Thoughts on Multiple Perspectives In A Story?

officialue

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Like the title says, what do people think abut multiple perspectives in a story? Like a couple chapters being from the main characters perspective, then maybe one from another character's perspective? Do people find that sort of thing hard to follow, or is that good way to show other character's backstories and personality traits without having everything in the world revolve around the MC?
 

Draculus-del-Viafat

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If you mean writing different chapters from different POVs, then I'd say it can be rather difficult for a reader to catch the plot line, but it also can be as successful as Bram Stoker's Dracula where there are several narrators in several parts of the book. I wouldn't try writing anything like that, simply because I'm conservative about the ways of writing, but I'd be interested in a book if it was close to my taste.
And if you mean only the perspective, but writing from the third person anyway, then I must tell you this is what many writers do, and I personally love this method of narration. My favorite books by Leigh Bardugo are written that way, and it lets me, as a reader, feel and see the same situation from different angles, which makes the whole book much more interesting. I haven't got and idea where I have to use many perspectives, though, but it's a nice thing to do.
 

Daitengu

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It's fine as long as the author doesn't just repeat an event from another perspective. I've never felt those rehashes to be needed.

Also having one perspective for like 100 chapters then switching perspectives to another character for 50 more kinda sucks. Just make that another novel.
 

Stratothrax

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I think there is a difference between one-off multi perspectives with a mainly MC perspective and heavy use of multi-perspective spanning more than one chapter. The former I think actually accentuates and helps story by adding a bit of spice and variation and is a good idea, the latter however is a big difficult problem for the writer as the writer needs to invest a lot of effort into making these other perspectives engaging enough that the reader doesn't skip them or bail on the story. Multiple chapters in a row can very very easily be a slog for a reader who just wants to read about the MC.

I think the occasional one-ofs are fine and are almost always a plus to the story, just take care not to let them overstay their welcome pretty much.
 

DubstheDuke

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I can't personally imagine not writing a story from multiple perspectives. Writing a story only from the perspective of the mc..... how am I supposed to show anything? I can't show scenes of things happening elsewhere, I can't show scenes of other people's backstory, I can't do anything!!!!

So, I like switching around quite often depending on what scenes I'm tryna write.
 

yansusustories

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I love them! I mean, I am actually writing from the omniscient pov of an outside narrator but one that's privy to any and all details so I'm not really limiting any parts to just one character's perspective and instead more on what's happening and everybody's reactions to it. Because I tend to not have that many characters in one scene, it might look more like I'm directly writing from their perspectives though. Especially since the actual narrator is only visible in some rare cases.
 

kola

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Like the title says, what do people think abut multiple perspectives in a story? Like a couple chapters being from the main characters perspective, then maybe one from another character's perspective? Do people find that sort of thing hard to follow, or is that good way to show other character's backstories and personality traits without having everything in the world revolve around the MC?
I usually follow omniscient POV on MC but many chapters are there to give a much clearer view on the situation from other people in story timeline to give more implications to events up to this point on everyone around MC.

So, if you need them then go for it, they are like spice in curry small amount added to the flavour.
Good Luck
 

mostlyharmfulll

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I go with this: Half of the chapters are from the POV of the MC and written in first person, while the rest is from the viewpoint of other characters and written in third person. I think I this is a pretty good solution.
 

tigerine

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Being able to adequately convey story plot through the lens of one character is why having a Main Character is such a common way to write fiction. Whether it is written in first person or third-person-limited, focusing on one character allows the reader to form deep connections with the MC. You CAN write from multiple perspectives, but it has a different flavor than a story written with an MC.

In the hands of an experienced, skillful writer, this technique can be used to great effect. (Bram Stoker has already been given as an example; the example I would choose is William Faulkner, or perhaps Robert Jordan.) In the hands of an inexperienced writer, use of this technique will result in a larger cast of characters with shallower reader connections to each character (overall). Your characters will be less developed (since you 'spend less time' with each of them) and also tends to lead to telling, not showing, as you go through the motions of introducing and stating motivations for each new POV character you incorporate. This can also lead to something I call "disaster fatigue", as you try to make narrative conflicts compelling for each character without being repetitive. Unless your story is formed around a singular tragedy/calamity event where the common root of trauma/conflict is understood without stating it outright for each POV character, you run the risk of exhausting the reader with Big Events that you, the writer, feel should connect, but the reader, with shallower understandings, just finds trite.

