I am currently writing a book in multiple POVs, but I struggle with writing character voice. I know how to do it in theory, but I can't make them all distinct. My greatest success was with a dragon character who is an empath. He senses emotions as smells, because I think empath characters can be very boring and I wanted to spice it up. Anger smells like sweat, sorrow smells like cold ash, annoyance smells like dead ants, etc. Human faces are too small and flat for him to see clearly, so he identifies people by their hair, and he calls humans "The Smelly Ones" since they're so emotional. His POV was so different from the rest, even in the way his thoughts form. His thoughts flow in one unhurried, uninterrupted stream that meanders from topic to topic without pause. He doesn't respect actual names, instead giving people short descriptors to remember them by (ie, Snow-Hair Man, Flag Girl, and chickens he dubs Mud-Dungs). He was such a refreshing POV to write, mostly because exposition became so easy to give with his strange world view.
I used to be guilty of head-hopping. My main justification for it was that movies and TV shows got away with it all the time, so why can’t it happen in books? Thanks to this video, I now have my answer. Did I mention that I love Thursdays? :)
I'm writing a story about 7 characters and it follows all them , switching perspectives, the tricky bit is finding a right voice and things like their personality.
One of the things that happened while I was writing was when I first switched perspectives into another characters' voice and style it was easy to slip into. They felt distinct and different, but it made me look back and realize I should do more work to develop my main character's voice. I have 3 perspectives in my book, however the majority of the story is told through one character. Even though he (main perspective) did have most of the story lift, after I had switched perspectives I realized he should have a more individualized voice. It felt a bit vanilla to me. I'm actually thinking about dropping one of the perspectives now (especially after watching this) but something I didn't realize was how much of a benefit switching perspectives can be in understanding your characters better if you reflect on your narrative choices. As always, great advice Hannah, a lot of things to think about when reviewing my work.
The book I'm working has multiple perspective characters, two to be precise, and in order to avoid the problems you mentioned in this video I switch perspectives exactly once, in the middle of the story. This serves several purposes, such as allowing each of them to go through their necessary character arcs uninterrupted, hard-countering sagging middle syndrome, but the main reason I did this is because I HATE books with too many perspectives. I actually gave up on reading Game of Thrones about halfway through book five because there were so many characters and so many interconnected subplots that I eventually just lost interest in the overall narrative. While I respect the sheer amount of work that went into building such a hugely detailed world, expecting your audience to divide their attention equally between two dozen or so constantly changing perspectives is just plain unreasonable, especially since there are only about five or six characters in the entire series who actually move the plot forward in any meaningful way. Interestingly enough, one of the best ways to solve the problem of too many perspectives (in my opinion, anyways) is to just kill off some characters. Game of Thrones does this all the time, yet somehow it just makes the narrative even MORE convoluted.
That's interesting. I don't think I've read a book that swaps halfway through before. Is it half of the story with one perspective, then half with the other, or is it the same story from two sides?
@@HannahLeeKidder It's half and half, in third person limited. We see the first half of the story through one character's perspective, then some shenanigans happen right at the halfway mark in the story, the perspective switches to the other character, and the story continues. The two main characters are very close friends with a sort of mentor/student dynamic, the younger character is the sole surviving member of her kingdom's royal family, while the older one is a warlock who was tasked with protecting her before a huge disaster absolutely wrecked the kingdom the story takes place in. It starts out with the princess's perspective as she tries to save her kingdom one step at a time, then it switches to the warlock's perspective as he sees firsthand how far she's grown as a person since they first met. They're very different people with very different worldviews, so I wanted to make it so the reader would not only be really familiar with each of their characters, but how each views the other. Also, do you recall how I asked you for tips on how to write a lesbian character earlier That was for the princess, she likes girls. It's not hugely relevant to the story because she doesn't even realize that she's gay until WAY later in the narrative, just thought you might find that interesting.
@dan Update; after spending a long, long time editing my first draft and going on a writing hiatus, I'm finally on my last round of revisions. While I originally planned on having the perspective change only once, I ended up changing it so the perspective between the brother and sister switches periodically. However, the brother's POV chapters are in the past while the sister's chapters are in the present day. The intent is that the sister has to live with the ramifications of her brother's choices in the past, and I decided that switching back and forth adds more suspense and mystery without jarring the reader too much. At the risk of sounding conceited, I really like my princess character. She's a smart, tough pragmatist who doesn't allow her strategic thinking to compromise her compassion. She also likes girls, so depending on what you're into that'll be an added bonus. The prince character is also real fun.
This had the info i was looking for, i was confused in switching povs from character to character rather than chapter but this video cleared my confusions.
2:16 I actually saw this done really well in The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Obviously I still agree, I'd just like to point out that there are exceptions to everything :)
Mind blown. Literally just what I needed as I get ready to start writing pages for my novel. What do you think about two perspectives told in 3rd person limited? I haven't really seen it. I know Jenna Moreci will use it in TSA, but it'll be years before I can read her well-crafted example.
I personally started enjoying the Joe Abercrombie First Law series significantly less when, in the later series, he ramped the head hopping up to an 11. Even worse, it's throwaway characters who you don't care about and never hear from again. He does this even during battle scenes, making me lose all investment in them.
Thank you for this video. Just to make sure I got it right: would it be ok to have let's say 70-75% percent of a book in POV 1 and then have the rest in POV 3 limited from a different character perspective(because the MC simply cannot be present in those scenes and this second character is also critical to the story). Is this bending the rules or is it an accepted loophole? Thanks!
Am writing a story and I really want to know is it ok if we write like For example I want two characters to have an conversation like I was walking down the stairs when I meet my friend Jimmy he said "Hi how are you what are you up to today? " And I answer him "Nothing much" Is like this convo ok or... Pls give me an example am new to all of this
