In an article for Writer’s Digest, Jody Hobbs Hesler shares four tips (and a writing exercise) on how to balance different points of view in your novel.
- Grasp Point of View. “To construct a voice strong enough to earn storyteller status, we must be fluent in the power of point of view,” Hesler writes. In her teaching role, Hesler provides her students with a bare bones outline of a murder mystery and has them choose their own point of view character to tell the story: the victim, the murderers, a neighbor, a hangman, or a landlord. Which character they choose – and how they portray the character – creates a story entirely different than the others. “In every instance, the resulting story belongs uniquely to the voice in charge of the narrative,” Hesler writes. “Switching storytellers yields utterly different stories—complete with their own circumstances, stakes, emotional investment, hopes, limitations, and more.”
- Wield POV. Hesler also recommends taking one story and reinventing it through the eyes of multiple characters. “Plop right down in their bodies and look out of their very physical, very specific eyeholes to see what they’re seeing, feel what they’re feeling, and think what they’re thinking, while holding tight to everything we’ve established about them—their complex histories, their loves and hates, their motivations and limitations,” she writes.
- Distinguish POV Characters From Each Other. If you’ve fully committed to steps 1 and 2, your POV characters will have distinct, individual voices, reflecting their age, interests, education, and status.
- Justify the Existence of Each POV.“Make sure your characters prove their worth to the story,” Hesler adds. “Each POV character is a stakeholder in the larger story whose lens reveals essential details that other characters don’t have access to, making them necessary, not just interesting.”
