Balancing multiple POVs in third-person limited

[Feo Takahari]

I'm thinking of doing a lot of perspectives in my current project. Main character? Plenty of POV sequences. Mentors? Both will get plenty of POV sequences. Rival? POV sequences. Villain? Why not a POV sequence or two? For reference, this is in third-person limited, so I'm avoiding a few of the pitfalls of perspective switches--in particular, no confusing uses of "I" where you can't tell who's saying it. With that said, there are a few issues to address:

* When a scene can be written from multiple perspectives, how do I choose which perspective to use?

* Are there problems with using one character too much or too little? (For instance, I originally planned to use one of the mentors as the story's Ishmael, so a lot of the early scenes are in his POV. I rewrote the very first scene in the main character's POV, but do I need to rewrite more scenes to prevent him from dominating the beginning?)

* How risky is it to not immediately establish whose POV I'm using? Will readers be confused if, say, I write a scene that's in the main character's POV, and then the next scene starts out with no obvious POV, then says what a mentor is thinking? (I want to be able to say what characters are thinking, which is why I'm not writing this in omniscient--every time I try to write an omniscient story that says what characters are thinking, my readers assume I'm trying to write in limited and am botching it up.)

 

[Ireth]

A good bit of advice for choosing which POV to use for a particular scene: ask yourself which character has the most at stake, or who will give the best emotional response.

I don't want to say one way or the other that there's such a thing as "too much/little" when it comes to page-space, but IMO you should try to give each character as much focus as they need. If they're very important to the story, they'll deserve more time than a person in the background who speaks maybe once in five chapters.

I think it's a good idea to establish the POV as close to the beginning of the scene as possible, unless the character's name is an important dramatic revelation. Kenneth Oppel's Firewing comes to mind; we don't learn the name of a major antagonist until he himself remembers it after waking up dead (it makes sense in context) at the end of the (admittedly short) chapter.

 

[Penpilot]

I agree with Ireth. If you have multiple POVs IMHO you want to establish which POV you are in ASAP unless you have a good reason not to. You don't want the reader distracted by wondering which POV they are reading. You want their focus on your story.

 

[Ireth]

To add to my previous post: I don't see a problem with including the POV character's thoughts in a 3rd person limited viewpoint. IMO, "limited" simply refers to the fact that the narrative sticks close to only one character for the duration of each scene, and can be as close or as distant as you want. "Omniscient" can overlap with "limited" in the way I just described -- it just means you see the character's thoughts as well as actions. Omniscient minus the limited, however, means that you see everyone's thoughts, and the narrative doesn't stick close to any particular person.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I'm thinking of doing a lot of perspectives in my current project. Main character? Plenty of POV sequences. Mentors? Both will get plenty of POV sequences. Rival? POV sequences. Villain? Why not a POV sequence or two? For reference, this is in third-person limited, so I'm avoiding a few of the pitfalls of perspective switches--in particular, no confusing uses of "I" where you can't tell who's saying it. With that said, there are a few issues to address:

* When a scene can be written from multiple perspectives, how do I choose which perspective to use?

* Are there problems with using one character too much or too little? (For instance, I originally planned to use one of the mentors as the story's Ishmael, so a lot of the early scenes are in his POV. I rewrote the very first scene in the main character's POV, but do I need to rewrite more scenes to prevent him from dominating the beginning?)

* How risky is it to not immediately establish whose POV I'm using? Will readers be confused if, say, I write a scene that's in the main character's POV, and then the next scene starts out with no obvious POV, then says what a mentor is thinking? (I want to be able to say what characters are thinking, which is why I'm not writing this in omniscient--every time I try to write an omniscient story that says what characters are thinking, my readers assume I'm trying to write in limited and am botching it up.)

To start, Ireth basically nailed your first point, but I'll say it another way. Write from the perspective who is experiencing the story the most. If that covers more than one character, then really look at your plot needs and choose who will best serve the plot in terms of reveals and voice, as well as emotional tension and responses.

