Turning a page is such a small, simple action. And yet, getting readers to continuously do it several hundred times can be a herculean task. Of course, the turning of pages can be metaphoric, and feel free to substitute any image you want for reading audio books or ebooks. Still, the struggle is the same—compelling readers to get to the end and then, ideally, to the next book you write.
This can be tough enough when you have one character readers are willing to follow. But what if you have three or four or more point-of-view (POV) characters who are all telling their own stories in addition to the overarching plotline? And what if readers aren’t equally interested in each of those POV characters’ stories? The less readers are engaged in your story, the less likely they are to turn all the pages. Really not what we’re going for.
If you got to this post from my previous one on turning your table-top role-playing game (TTRPG) into a novel and have read the subsequent two posts on writing multi-POV novels (here and here), you’re likely aware by this point that balancing multiple perspectives can be tricky. There’s an art to creating several strong protagonists who are easily differentiated. Similarly, there’s an art to placing their POV sections throughout your novel for maximum tension, impact, and structural integrity.
Which, if you haven’t guessed by now, is the subject of this post.
So strap in, and onward to four techniques for pacing a multi-POV novel. (And because I have to say it at least once, to glory! ⚔)
🟪 Before we dive in, a quick, but very important, tip. Even if you are using character names as chapter titles to announce who’s POV is coming, start by grounding the reader in that character’s headspace. Moving between multiple characters can be confusing, made even more so if readers get tossed into someone’s head without context. Even if all your characters are in the middle of a fight, you can spare a few sentences to establish where the character is and what’s monopolizing their attention in that moment.
The Wheels on the POV…
Sing it with me! (It’s okay. You don’t have to.)
For the edification of those who didn’t have the joyful childhood experience of traveling on a school bus where adults wanted to keep a literal busload of small children entertained and busy so they weren’t standing up and shoving each other, the next line is “go round and round.”
Which is one extremely useful technique for maximizing tension and reader interest when writing multiple points-of-view.
In my second post on writing a multi-POV novel, I talked a bit about cliffhanger endings for chapters. Real quick, cliffhanger endings are named so because they leave the reader and character at the edge of either a literal or proverbial cliff, making them question how, or if, the situation will get resolved. It’s the moment right before the commercial break, if you will. And when it’s done well, it’s the reason you don’t give up at the commercial and find something else to watch—because you have to know what happens next, come emus or high water.
Even in a single-POV novel, cliffhangers are a sound strategy for keeping readers engaged. With multiple POVs, though, you can really amp this technique up to a fever pitch because, not only do readers have to wait for resolution, but they have to wait for resolution for two or three or more characters, who each have their own trials and end on their own cliffhangers.
Since I love talking about TTRPGs, let’s consider this for our ongoing adventuring party. In the initial post about turning a TTRPG into a novel, I outlined a situation where the group was exploring ruins, during which the fighter (who is named Verra, since she’s “verra, verra tough”) got stuck at the top of a rock formation on the brink of crumble while the cleric (Merek), rogue (Stabitha), and wizard (Castor) faced challenges of their own. By combining cliffhanger endings and rotating POV, we can leave readers clambering for answers about Verra. Here’s a possible ending to her chapter:
“Above her, something shimmered. Was this what she searched for? Bracing her feet against the platform, Verra stretched up, only to feel the rock beneath her start to fall away.”
Now, of course, it goes without saying that you have planted enough small clues during the ascent to make this cliffhanger believable—an untrustworthy handhold here, a loose stone there. So by the time we get here, the reader has been silently urging Verra to get back to solid ground but also applauding her dogged persistence. Thus, when this moment arrives, the reaction is “Oh no, Verra!”
And then…
“Stabitha huffed out a breath, making dust puff up around her. She loved crawling through tunnels—truly, she did. But by the gods, she hated dust.”
“But wait, what about Verra?!”
She’s…hanging around.
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Still, she is hanging around, and will be doing so while we watch Stabitha get stuck in a tunnel, Merek almost fall to his death through an unexpected hole in the ground, and Castor fail a spell repeatedly. (Clearly, some cliffhangers are much more suspenseful than others.)
