In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kathryn Craft offers tips on organizing your third-person points of view. When using third person, the writer can hop from place to place, portraying distinct scenes from the perspective of different characters. However, keeping track of where you are – and whose head you’re in – is not as easy as it looks.
“Assuming that omniscience allows you to dip into anyone’s perspective whenever you feel like it can result in ‘head hopping,’ which refers to a fluid manner of accessing the thoughts and sensations of two or more point-of-view characters in one scene, one paragraph—or sometimes, even within the same sentence,” Craft warns. “This can leave the reader wrestling with unclear pronoun references at a time they hope to be learning what each character will add to the story.”
So, how can you organize your characters so you know which perspective is needed in each scene and how to stay with it? Craft suggests:
- Assign chapters. Assign a POV character to each chapter and don’t switch midstream. “This will organize your approach even if its effect on your readers is subliminal,” Craft notes.
- Use line breaks. When switching perspective within a chapter or scene, use a line break and a clear narrative indicator to warn the reader that they’ve entered a new POV.
- Use omniscience as a buffer. When switching between perspectives, use omniscient narration to create a buffer between the two POVs. Think of it as a camera panning away from one character to focus on another. Instead of a blur of movement, the novelist uses a bit of narration to reorient the reader to the new character.
- Establish a narrative voice. “Introducing a distinct narrative voice can also serve to organize various perspectives,” Craft says.
