Single vs Dual vs Multi POV | Which POV Should You Write? 

Glad I'm not the only one. I'm working on a story with five main characters and has each of their povs. I did a lot of head-hopping in the first draft. 😮‍💨

I concur, single perspective is the easiest to write from, and there's always more to learn, and different ways to grow and develop as a writer. 💞

I also just love watching her videos anyway 😂💞

Same! You never know, some new info could inspire.

@@asdfghjklasdfghjkl321 same idk y but alexa just gives off a rlly nice vibe, I bet she'd be an amazing teacher irl, since she's basically teaching us here already haha

You've got the makings of a good future author with that attitude! Keep on learning!

Please lets stop with the triangles

I agree. ​@@StayHome4Them

Dracula by Bram Stoker is written "found footage" style where everything is told through diary entries, newspaper clippings, and letters and that's part of what makes it so interesting to read

Same!! I could literally get through half a chapter before realising it was the other person narrating (and only then because they'd mention something specific to them), you really couldn't tell them apart

Thank you so much for your comment - it was really helpful

Wdym by spoil the others?

multi pov is a book having pov scenes/chapters from different character. for example, chapter 1 is from Josh's pov, chapter 2 is from Mark's pov, etc. head hopping is switching pov in the middle of a scene. for example, "Josh doesn't understand why there's someone knocking on his door at 10pm. He isn't expecting any visitors, so who could it be? Frustration wells up within him, so he knocks again. But before he can knock a third time, Josh opens the door." The second 'he' refers to Mark who's knocking on Josh's door, but we suddenly jumped from Josh's head to Mark's so it's confusing. Omniscient is telling the story from a god's pov so you're in everyone's head but not all at once. you're describing someone's emotions while distancing yourself from them.

OMG my mystery has 6 and the voice shift is my fav thing :D

@@jpch8814 Oooh a fellow multiple POV writer! Heya! How's it going? I'm going through a big revision now after receiving an R&R and one of the things mentioned in the feedback was to consolidate the voices. I admit it's tougher than I expected and I have a pretty hard time explaining that to other fellow writers I've connected with, since most of them use only one POV. But I love multiple POVs books, I just can't help it!

@@SiiKei Good luck with your revision! I am in the process of my second draft, but my feedback is pretty positive toward the voices that part was easy for me, what's difficult is my slow pacing.

@@jpch8814 Good luck! Pacing is one of those things that's difficult to grasp by yourself but once you do, you know you've hit jackpot!

Lol I’ve got like 9 POVS

Agreed. What I hate, though, is when it's used as a cliffhanger device over and over again. Like "Oh something terrible is happening to her-- Too bad it's in his POV now, guess you'll have to find out later." once or twice it works really well to build tension, but used too often or written poorly and it makes me skip through someone's POV just trying to get back to the other POV to see what happened.

I totally feel your pain! I am only 18 and have been working on my 8 POV medieval fantasy novel for the past five years. At first, I was writing it just for fun. I am an avid fantasy fan, but I enjoy the more classical fantasy like LOTR the most. There are many who try to write stories that emulate that sort of writing, but most of them turn out to be not very good, which has caused a lot of the decline of the medieval fantasy genre. So I decided to write what I as a reader would want to see - my ideal idea of a true medieval fantasy book in the Tolkien style, but not just a copycat version. Then, in my freshman year of high school, my writing teacher got her hands on a VERY early draft and liked it, and I started thinking that maybe it was good enough to publish. It has come a LONG way since then, however. I had to edit and adapt it quite a bit, as one would assume haha. One grows a lot from the ages 13-18. Plus, Alexa was one of the main people who has helped my in my process. Before I discovered her, I was writing with absolutely no structure or knowledge about how to write a book. There was so much head hopping, it wasn't even funny. Every time I watched a video, I would see so many issues I didn't know I had. She has helped me tremendously with pacing, show vs. tell, tension, dialogue tags, midpoint turns, the list goes on and on! It's quite hard because many think that medieval fantasy is a dead and trope-ey genre, so now that I've finished it, I'm quite scared that no publisher will want it. I deliberately gave it a very classic medieval fantasy storyline, so that the reader will not be confused with so many POVs, which I'm worried will be a turn-off. However, the reason I made the storyline so simple, is so I can develop and create some really amazing characters, and can really get into their headspace. I feel like the multi POV gives what would be considered a basic story what it needs to be interesting, and helps with the reader not being confused with a really complicated plot and bouncing around to a bunch of characters. 8 POVs is a very large amount, and insanely difficult to write. It can make a story crash and burn if not done right. Hopefully that is not the case, since I was very careful with the execution of each, giving them each a unique voice and making sure that it does not become "POV soup". I feel the strength of my book is in these characters, and I love being able to allow the reader to explore more of the world, and the character's part in both it and the story. Another quirk of my story that I feel helps add interest is it's unconventional format: The 8 POVs begin pretty much all apart from each other, and as the book progresses they all eventually converge and meet each other. The first half of the story (more or less) takes place in four storylines, where these characters journey unintentionally closer and closer to each other, until they all meet. Keeping each storyline separate but still close enough where you don't forget about them is difficult. But if done right, then you can see the inevitable clash and convergence that these characters will have, and though you don't know how or when it will happen, you know it will. I feel like that is another think that helps make the book stand out, but the worry that it isn't good enough is definitely strong. I also haven't told many people about my book, mainly because I'm worried they will think I'm too young for my book to be good. That's another reason I'm scared to try and publish it. To quote Back to the Future, "I just don't think I can take that kind of a rejection" haha. The few people that have read it really liked it, however, but I just can't get over the fear that my book will crumble if a more educated and official person reads it. I do apologize for the insanely long comment, but if anyone has any opinions or advice, I would gladly take it. Or maybe there is someone else who has a similar story, and now they know that there's someone out there who is going through the same thing. Writing is hard, people! But luckily we have people like Alexa to guide us. :)