Wheels Don’t Have to Be Round
I know it doesn’t make sense, but stay with me. When I say rotating POV is an excellent way to build tension, I mean it. Cycling through your four characters in a specific order can be highly effective.
However, as is the case with just about every writing technique, it can also be a mess. Here’s why.
Since I haven’t picked on Castor yet, we’ll use him as an example. As a result of failing his spell seven times in a row, he experiences a kind of magic drain and falls unconscious, which can only be reversed with aid from a powerful enough cleric. Though it pains them, the group prematurely leaves the ruins and makes their way back to the main road, where they are accosted by bandits who abduct Castor and disappear almost without a trace.
(It’s okay, spoiler. Castor gets saved.)
In order to save him, though, the group must figure out who the bandits are, which involves Merek going to a temple to research, Stabitha scouting out information in the low-rent district, and Verra hitting up her buddy at the baron’s estate for intel. This all takes a few days, during which poor Castor is still unconscious, and, thus, not a viable POV choice.
And so we arrive at a wheel that isn’t a circle.
Cutting Castor out of the rotation breaks the wheel, but it also allows the tension to focus on Stabitha, Verra, and Merek, who are currently driving the story. Now, you could, theoretically, include chapters from Castor’s POV during this section that basically say “meanwhile, Castor was still unconscious.” I strongly suggest not doing this. For one thing, it’s boring and unnecessary. For another, the missing Castor chapters is another way to build suspense. As long as we’re unsure what happened to Castor, he could be conscious or unconscious, alive or not alive. He is…Schrodinger’s Castor. 😹
Incapacitation isn’t the only reason to break the POV wheel, though. You can, and should, do it in the name of narrative tension.
Let’s say Merek gets to the temple and starts looking for information without issue. Meanwhile, Stabitha runs into all sorts of trouble, and Verra finds that her friend at the baron’s is actually mad at her over something she thought was resolved. You could keep rotating between these three, but if Merek’s chapters boil down to “and Merek kept reading dusty old tomes,” he’s going to get pretty boring, fast.
Stabitha and Verra, on the other hand, are experiencing all manner of tension. They are the main focuses at this point, and as a result, they become the two sides of the POV coin. Instead of rotating, the POV flips back-and-forth from end to end for a bit until the story dictates the other POVs come back in.
Bottom Line: Thinking of POV as a wheel when you have more than two perspectives is a good framework, but don’t be afraid to break your POV wheel when it makes sense to do so. Your story will be better for it.
🟪 If you really don’t like the idea of breaking the wheel because a POV character is unconscious, one option is to make their chapters dream sequences. For tips on how to do so effectively, check out this post from Novlr.
Hear it From a Friend
POV is, as has been discussed, the number-one way readers get to know your characters. Having direct access to their thoughts (whether in first or third person) allows readers to really see who these people are, even when they’re alone. It’s incredibly immersive for storytelling purposes to be put right into the character’s headspace.
However, it can also be a negative experience, particularly if you have a character who’s naturally unlikeable. In these cases, multiple POVs can actually work quite in your favor. For one thing, they allow readers to get a break from characters they don’t like so much. For another, it lets you show what other characters think of one another, which can help to make less likeable characters more palatable.
For example, let’s take Merek, who I previously defined as rather formal, rules-based, and stuffy. With characteristics like these, Merek could become annoying very quickly. After all, we all have that friend who’s always casting judgments and making it seem as if our choices aren’t valid because they aren’t choices they would have made.
Let’s say Merek is this friend. Having access to his thoughts suddenly doesn’t feel so appealing—who the heck wants to listen to him tear people down for 1500-3000 words at a stretch?
Fortunately for Merek and your story, Stabitha, Castor, and Verra are far less abrasive. Their headspaces aren’t full of judgments, and Castor’s goofball nature is especially refreshing. Even more, though, these three give something Merek cannot on his own: an external glimpse at Merek.
In their chapters, Stabitha, Castor, and Verra might each think Merek can be a lot and isn’t always that nice, but they also have been working with him for a long time. They accept his less pleasing qualities because they know he means well and because he’s a good teammate and friend.
