Writing multiple perspectives in a novel can be likened to the common idiom “there are two sides to every story,” where you replace “two” with however many characters’ points-of-view (or POVs) are used to tell the story. While this adage is a quick way to understand the multi-POV structure, there is a fair bit more to successfully crafting a story around several perspectives than simply telling the same story two or three or, heck, ten times. (Yes, there are books with ten POV characters. I know because I wrote one, which was both an amazing challenge and an excellent primer for writing this blog post.)
If you’re coming here from my post on how to turn your table-top role-playing game (TTRPG) into a novel, you might have three to five perspectives in mind for your book. But the tips below are applicable regardless of how many POV characters will weigh in on events.
Before we get into it, a quick note for my TTRPG people on the difference between taking inspiration and using actual player characters from a campaign. If your plan is to use your friend’s rogue, named Stabitha, as inspiration for the story rogue, who you’ll name Arabessa and otherwise make pretty different from Stabitha, go forth and write. However, if you want to use Stabitha’s actual character, complete with her list of sassy one-liners your friend created for when she’s about to stab someone, it would be polite and prudent to talk to your friend first. The two of you may even want to put something in writing, since the idea is to make money selling the book. If you’d like to dive deeper into this topic, here are some resources on using real people in fiction and using other people’s characters in your work.
❗ Just to be clear, I’m not a lawyer, and the above shouldn’t be taken as any kind of legal advice. I’m simply providing some resources for further consideration so you can figure out what you want to do and, thusly, how to proceed.
Okay, enough of that. Let’s get into the good stuff—how to structure your novel around multiple points-of-view.
Choose Your (POV Style) Weapon
To quickly recap my POV section from the initial TTRPG post, point-of-view is the perspective from which a story is told. There are several options, but I suggested you stick to two.
- First-Person: When a character is also the narrator (I/me pronouns)
- Third-Person Close: When a narrator is telling the story for a character (he/she/they pronouns)
Personally, I like to go either first-person or third-person and stay there for all my POVs in any given story, but as pretty much any professional in the writing industry will tell you about choices regarding your book, “it’s up to you.” If you feel like first or third is where your writing groove lives, dig in and have fun. Conversely, if the story just shouts for the most important character to be in first-person while the secondary POVs are in third, that’s fine too.
And if you’re sitting there scratching your head because you aren’t sure what to do, fear not—I will walk you through some benefits and pitfalls of both choices.
First-Person
➕ Benefits:
- Immersive: First-person POV puts your reader right into the POV character’s head. You literally can’t get any closer to the action.
- Unique: Since the character is narrating the story, this allows for the development of a highly individualized voice. This makes the POV character feel real and can help to make the other characters and the world feel real by extension.
- Information Control: Since readers are only privy to what the first-person narrating character knows, this allows you to keep readers in the dark simply by not letting the character learn information (ideally through well-developed narrative structure, rather than just keeping secrets for the sake of secrets, but that’s a whole other blog post).
➖ And now, some pitfalls to look out for:
- Navel Gazing: Since first-person draws directly from the character’s thoughts, it can be easy to fall into introspection, thus stopping any forward movement while the character overthinks.
- Overtelling: This is similar to navel gazing in that it can stop forward movement, but it’s slightly different in that overtelling isn’t necessarily introspective. Rather, this involves getting caught up in having the character offer way too much information whenever a new element (character, setting, etc.) enters the story.
- Forced Proximity: The idea is to make your first-person narrator likeable, but not every character will be every reader’s cup of tea. This can lead to readers skimming sections from characters they don’t like, which could result in them missing critical information.
In short, first-person POV can be an immersive, relatable experience when done well, but you should take care to make sure things don’t drag. Just because you have unfettered access to a character’s thoughts doesn’t mean you should show them thinking about every tiny thing that ever happened to them.
Third-Person Close
➕ Again, we’ll start with the positives:
- Intimacy: The focused nature of third-person close isn’t quite as immersive as first-person, but it offers a sense of intimacy that’s buffered slightly so readers get a connection that isn’t interrupted by the character’s potentially undesirable voice.
- Flexibility of Voice: If your first-person character is a person of few words, this can result in descriptions being cut short. Third-person allows you to remain in the POV character’s head while also breaking from their thought style to deliver information the character might not otherwise consider.
- Clear Multi-POV Management: Third-person close is widely regarded as the least jarring choice for switching perspectives because the third-person narration allows you to keep a streamlined story experience, rather than switching between potentially very different first-person voices.
➖ And pitfalls:
- Potential Detachment: Though third-person close is meant to get snug with the POV character, it still doesn’t get as close as first-person, which could result in readers not connecting as strongly with the characters.
- Blandness: Without the ability to write in a character’s unique voice, third-person close can feel monotonous, which can make it tough to convey emotions.
- Head-Hopping: (Actually, you know what? This is important enough to get its own section, particularly for transitioning a TTRPG into a novel.)
Head-Hopping
Real quick, third-person POV is actually split into two common options—close and omniscient. Close is, as has been discussed, when the narration clings to one character at a time. By contrast, omniscient is when the narrator is separate from all the characters but occasionally dips into each person’s head to offer some additional context.
If you’re coming from a TTRPG where every character has their moment to state what they’re doing and how they feel about the current situation, third-person omniscient might sound very appealing for its flexibility. You might even be glaring at your monitor because I didn’t mention it sooner. 😤
Well, there’s a reason, and it’s not because I’m intentionally withholding life-changing information. Omniscient might seem like the perfect choice for a TTRPG-turned-novel, but especially for new writers, it can be extremely difficult to pull off well, specifically because of head-hopping.
