The Problem with Multi-POV Novels
The boom of multiple perspectives is here, but not all writers get the point.
Hullo writererers. Multiple POVs (points of view) in writing, while having been around long enough, is still a new method of telling stories in the grand scheme of things. Where once, stories went deep into a single character’s journey, they’ve now branched out wide.
I realize it’s a big claim to accuse you of writing multiple POVs incorrectly, and maybe you aren’t. But maybe you are. And maybe there is no right or wrong way to do this thing we call writing. Either way, you might be coming here on-guard to defend yourself, but I promise this take is for the good of writing in general.
I’d never read a multiple POV book until I forced myself to slog through the first Game of Thrones book (yes, it was a slog for me personally as Martin’s writing isn’t what I’d call engaging, which is cool because we all have personal preferences and tastes, and I loved the TV series, except for the last season. We don’t talk about the last season.). Then I moved on to the first Six of Crows book by Leigh Bardugo, which was okay but still lacked in something.
It wasn’t until I started reading Brandon Sanderson that I understood how multiple perspectives should be written.
A lot of people claim Sanderson is the king of magic systems and perhaps the prince of worldbuilding, and while I’d agree he’s ridiculously talented in both areas, I think what’s most underrated about his writing is his masterful use of viewpoints.
For anyone just stumbling across this and isn’t sure about the lingo here, multiple points of view is when we jump into different characters’ viewpoints at various times throughout the book, typically on a chapter by chapter basis.
This isn’t omniscient, and is actually often written in third person POV (and pretty hard to do with first person POV). There aren’t really rules to this either, though you’ll usually find a fairly even split of who gets what viewpoint throughout the story.
Now, Brandon Sanderson uses viewpoints as a major method of his storytelling, even claiming that when you have information to share with the reader but your main character doesn’t know about, to just “Add a viewpoint!” This is self-evident in his Way of Kings series in which he has a few main characters, plus prologues, preludes, and also interludes of characters we’ll never see again.
You probably shouldn’t write your books like Way of Kings because that’s a behemoth that Sanderson had to earn. Rather, you should if that’s what you want to write, but be aware of the difficulty in getting readers to commit to it if you’re “uproven” (and perhaps start a little slower). Instead, his Mistborn is a more consistent example so I’d highly recommend reading it if you want to write multiple points of view.
As someone who, for some reason, cannot seem to ideate a story with a single point of view (no matter how hard I try or how much I restrict the story), I needed to learn how to do this well. And one of the best ways to learn how to do a thing in writing is to read a lot of it and dissect how and why it works.
The Problem with “New Age” Multiple Perspective Novels
I’ve read a lot of these types of books. A lot. I couldn’t possibly put together a number of how many, mostly because so many of them were binged on my Kindle, one after the other, where they blurred together because they didn’t really stand out.
And I’ll tell you why they weren’t memorable:
The authors were writing multiple POVs to capitalize on the trend without fully understanding why you use it and how to do it well.
Game of Thrones is known for putting multiple POVs “on the map” even though other authors were writing this way already. More specifically, the ease and progression of the self-publishing medium and any author who wants to give it a shot writing multiple POVs, has exploded its growth. More often than not nowadays, I find books will have multiple perspectives—especially in the fantasy genre (in which I write, therefore primarily read).
The issue is that these authors are writing these books with characters who are, most of the time, in the same place, experiencing the same plot. We just get to see the happenings from different viewpoints, and gain access to some information that affects the other person. This was the case with Throne of Glass, and I didn’t read past the first book so maybe it gets better, but I just couldn’t vibe with jumping into another head just to know their thoughts when the main character’s did just fine.
This isn’t how multiple points of view is supposed to work as a storytelling mechanism.
Writing with multiple points of view is meant to take different stories that are seemingly unconnected and weave them together to develop a story from every angle.
There’s a reason these books tend to be longer. In the case of Way of Kings, the first book is over 1100 pages. Essentially, you’re writing two or more full stories, with full arcs, that are intertwined.
If you think about Game of Thrones, we have several main characters’ stories, that are entirely different, all connected even though they’re disconnected. Jon Snow’s journey is of a bastard-born who in enthralled in this game of leadership he never asked for. Daenerys’s story follows a disgraced family and a woman sold to a tribe, though she’s the last true dragon rider, and her efforts to win back the throne that rightfully belonged to her family. Cersei is a mother of illegitimate heirs with a prophecy she’s trying endlessly to avoid while gripping a crown that’s slowly slipping her from grasp.
These are all complete stories on their own. If you were take this book, just like Way of Kings and Mistborn, each storyline could stand on its own and feel complete. The other point of view characters could just be other characters—antagonists—in the story.
But giving them their own viewpoint adds an element you don’t find in single POV stories.
Multiple Points of View are About the Vastness of a Story, Not Just Getting into Another Character’s Head
This is the crux of it, really. You certainly can write an entertaining story with multiple points of view that isn’t big and grand and vast, but could you have also wrote that same story and it be more enriching because you’ve gone deep with one perspective?
My biggest gripe with the boom of multiple POVs that I think are written wrong is that it’s missing something. Most often, it’s missing depth of character, because the story is so much of the same for each one but we’re flipping between them so frequently that it lacks character depth necessary when only a single plot is happening.
Multiple points of view shows you the intricacies of a specific stories, how there are multiple sides and facets. It feels vast, and the world often feels bigger and more engaging as a result.
Also something to keep in mind is that the POV you choose to tell your story in does matter, even if it is just one, but especially if it’s multiple. How do you decide whose story to leave out? How do you decide which character gets the air time?
Hurley Winkler has an interesting post about this you should check out:
What do you think?
Do you spot this difference in some multiple POV books than in others? Do you write multiple points of view and aren’t thinking about these details?
Thoughts on whether or not there’s even a “right way” to write multiple perspectives?
Drop your thoughts here:
As always, to each their own. Obviously plenty of people enjoy the multiple perspective books that I find lacking, as is evidence by the Throne of Glass series.
I just write stories that I want to read, and those tend to be the interconnected storylines that don’t feel connected at all in the beginning of the story, only for them to come together in some wickedly clever and interesting fashion toward the end. So with many multiple perspective novels I’ve read as of late, as the trend continues to rise, I’ve found this particular feature lacking considerably, and I’d rather read those same stories from one perspective.
Keep writing, keep reading.
And maintain that fiction ferver.