6 Tips for Maximizing the Effect of Rotating POV
When I’ve tried writing a novel from a single perspective, I felt like I was typing with mittens on. To my mind, one of the great joys of literature centers on the ability to sink fully into the subjectivity of the character, to inhabit their mind. No other storytelling medium allows for such a deep immersion, and when I try to limit myself to just one point of view, I feel cheated.
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Early drafts of my novels leveraging rotating point of view can be confusing or lifeless. Luckily, as writers, we get to re-write, and let’s face it, that’s where the real action happens. My first novel, Other People’s Children, was written from the POV of five different characters and my second, Like It Never Happened, was written from six. That’s a lot of voices to manage.
In an effort to make the most of my revision sessions, I’ve compiled a list of rules for myself that guide the re-writing process to make each of the characters distinct and earn their turn. I hope you find them helpful, too!
Ground the Reader From the Start
Nothing is more disorienting than wading through the first paragraph of a scene confused about whose skull you’re in. I aim for clarity from the very beginning.
Here are the opening sentences of the first three chapters of Like It Never Happened:
Chapter One: When Tommy sees Kevin’s obituary, that dark puddle of blood from thirty years ago springs to his mind even before he can remember what Kevin looked like. Chapter Two: The air at altitude is cold after dark, but Alice is layered for it. Chapter Three: Elena pushes her sleeves up to her elbows and reaches into the bowl.
Each of those sentences wastes no time telling the reader which character is on stage and what they’re experiencing.
Change the Lens
Beyond that first sentence, I challenge myself to write a scene that can only belong to the perspective of the character through which the reader experiences it. This can sometimes be accomplished through voice—the grammar, diction, and cadence of the spoken words and the internal thoughts. But the character’s temperament, personality, and worldview should leak through as well.
Tommy, from the example above, is a gentle soul, and a building engineer. His thoughts often revolve around ideas like weight and plumb and gears that don’t quite mesh. Alice is strong-willed and a realtor. Her scenes are layered with metaphors about showings, negotiations, and value. Elena is Italian, her mother recently died, and she cooks. She views the world through the filter of family and food.
When I succeed at changing the lens to fit each character, any paragraph from a scene can tell the reader whose perspective is engaged.
Check out Jeff Hoffman’s Like It Never Happened here:
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Build Suspense
Rotating point of view provides an excellent opportunity to build suspense. I often end a chapter at a point of high tension and then start the next chapter from a different character’s point of view. I want my readers to feel the uncertainty of that interrupted scene and be compelled to read until that first character’s POV returns, along with the resolution of their crisis.
The sense of momentum is heightened by ending the next scene, and the next, in the same manner, building multiple threads of tension. My goal is to keep my readers turning the pages, staying up too late, maybe even calling in sick the next day.
Crank the Conflict
So many conflicts in literature are born out of the simplest of misunderstandings. Too few words spoken, an omission due to embarrassment, and mistaken intent are the tinder that fiction writers use to build the bonfires of conflict.
These disconnects can be revealed to a reader through a single point of view, but when the POV rotates, the reader can feel the disconnect more clearly. They find themselves immersed in the confusion, anger, and mistrust.
Make the Reader Care
Flawed characters, seen only through the eyes of another character, can land flat. Allowing access to their thoughts, their memories, and their motivations proves an excellent tool to provide texture and dimension. It can humanize an antagonist, allowing the reader to empathize with them and connect.
One of my characters in Like It Never Happened is a cold-blooded corporate lawyer who has sold his soul to the firm. In his opening scene, he’s meeting with an interior decorator to furnish the condo that he moved into after his marriage crumbles. When they get to the room that his daughter will sleep in when she visits, the decorator asks him about his daughter’s interests. He can’t surface a satisfactory answer, and the anguish he experiences as he struggles allows the reader to glimpse his humanity.
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Make It Matter
I’m sometimes tempted to write a chapter from a particular character’s POV because I haven’t heard from them in a while, but I resist. Every sequence needs to move the plot forward or nudge the character along their arc. When two main characters find themselves in a scene together, I write the scene from the point of view of the character who will change the most during that scene, the character who’s got the most at stake.
I’ve learned that it’s OK to let the story progress a distance without visiting a particular perspective. I won’t let my story sag because a character demands to take their turn. They must earn their scenes—nobody rides for free.