When I say omniscient POV dips into characters’ heads, I mean it. It occasionally offers an extremely surface-level glimpse at what a character might think about something. It does not offer deeper thoughts, emotions, or any kind of character voice because to do so for each character in turn is extremely jarring.
To illustrate this, let’s look at a common TTRPG experience. Picture your party hiding just inside the tree line as the gamemaster (GM) describes the forest stronghold your group is about to infiltrate. As soon as the description ends, everyone in your party suddenly decides they have the perfect plan to proceed. Likewise, everyone starts shouting about their plan at once, voices getting louder and louder as four people become more and more positive their way is the best way. Instead of forming a plan and moving forward, action stalls as the four perspectives vie for dominance.
This is the TTRPG equivalent of head-hopping. And I promise you it’s no more fun or desirable in a novel than it is at the table.
If you decide to write in third-person omniscient, head-hopping becomes very easy to slip into, which is why I strongly suggest sticking to third-person close. However, I’ll never tell you flat-out “don’t do this.” So if you’d like to do some more research about omniscient POV, here’s a great article from MasterClass that breaks it down and gives examples. (FYI: the article refers to third-person close as third-person limited).
Structuring Your POVs
Now that we’ve discussed first verses third-close, let’s talk about how to organize your POVs to maximize clarity and minimize character confusion. This is done both through how the book itself is structured, as well as through the words you choose to use.
Break It Up
Above, I talked about head-hopping—when the narration “hops” from character to character within the same scene or, sometimes, the same paragraph. The best way to avoid this is to insert scene or chapter breaks whenever the POV changes. The same goes if you’re writing in first-person. Having a physical divide tells the reader the story is shifting gears and gives them an opportunity to orient themselves to the change. This is far less jarring, and if you want to make it absolutely clear where your POV is headed next, you can use character names as chapter titles.
Now, because I know someone’s thinking it, I want to add that scene breaks should not be used as a way to structurally justify head-hopping. Technically, yes, you could write a paragraph from one character’s perspective, insert a break, and then write a paragraph from another character’s perspective so that you can include all your characters’ reactions to something in quick succession. If you want to, I won’t stop you, but let’s go back to our four people yelling about the stronghold. If you just told everyone to yell separately, it would reduce confusion, but unless you actively shift yelling toward a planning conversation, you end up with the same result—no forward motion. It also doesn’t allow for any kind of intimacy or immersion for the reader because they are still being tossed around, if a bit less intensely.
Use Your Words
Once you’ve properly structured your POV sections, the next step is making your characters sound like different people.
“But they are different people,” you might be thinking, and during a TTRPG where you have actual people sitting around a table, this is obvious. Less so when all you have to distinguish between characters is the words they use and some chapter headings. Under those circumstances, making characters sound like different people becomes extremely important. Fortunately, a few small word-choice considerations can go a long way to ensure Stabitha the rogue doesn’t sound like your cleric (Merek) or wizard (Castor).
What’s in a Name? 🌹
Letters and sometimes symbols.
Okay, seriously, each of your characters has a name (Stabitha, Merek, and Castor). But that doesn’t mean they will all think of each other by those versions of their names. Merek might be the serious type of cleric who always calls people by their full names. Thus, he will always refer to Stabitha and Castor as Stabitha and Castor in his thoughts and dialogue. By contrast, Castor might be a lot looser and love nicknames, so he always refers to Stabitha by the lovingly endearing “Stabby.” Thus, the appearance of Stabitha/Stabby’s name will act as a differentiating factor for Merek and Castor’s POV sections.
This principle also applies to general use of the language. The more informal Castor might use the occasional “ain’t” or “whatev,” much to Merek’s chagrin. But Merek can get him back by using words like “forthwith” or suggesting that the wizard “ensorcel” someone. Also don’t forget to consider speech patterns. As Stabitha’s name suggests, she might be the rough-and-tumble type. While Merek might think “there is a low probability of this endeavor resulting in a successful outcome,” Stabitha will simplify things to “not gonna work.”
Walk This Way
What your characters do and how they do it matters just as much as how they talk. Giving your characters physical quirks helps them feel like individuals, which, in turn, also helps you specialize the language around them even more.
To illustrate this, let’s consider how Merek’s and Castor’s approaches to spell-casting might differ. In keeping with Merek’s formality, there might be low chanting, dramatic arm movements, and serious facial expressions. By contrast, our flighty Castor might try to look cool while casting, drop his staff, almost fall over picking it up—you get the idea. Both styles are very different, and the words you use should reflect these differences. Merek’s arm movements might be “sweeping” while Castor’s are “flailing.” And if Stabitha is observing both as they cast spells, she might think Merek is “solemn” while Castor is ”just hamming it up.”
As you can see (and as should be clear given we’re talking about books), words matter, and switching just one can completely change the mood of a sentence or the personality of a character.
Wrapping It Up
There you have it—the lowdown on structuring your book around multiple POVs and tips on using writing craft to make characters unique. In Part 2 of this sequence, we’ll dive into characterization and story so you can ensure every POV is pulling its weight and adding something to the book.
So to make sure you don’t miss it, subscribe below. And onward to story (err, glory)! ⚔