Thus, having access to these other three POVs takes the edge off Merek. He might still sound hypercritical and stuffy, but knowing that his friends appreciate him puts a different spin on his thoughts. Instead of judgmental, maybe he’s really just overly cautious, which makes him quick to judge. This sometimes sounds bad in his mind, but Castor likes this about him because it’s a good counter to his “eh, whatever” attitude that serves the group well.
Taking this even further, the attitudes of Stabitha, Castor, and Verra will influence the reader, giving them a new appreciation for Merek. The reader still may not like Merek a lot, but having these multiple perspectives help make Merek feel fleshed out and like far more than just “that stuffy cleric.”
Control the Flow (of Information)
Since I’m on a roll using analogies that figure into some of my most cringe-inducing memories of school, let’s use another one to illustrate this idea: the dreaded middle school girl’s bathroom.
Okay, we don’t actually need a bathroom, but it conjures an image (and I’m all about immersion, after all). So, let’s say we have three girls, Stephanie, Kayla, and Christina. Stephanie overhears that Omar wants to ask Kayla to the dance, which Stephanie then tells Christina, but not Kayla. Now, Stephanie and Christina have a secret about Kayla that neither shares with her, thus creating tension between the girls, even if Kayla is unaware of it.
This example is pretty basic, but it gets the point across. Stephanie and Kayla have information Kayla doesn’t have, which thus causes how Stephanie and Christina view the situation to be different from how Kayla views it. In this scenario, Stephanie has controlled the flow of information. She has shared a secret with one friend but not the other, thus creating tension between Christina and Kayla that wasn’t there before.
Now, what if this were a book with Stephanie, Christina, and Kayla as POV characters? Stephanie and Christina would have the information, yes. But so would the reader, even though Kayla doesn’t.
The result: Readers being forced to watch Kayla make decisions with limited information, all the while knowing that if she just knew the secret, things would be so different.
Ever shouted at your TV because your favorite detective didn’t notice the clue that was right in front of their face? This is the equivalent in a book. By controlling the flow of information so a limited number of your POV characters know something, you are creating a situation in which readers become a participant, rather than simply an observer of the story. You are giving them insider access to information, which draws them in and makes them feel involved because they know things not even some of the most important characters know.
Going back to our adventuring party, let’s say our bandits happen to have a cleric on speed dial (hey, bandits need healing too), who is able to cure the effects of Castor’s magic drain and revive him. Castor wakes, only to learn he was abducted because the bandits want a powerful artifact guarded by Merek’s temple, and they have planted clues that will convince Merek he must steal it if he wants any hope of rescuing Castor. Castor now knows his friends are walking into a trap but has no way to warn them.
Result: Readers yelling at Merek, Stabitha, and Verra “don’t do it—it’s a trap!” (Possibly in the voice of Admiral Ackbar.) Of course, the characters don’t hear the reader’s warnings and waltz into the trap, where they will need all their wits to escape. And so on, blah blah, story.
For the record, “blah, blah, story” is absolutely not how this situation should end. Regardless, though, look at all the delicious tension you’ve introduced by having one POV character know something the others don’t. If you’ve done the work to make your characters (even Merek) sympathetic, this basically hooks readers into continuing because they are immersed in the story and have to know both how it ends and how the discrepancy in the POV characters’ knowledge is resolved.
🟪 At this point, you might be thinking “this is a lot. How am I supposed to keep it all straight?” For that, I’ll direct you to this post from the blog of author and editor Daniel Green, which offers some tips for keeping multi-POV novels organized.
Wrapping It Up
At the end of the day, using multiple POVs to increase story tension comes down to control. Whether that’s over the movements of your wheel or the delivery of information, your most powerful tool is doling out information and making sure that information puts readers on the most tension-filled path possible. If readers feel compelled by your clever cliffhangers and realistic characters, they’ll turn pages.
Which I suppose means realistic characters should be the next post. So, to make sure you get it when it drops, subscribe below, and I’ll see you in your inbox soon.