Changing point of view

[QuercusMalus]

Most of my book is from the view of the main character. But I do have sections where I flip to another characters viewpoint. How should I break these out chapter wise? They are smaller portions, always under 1500 words, some much slimmer. Do I give them their own chapters or do I insert them as part of addendum to an existing chapter? They are events happening at similar times in disparate locations. If I add them as part of existing chapters, what is the best manner to break it out from the normal flow?

 

[Sakkan]

Antes isso não me incomodava, mas notei que alguns POVs ficam muito curtos. Eu realmente não vou consertá-lo porque não há nenhuma maneira de upscale ou reescrever de volta em 3 pessoas. Acho que é algo muito pessoal que o autor deve sentir e o público vai apontar se não ficar bom. Vou particularmente manter o meu. Se um escritor brasileiro clássico escreveu livros sem vírgulas, vou fingir que é um conceito

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

How should I break these out chapter wise?

There is no right answer to this, but the wrong answer would be every chapter. Do it when it makes sense for the narrative.

Do I give them their own chapters or do I insert them as part of addendum to an existing chapter?

Either way can work. As I said before, it is what is better for the narrative.

If I add them as part of existing chapters, what is the best manner to break it out from the normal flow?

You can just use a page break like a line, and you can even say that it is happening somewhere else. Plenty of novels will do that anyway, even in very popular series.

Example:

Chapter 2
1000 miles away in other continent​

Now that I said all of that most people do not really like a ton of POV swaps, but I think that's because most of the time people just use it for exposition with no real purpose other than that. It can be useful for another character's perspective, but it's hard to do properly.

 

[StarrGaze]

I just put

Whoever POV:

Blah Blah Blah. Same chapter if it makes sense and keep the preferred word count in mind.

 

[AlekAundra]

Most of my book is from the view of the main character. But I do have sections where I flip to another characters viewpoint. How should I break these out chapter wise? They are smaller portions, always under 1500 words, some much slimmer. Do I give them their own chapters or do I insert them as part of addendum to an existing chapter? They are events happening at similar times in disparate locations. If I add them as part of existing chapters, what is the best manner to break it out from the normal flow?

I have done this within a single chapter (~2200 words)

POV 1

*~*~*~*~*~*

POV 2

The first time I did it, I included an explanation at the top of the chapter that POV changes would occur and what it would look like.

Haven’t had any issues with it. So that’s my recommendation.

 

[QuercusMalus]

The way I have now is one chapter is multiple alternate povs, that way the main chapters are not broken up. I only have a few every 3 or 4 chapters so I think it works.... ish... maybe.

 

[MatchaChocolate69]

When I can, I prefer to give each POV its own chapter, but sometimes the chapter isn't long enough, or in a scene, I want different POVs to be visible. Also, the narration and thoughts, in my case, are limited to those of the character who is the POV at that moment. In these cases, I treat the POV switch as if it were a camera, and I am the director, changing the framing depending on what I want to convey. When I make a switch, I draw a demarcation line and indicate whose point of view it is.

 

[FluffyGamma]

I'm seeing a lot of good feedback here, but I want to point out that it's all up to you @DtheCatastrophist.
Say you have your mc thinking a certain way and you wanna contrast that way to show how they are different, sure there are good ways to do it in their pov, but a pov switch can be the kicker, and in those cases, a mid chapter switch would be best.

Or an example for myself, someone who just straight up sees something completely different and want to show how others might see the mc without breaking the story, then you want to have that be a different chapter unless they are following the same events.

Never make 2 chapters about the same scene though. You will just feel like your dragging out the story more than you actually are. It may seem like a great idea from a word count perspective, but at that point, you are just wasting people's time.


Flashbacks can be treated similarly, maybe you want to have your mc flashback to something to their past and it's relevant to the current topic, then you want that in the same chapter. But if you want to have an event outside of that chapters context then using a different one is best.


Best way to think of a chapter is just an extended paragraph. Paragraphs should ALWAYS contain the same core principle. If you change topics mid paragraph it just comes off as jarring. Don't over step your paragraphing and even more so, dont do more or less in your chapter than needed.