I don't think there is such a thing as using a character too much, if they are a focus point for a lot of story tension, but it can be possible to use a character too little, to the point of needing to question their use at all. For example, in our WIP we had one scene with our main antagonist as the POV character (we are also writing ensemble, 3rd person limited ), but it was his only scene as a POV. I had it this way because plot-wise I needed him somewhere where he would be in a position to learn information about one of the protagonists as well as meet up with a suspicious character with an agenda of their own. But as the writing went along the opportunity presented itself for an established POV character to tag along with this antagonist, so suddenly it was not so important to have him with this single solitary scene anymore, so we replaced him. Plot-wise it served our purpose better to keep from revealing too much information and not have it seem coy or contrived.

When starting a new chapter/scene we always reveal whose POV we're in within at least a line or two. Sometimes we start off with a very short dialogue exchange, two or three lines, after which I make it very clear who is speaking to whom. But never any longer, and I wonder if I'm risking a little confusion on the reader's part with that much. I also tend to head-hop a little, but in those cases I always make it immediately clear that the POV has changed. So my advice would be let the reader know ASAP who's head they're in, who's eyes they're seeing out of, because you don't want to make them have to back up and reread.

 

[Ankari]

* When a scene can be written from multiple perspectives, how do I choose which perspective to use?

You need to consider what you want your reader to know. Since you've chosen to write in third person limited, that takes the element of uncertainty out of the equation of Character X unless you write fro Character Y's PoV.

Distance also creates mystery. I just wrote a reply to Steven Erikson's discussion thread. When writing his current trilogy, he had a decision to make. Does he write from the MC's PoV (the fan favorite Anomander Rake), or does he write from other PoV? He chose to write from other PoV because it left Anomander Rake shrouded in mystery.

Distance can help clarify certain scenes. You may want to write from an onlooker's PoV in a street brawl, or from a general's PoV in a war (as opposed to your hypothetical soldier's PoV).

Closeness (writing from the character most involved in the scene) can allow for flitting moments of randomness (where did that arrow come from?), and for clear emotional responses you want the readers to witness.

* Are there problems with using one character too much or too little?

Yes, there is, but it derives from your audience's personal preference. If I like Character X more than Character Y, but you tend to write fro Character Y's PoV, I'm going to get annoyed. If the gap isn't to severe, I won't put down the book. On the other hand, if the ratio is 40% Character X and 60% Character Y, I'll skim over most of your writing to get to the parts I want to read.

Write your story with weight given to your most important characters. They don't have to be written from their PoV, but the amount of chapters featuring them should correlate (you can write about Character X from Character Y's PoV).

* How risky is it to not immediately establish whose POV I'm using?

You're going to have to be honest with yourself when tackling this point. Each character should have its own vibe and external references. If I'm writing about an assassin, a child, and a monk, each PoV should have a natural separation of tone and placement.

If you've not yet reach the level where you can write each character uniquely, then put their names near the beginning. Or do as GRRM did and put their names as the chapter title.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

The first two have been covered well, so I'll just address the third question:

Generally speaking, the identity of the POV character (in third-person limited) should be established ASAP, with a few exceptions. I prefer to actually title each chapter/section where the POV changes with the name of the POV character, the way that GRRM does in A Song of Ice and Fire. I personally find it distracting to learn the identity of a character after a few paragraphs, because it forces me to go back and reevaluate (and sometimes reread) those paragraphs. If that was done as a specific dramatic trick, that's one thing, but that's rarely the case. I know this doesn't bother everyone but it's always bothered me.

Some exceptions:

• The identity of the character needs to remain a secret from the reader, in which case you don't identify them at all (or give them some obscure name if you have section titles, e.g. instead of titling the section "BOB" you title it "THE MYSTERIOUS CLOAKED DUDE").
• There's a dramatic point to be made by concealing the character's identity for a period of time. I don't recommend trying to trick your reader into thinking it's character A when it's actually character B, though.
• It's a new character the reader hasn't met before.

