I recently read over a hunk of a manuscript my published writing buddy was working on. She was having difficulty deciding whether to incorporate the point of view of a secondary character and wanted my opinion. (Something I’m never short of)
After reading the selection, my not so humble opinion was that she should ditch the secondary character’s point of view and leave those scenes in the hero’s. Why? Because the secondary character wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. Nothing new or different or earth shattering.
A lot of authors utilize multiple point of views, and personally, I think they’d be better served to ditch them all together. I’m not advocating that every novel have only two POVs, but when I see another character pop in with their thoughts, I want to be made to care. I want to learn something new. Something I didn’t already know, and most importantly, I want that character’s point of view to enhance the main story line. If an author can’t do that, then I’d prefer they just stick to the basics.
Just last night, I stayed up late reading a book I’d been looking forward to reading. By the time I was a fourth of the way into the book, I was annoyed and impatient. The author used so many point of views that I was having a hard time even remembering what the central story line was supposed to be. (And now I’m really regretting the fact that I ordered several of her backlist titles.)
By the end of the book, where the hero and heroine are suddenly shoved forward, and the reader is told they’re going to live happily ever after, I was scratching my head wondering when they fell in love. It must have been while I was busy reading one of the dozen secondary character’s muddled thoughts. The romance, the love story, the hero and heroine’s journey was completely lost for me. Probably because there wasn’t much of one amidst all the confusion.
What’s your opinion on multiple POVs? Do you care if they muddy the waters and take away from the main characters, or do you want them to accentuate the hero/heroine’s journey? An aside: I’m not referring to head hopping. I’m talking about the inclusion of another point of view no matter how well the transition is handled. I’ve read several stories that could most definitely be considered “head hopping,†and I loved them. Why? Because the author made me care about those secondary characters. What they had to say was important, interesting, and integral to the plot.
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If it enhances the story and isn’t just lazy writing, I’m okay with it.
Though most of my stories are two-POV, hero and heroine only, I’ve written some with secondary character POV. It’s useful when you plan to use those characters again and want readers to be invested in them as well. I also like to get a sense of the h/H relationship from an outside party, how does the love affair look to the heroine’s sister or the hero’s best friend? Can everyone around them see these two people are falling in love even if they don’t yet know it themselves? The occasional villian POV is helpful too, but I draw the line at the out-of-the blue POV of a passing character who seems to be thrown in just to divulge one small bit of information that no other character would have any way of knowing.
I’m don’t mind multiple POVs — if there’s a good story reason to go outside the two main characters. If you’ve got a creeping, unknown villain, short scenes deep in that characters POV can help rachet up the tension, lay in some clues for the reveal. If you’ve got a subplot going, sometimes you need to go into the POV of the main secondary characters. If I end up seeing more than three POVs in a romance, though, I generally start to get antsy.
I have no problem, if it’s brief and/or funny.
Like you, I don’t want to see a third POV unless there’s a specific, necessary reason. For example, scenes in the antagonist’s POV often add to suspense, foreshadow, etc. In a non-suspense book, there might be a mentor-character whose POV likewise enhances the storyline in some what.
I don’t like to see multiple POVs overdone, but that’s personal taste. There are some authors who use this seamlessly with great success and, most importantly, without stopping the flow of my reading enjoyment.
I think multiple POVs are okay, if the secondary characters appear only a couple of times. The best example I’ve read of this is Out of the Night by Robin T. Popp. She did a great job going back and forth between the hero and heroine and once in a while there was a scene from a secondary character’s point of view. It wasn’t confusing, it gave good info to continue the plot. Great read, I recommend it!
Multiple points of view don’t bother me as long as there’s a reason to include them. If I’m reading a big, mainstream book, I really enjoy jumping around a bit. Keeps the pace up. A very long, first-person book is hard to pull off, IMO, without the reader getting tired of the main character.
I think we’re probably all in agreement that as long as it’s done well and it drives the main plotline of the story (or even a good subplot) we enjoy it.
I don’t enjoy reading a dozen or so that seem to have no rhyme, reason or bearing on the plot.
I’m a very impatient person *g*
Great post, Sharon!
When I write, I don’t choose POV, though I’ve gotten better at not headhopping without consciously changing it.
So this is a lot of food for thought for me.
Like Kara, I like multiple points of view in a big book. It gives the story depth and different perspective. I just finished Allison Brennan’s first book that had many different points of view and I loved it. Sometimes it was only there, I think, to add an element of emotional depth–and it worked.
Multiple viewpoint bothers me only when it’s not done well–as you said, Sharon, when the other point of view serves no real purpose to the entire experience. I don’t think shorter category books can handle much more than hero/heroine and maybe villain, but otherwise, I think it depends entirely on the story being told.
Multiple pov is fine with me, but if the characters are repeating something you already know, of course you should dump it.
[...] A recent post on Romancing the Blog (Lost in the Crowd by Sharon Long) also touched briefly on head hopping while talking about other POV issues. Some authors known for head-hopping: [...]
If I’m gonna go with more than two (maybe three) PoVs, I’ll look at 3rd omniscient instead. Marge Piercy’s “Three Women” is written in 3 PoVs (by chapter), and it works. Yet my upcoming “Switch” has just the two main characters, but is written in 3rd omniscient. The novel-length WIP has (currently) 5 main characters & is being written in 5 PoVs (a la Piercy). I really all depends on the story & how it needs to be told.
It depends what I’m working on. For my romantic scifi, I went with multiple 3rd person limited POV… gave me a chance to “show” more than “tell” what the characters did. For example, I delved into one secondary character, Perry, to watch the actions of the main protag male and female. Why you ask? Because sometimes, actions speak louder than words…