Come into it with a topic you want to show your audience, then build up to and end that topic. Parts can be split up after but by the time you end that chapter, you want the reader to have gone through a sort of mini arc. Or your reader will eventually get bored.

That is all I have for now. Have fun reading the wall of text lol.

 

[QuercusMalus]

I know it's all up to me, but I also have very limited skills and knowledge with longer works. Most of what I have written is short stories under 15k words. I want to try to avoid annoying my readers too much. If they are reading my stories they are already suffering.

 

[Sleds]

I separate it with line when it happen in the same chapter, like using three ***

 

[jrell]

You can find an example of how I do it in my latest chapter. I usually aim to stick to 1 chapter - 1 POV, but sometimes it is necessary to have two or more, and it was the case for me there. It perfectly fits my "3rd person-limited" narration style, but make sure it does for yours.

 

[CheertheSecond]

I attempted this with 70 chapters where every chapter has a different narrator but it became too hard for me and the readers to distinguish who was who so I revised all of them.

 

[BlackKnightX]

Use section break or scene break. It usually comes in the form of ***, but you can also use others, such as ———. Doesn't matter what you use, its purpose is to indicate a break in scenes. You can be as creative as you want.

For example:

Joey stopped in his track, his mouth hanging. W-What the...? Wasn't that...

***

Melissa stared at her captor. Her hands were tied behind her back, her mouth all taped up. She was in a dungeon of sorts, within a cell...

Another more advanced way of doing this is to transition. Say, you're in a limited POV following a certain character and want to switch to another POV. You start by zooming out of that POV into a more omniscient POV and then zooming in and entering into another's POV.

Omniscient POV is not necessarily a head-hopping quality. It's simply the presence of a narrator becoming more in the focus.

For example:

Joey stopped in his track, his mouth hanging. W-What the...? Wasn't that...

Meanwhile, a hundred leagues to the south of Crimson Plains, Melissa was staring at her captor. Her hands were tied behind her back, her mouth all taped up. She was in a dungeon of sorts, within a cell...

WIth that said, when it comes to changing locations, I still recommend using a scene break or section break even if you write in omniscient. It's way smoother, in my opinion. Another location is usually a new scene in itself.

 

[J_Chemist]

Make it as convoluted as possible and then call it creative writing.

 

[Azure_Fog]

Most of my book is from the view of the main character. But I do have sections where I flip to another characters viewpoint. How should I break these out chapter wise? They are smaller portions, always under 1500 words, some much slimmer. Do I give them their own chapters or do I insert them as part of addendum to an existing chapter? They are events happening at similar times in disparate locations. If I add them as part of existing chapters, what is the best manner to break it out from the normal flow?

Well, as pretty much everyone else has said, it’s up to you.

The main question is: What format is your book? If you’re writing to try and publish something, you don’t get all the freedoms you do of a random webnovel written for fun.

From what I’ve read, published books will always have only one point of view per chapter. Take The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. Each chapter was from 1 persons point of view and it would swap almost every chapter. Even if everyone was together, you’d get to see it through someone else’s lense.

Now, let’s look at the more casual format of random webnovels. The answer here is it varies. There is no consistent answer. Some authors write using the above system. Others swap POVs all the time. Personally, I’ll swap POV randomly in the middle of a chapter; sometimes multiple times.

TL;DR: What are you writing for? If you want to write a published book, stick to 1 POV/chapter, else decide youself.

 

[QuercusMalus]

Make it as convoluted as possible and then call it creative writing.

Shit, I already have that down pat.

 

[TsumiHokiro]

Shit, I already have that down pat.

My novel has multiple P.O.V. Wanna see how I do it? Check it out ;) Novel is in the signature.
Prologue has 4 P.O.V.
Then each chapter has its own P.O.V.
I have written based on novels with differing POV: I'm a spider, so what?, 100 years of Solitude, The Foundation Series, Rama.
The truth is, there are no pre-established rules to dictate how you change a POV. It all depends on what you want to tell your readers.