Pros and Cons of Writing Multiple Points of View in Psychological Thrillers
Years ago, as a reader, I didn’t like multiple points of view, to the point where I’d even avoid books that contained them. I particularly didn’t like the sort where a significant chunk of a book was in one point of view, and just when I was swept up with the character and their plight and they were backed up at the top of a cliff—boom.
(A Checklist for Writing Psychological Thrillers.)
You’d swap into someone else’s head. I found it both jarring and annoying. Sometimes I’d skip ahead to see what happened to the first character and then loop back; not what the author intended, at all.
When I was first published in young adult fiction back in 2012 with Slated—2013 in the US—I had the start of a trilogy seen entirely through the eyes of one character. I loved the immediacy of first person, present tense—still do—though that is a whole other article. Several books later, I had a story I wanted to tell that was about twins, and the only way it would work was to have both points of view.
I found it incredibly difficult to write two characters that were similar enough, being twins, but different enough to have their own voices. But somewhere along the way … I got how I could write two points of view and use it to advance the plot and pace in a way that just wasn’t possible with one. This became Book of Lies, published in the US in 2017.
More books followed in young adult fiction—all with multiple points of view. I was a convert.
Back during lockdown in 2020 I had too much time on my hands. I needed a new challenge, so I set out to write adult crime fiction, playing with stories and different genres. It took a while but I found the story I wanted to tell in psychological thriller The Patient, published by Bookouture in February 2023. And yes, there are two points of view. One is Saphy, the patient referenced in the title—a young woman who was waiting to die, needing a heart transplant. The second was Fern, the sister of a murdered girl who becomes Saphy’s donor.
Pros of multiple points of view:
It works particularly well in psychological thrillers, where a significant part of the action is, like it says on the tin, psychological. Multiple viewpoints can be used in so many ways. One I particularly like is having two characters who see the world very differently, or using a secondary point of view character to throw in doubt how the main character perceives the world and the actions of others.
It is a brilliant way to drive the plot forwards. You can easily skip over the parts of a character’s life when nothing relevant to the story is happening by switching to the other point of view, without it feeling like chunks are missing.
Likewise, it is a device to up the pace, particularly with short, sharp chapters in the different points of view in the climax.
Some stories—like my twins—just won’t work without multiple points of view.
Check out Teri Terry’s The Patient here:
(WD uses affiliate links)
You’re not limited to what one character knows and experiences. Of course, you can get around this using an omniscient narrator, and this may be just right for some stories, but not a good fit in my view for psychological thrillers where I want readers to be caught up in the plight of a character or characters.
Finally, if you have an unreliable narrator or a character that is an antagonist or hard to relate to in some other way, having them as one of two or more points of view works really well.
Cons of multiple points of view:
There is a danger—particularly when there are more than a few characters telling the story—that readers won’t relate to any of them because there isn’t enough time to get to know them. I like my secondary characters to have substance and so avoid having the viewpoint of a character who only makes a brief appearance in furtherance of the plot. Having said that, in crime fiction with complicated crime scenes and many characters, this may be the best way forwards.
Not everyone will agree with this one, but personally I don’t like it when big chunks are in one point of view and then another big chunk in another. I still find it jarring and annoying! Alternating chapters or small sections of chapters keep the story going.
A complete separate timeline is an exception, but I don’t like it when two (or more) points of view go back and forth in time or go over the same material. An exception to the latter is when they see a scene very differently—it may be interesting to get different takes on something significant. But I like time to always be moving forwards. Sometimes this gets tricky when characters will be doing things at about the same time, or one has much more going on than the other. It reads more naturally if readers don’t have to keep track of who is doing what, when.
With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!