Monday, July 25, 2016

Multiple POV Disorder

View of sea and palm trees through lens

In my previous post, I spoke about the difficulty in choosing the tense in your manuscript. Are you writing in First Person Present Tense or do you prefer Third Person Past Tense? 

At the end of the day, I choose First Person Past Tense for my current project. I gave myself a little fist pump when I made that decision - ONE DOWN!

So I wrote a few chapters in FP-PT for my main protagonist. Things were going well. My critique group seemed to enjoy it. But then I thought, to make this project more robust, I wanted to include FP-PT not only for my main protagonist but also one other main character and the antagonist. Should be easy right? Well, not so much. 

The following aren't a list of items that should be done just because you plan to write from multiple POVs, but these things become even more important if you decide to move in that direction. The reason mainly is that each character has to be as robust as your protagonist. So think about:

Comic Strip With a Guy on an Island and a Guy on a Boat
1) Why are you writing in different POVs?

2) What does it add to the story?

3) Does the character's POV move the story along?

4) What does the character want?

5) Is the character only there to support to main protagonist's storyline? (Answer: they should not.)

The fifth item on the list is an important one. When moving the story along through the eyes of another character, that character needs to have their own motivations and driving force. They can't be a wood pillar simply to add colour to the main character's story. If so, then these chapters will lack conflict and tension and there will be no need for you to have written from another POV in the first place. 

So how many POVs do you have in your manuscript? 

2 comments:

  1. Cute cartoon! Love it! I'm still old school I guess and usually write from one POV. I am not opposed to writing in more than one though.

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  2. Cute cartoon! Love it! I'm still old school I guess and usually write from one POV. I am not opposed to writing in more than one though.

    ReplyDelete