Whatever you do, be consistent. If the reader has come to expect that the POV character is identified immediately, and then you have a random chapter where they aren't, that can be annoying.

One other thing to keep in mind is that it is POSSIBLE (but difficult) to conceal a character's identity in ways that would never work in a movie. In Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, one of the main characters (A) spends a good part of one of the books operating under a false identity (B). Another character (C) is trying to find character A, and doesn't know that B, the man he has hired to find A, actually IS character A. It is revealed to both C and the reader at the same time that B is actually A. This would never work in a movie because we'd see B and go, "Uh, that's also Brad Pitt." (A was not wearing a disguise or makeup, he was just pretending to be someone else.)

It can work in a book because we're seeing things through a character's POV (in this case, C), and what he believes, we believe.

 

[wordwalker]

To take some of this further, I never think of a viewpoint as "limiting," I think of it as an opportunity to bias what can be seen-- sometimes setting it up so the reader sees the bias, so that they get the facts plus the character's angle on it as well, or sometimes using that bias to justifiably hide things so they can blow up later. It's at best a small handicap, but a huge opportunity.

My favorite example (from my http://www.kenhughesauthor.com/viewpoint-in-praise-of-a-one-lane-street/) is the character who's pretty well defined by her cluelessness, Lois Lane. If you decided to give Lois a viewpoint scene, it might seen terribly restricting... but then again, wouldn't it be fun to have her and Clark at a press conference, and let Clark call out one surprisingly good question so she could think "How's he do that? Every now and then he's got real instincts, so how can he be such a wimp?"

The viewpoint defines the character (and so a big part of the story) as much as the facts do, and sometimes the more they're in opposition, the sharper they both look.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I'm wondering if I should try to write omniscient again. As much as I want to portray what characters are thinking, I chose third person specifically because I don't want to have to, say, narrate in a child's voice while describing the things a child character is seeing. I want to have a unified narrative style for this novel, despite having characters who talk and think in very different ways.

Omniscient minus the limited, however, means that you see everyone's thoughts, and the narrative doesn't stick close to any particular person.

I'm sorry, but can you name a non-visual work that a) does this and b) isn't a romance that only does this in sex scenes? With the exception of sex scenes in romance, all that comes to mind are comic books and newspaper comics, so I don't really know how to write this.

 

[Ireth]

I'm sorry, but can you name a non-visual work that a) does this and b) isn't a romance that only does this in sex scenes? With the exception of sex scenes in romance, all that comes to mind are comic books and newspaper comics, so I don't really know how to write this.

I can't name any offhand right now, but I'll see about finding one or more. I imagine limited omniscient is the more common method.

 

[Steerpike]

I believe The Hobbit is told by an omniscient narrator.

The Brothers Karamazov employs one, who interjects his own views directly into the narrative from time to time.

I haven't read World War Z, but my understanding is that it is told by an omniscient narrator recounting events as though they happened in the past, and doesn't stick to a single character throughout the book.

 

[Ireth]

I believe The Hobbit is told by an omniscient narrator.

The Brothers Karamazov employs one, who interjects his own views directly into the narrative from time to time.

I haven't read World War Z, but my understanding is that it is told by an omniscient narrator recounting events as though they happened in the past, and doesn't stick to a single character throughout the book.

Come to think of it, I'm fairly sure Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia are written that way as well.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes, I think you're right on both counts.

And I've read some stuff written in an omniscient POV where the author head-hops within the same paragraph, or even maybe within a single sentence. I think it was Virginia Woolf.

 

[Penpilot]

Dune, I believe, is written in Omniscient, with frequent head hops.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I agree with what Ireth posted early on with one little alteration.

When choosing which POV to write from, I make the selection based off these criteria:

In the scene...
1) Which character has the most to lose or gain? (What is at stake?)

2) Which character has the most powerful & engaging emotional response to the scene events?

3) Which POV is most interesting?

#3 is an important consideration, just as much as the prior points. Consider a grizzled fighter who may not have pronounced emotional reactions (as say, a little girl would) but their viewpoint may be far more interesting depending on what is happening.