@@ballerinadolllover2434 Ik this comment is old, but I'm working on my first WIP. It's pretty planned out, it has 7 or 8 character pov's at the time of writing this. The one thing that has bothered me is I heard that to "stay pov consistent" you can't use certain pronouns like "you" in first person; but what if, since it's first person narration, why then can't the character narrator talk to the reader? The same can be said for action tags that cue who the speaker is, because it can end up looking like it's "written" in third person narration, but the lens focus is coming from the first person narrator who's seeing them do that; so, it's bugging me on a line by line basis and I wanted to know if one of y'all are struggling with that. With that said, how has your novel gone so far? As a side note, I'm working on a novel that is expected for me to be around 200-225k word count by the end of the first draft. What is it? It's a fantasy, but all the Genres are as follows because I weave a lot in to keep the reading experience fresh during scenes. Focus genres: Neo-noir fantasy (arguable if it should be Epic fantasy, too though), Suspense, and Paranormal Romance (Monster Romance to be specific). The other genres in it: Dark Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, High Fantasy, Rom-Com, Romance, Horror, Noir (for the sake of Noir), and Coming of Age. It's easily an adult fiction fantasy (it's got scenes NOT for kids, despite the protagonist being a young teen), and the category it falls under is Upmarket Fiction, since the style of the prose is somewhere between Literary Fiction and Contemporary Fiction (Literary is more dramatic, has a message crafted around it, etc. While contemporary is essentially more melodramatic and has a lot of "fluff and entertainment" scenes). Hope you don't mind the long comment

It’s one of my favorite novels

@@EricaFlipped Right? It was incredible, Flynn is my favorite writer.

I was wondering about this myself- & I didn’t know if it was something that was ‘done’- but I call it mini-multi PoV- for instance, when my MC’s unconscious with a fever, her L/I has the PoV for a little bit- & at a couple of other points when the MC isn’t there, but I hadn’t wanted everything to be just related to the MC in flashbacks when they’re reunited - & there are a couple of individual moments where there are other PoVs, but like 85-95% of the story is from the MC’s PoV. This may change, but the L/I’s limited PoV will remain.

Oh, I found like 2 weeks ago that I wanted to have 2 POVs. And just when I realized it, my story became deeper, richer and more pleasant to write!

Has it been really 5 days since I watched this? Anyway. I just realised that most of my problems with head-hopping probably stems from few things. I run D&D campaigns so, I need to often switch POVs on the fly as my murder hobo friends go along. That's one, but another is because... I'm somewhat ashamed of admitting this. I have no memory of what third person telling is like. And this is because I write in English which is like... my second/third language (out of 8), but writing in my native tongue feels cringy, ugly and simplistic. (+ I'd have zero beta readers then...)

3rd person is when there is an undefined voice explaining everything that’s happening! For example: Robert walked to the store. Simple but vs first person It’d be: I walked to the store.

So Book 1 single POV and the Book 2 is dual POV?

@@roseviolet4147 Yep! It was challenging, but in a fun way (mostly, lol).

We can get bored with any POV if it isn't engaging. I don't think it has anything to do with single or multi POV.

Its weird and totally just confuses readers that's why if you want to do multiple POVs you do it from the start not at the end or middle of a book otherwise you end up like you did with whiplash. it's considered a rookie writers move.

I think that can work if the switch is an Epilogue that leads into a sequel, and the "unnamed character" is important to the overall series arc. But the emotional arc of the story should be complete before the switch. :)

@@rachaelhilton424 I agree I love the little spoiler at the end of even at the beginning of a certain character we’re going to meet or have already met and we know the stakes. I don’t like the whole book but the last half is another character we’ve never met.

Show them helping the protagonist. Show them caring for them. For example, you said that the protagonist sprained her arm. You can make the love interest ask the protagonist how they're doing or if they're okay. You can also show the love interest helping the protagonist to do things they can't do while their arm is sprained. Hope that helped!

@@alicialu4189 Thank you so much!! That is such a good idea, thank you :)

@@lundits2154 No problem!

Harry Potter is third person limited from Harry's POV for 99% of the series, but yes JKR uses select third person more omniscient "prologues" (that technically aren't prologues lol) in multiple books. That's what you're thinking of. Definitely something you can do in third person middle grade! (anytime you're doing third person with a "storytelling" feel, especially in fantasy, you can get away with that sort of thing--it's almost unheard of in YA, however.)

@@AlexaDonne Amazing! Thank you for the clarification- this makes sense :) (Thank you for ALL you amazing content, I've been on a deep dive into novel writing and wow do I appreciate your energy and quality. Once school is on break next week I'm going to read Brightly Burning - my first of your novels and I'm pumped!)

Oh, I actually think multi is more challenging than single in many ways--which is precisely why I said I recommend newer writers stick to single. (I myself am working up to multi-POV in thrillers.) Where I was pointing out dual/multi *can* be lazy--but obviously is not always--is when a more novice writer chooses it so they can "show everything." Any POV a writer uses should be used thoughtfully with regard to tension and pacing.