There is also the very real risk that your story will lose focus because of the larger number of characters, that you will create events and arcs for characters that don't really add anything to the larger story, lose interest in other characters/their development, and not be able to solve narrative problems because you've written yourself into narrative corners or paradoxes. If you want to use this technique because you can't choose which of your OCs to focus on, I would advise you to avoid this technique and work on improving your understanding of the narrative and one character's motivations, and work on showing how they interact with other characters to reveal backstory in a satisfying way.

So, you can use it? No one is stopping you? But as a general statement, writing using this technique can lack clarity, urgency, and concision. Fixing these flaws in editing requires a LOT of rewriting, so it's better to avoid them.
 

Discount_Blade

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I always write in 3rd person and always with multiple main characters. I don't know why I hear and see people in other forums and threads complaining. Nearly everyone of the largest books series to date ended up having multiple MC's by the end of it. So I wish people would get over it. It's not going anywhere, and it's clearly established and far more prominent than not.
 

Myself

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As long as you tag the story appropriately it’s fine, a lot of people(maybe most) like multiple POV, I personally find it often kills my immersion in the story so I follow very few novels with multiple perspectives.
It does have obvious advantages to aspects like world building though
 

UYScuti

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A lot has to do with the genre. If you’re writing SciFi or Fantasy, I don’t know how you can write a compelling story without having different characters. Like Discount_Blade said, most major fantasy and SciFi have multiple character POV’s. Webnovels that can be hundreds of chapters or more are difficult to build with only one POV character.

Thriller, mystery, horror—these do well from one characters POV. You want those stories to limit the amount of information the reader has to one person. If you give out information from one POV that affects the other POV, then you’re ruining the premise. The only way I’ve seen multiple character POV’s consistently done well in those genres are Detective chasing Killer novels.
 

Ral

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This really depends on many factors. The main factor is the story you are telling. There are stories that just have really large scopes like Epic Fantasies or War stories where multiple POV allows you to explore the vastness of the events and the setting. However, there are stories that requires you to be intimate and here having multiple POV isn't going to help. Coming-of-Age and Psychological stories are two of those. There are also stories that requires a very tight narration like Mystery stories. Here is limited POV and narrating it from a single character, is useful.

I often encounter authors write stories that are meant to told intimately, like the mentioned Coming-of-Age stories, and writes it from multiple views. The extra views are just muddling the story.

Also, it doesn't mean that you can have as many perspectives as you want with stories with large scopes. You still need to keep things as tight as possible. Seriously, I hate it when we got these perspectives of characters that are introduced then killed in a single scene or perspectives of characters that just rehash what just happened.

Many authors just lacks control. They put in lots of perspectives that don't contribute anything. Dude, I don't need to know what this random guy did days ago that only tangentially relates to main narrative. I also don't need another random dudette just to show us that this random unrelated thing or place exist. I am certainly not interested about this minor character's backstory that contributes zero the the story and the character. And why are you giving the dog its own POV? I know that you are very proud of your darlings but can you kindly kill them?
 
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Chad_B

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Ask GRRM if it worked out for him. :cool:

Or if you'd rather see for yourself, read Wild Cards or A Song of Ice and Fire. Those stories are built on multiple POV's.
 

IDreamNovels

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I think they might be useful. They can be used to show another side of the story/the coin. Say, you are following protagonist's pov where he is the 'good guy' or on the side of 'justice' and the villian is obviously the 'bad guy'. Then you switch to the villian's pov for a while which shows the logic behind his actions and you realize the villian was not really a villain, but just doing whatever he could to protect himself or those close to him. So if you were to follow the villian's pov first, he might easily have been the mc?

I think it might be a good way to explore our biases or preconceived notions...

But I feel it might be a double-edged sword. You might end up making all of the actions of your MC against the villian so far, unfair? :blob_hmm:
 
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