (Points of View), because the reader typically would be between 12-14 years of age and many cannot wrap their brains around the switching PoV. Some can pull it off, like in 3rd person naratives, but it's harder to do, and even harder to market.

For Adult novels, this is far more common. In fact, many adult readers enjoy the switching PoV because it offers a fresh perspective. Not all, so don't get it twisted.

However, like with all things, it depends on your skill as a writer. If you feel you can pull it off well, you can even write for children with multiple PoVs. It all depends on how well you know your target audience, and how well you can pull it off.

(0)