Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Character POV and Number of Characters?

This is topic Character POV and Number of Characters? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/writers/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004522

Posted by KPKilburn (Member # 6876) on :

How many Point of View changes do you typically have in a 20,000-30,000 word novella with, say, six or seven characters? At any given time there are two to three locations that contain a few of the characters and the scenes are short and interwoven. (They're posted on Forward Motion if you want to see exactly what I'm talking about).

I read in a couple of books (The First Five Pages and Characters, Emotions, & Viewpoints) that you should minimize POV changes, but how do you determine how many is "too many"? How many characters are too many? What's the most POV changes you've seen in a published work?

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

Maybe the real question should be how many do you need. Do you need to tell the story from seven different viewpoints? Could you tell it from one? Each time you move from one head to the other, the reader has to readjust to who's pov they are now in. The question you need to ask about each pov you want to add is what does it bring to the story. If all it brings is one particular scene that shows something that that character could easily tell to another, or be seen by a main pov character, then it probably isn't needed.

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Yeah, I don't know that there's a formula for this. You have to think about the story you want to tell, and decide who among your characters can best tell the story. Maybe it will be one, maybe two, maybe seven. The more you have, the more you risk disorienting and disengaging your reader (too many characters clamoring for the reader's attention).

The book with the most POVs I've ever read is any one of GRR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. He does an excellent job of cycling through the POVs. I think he can get away with it because he's such an expert at entrenching the reader in a character's POV. However, there's a definite cost--as a reader I came across POVs that I got impatient and bored with.

Edited to add: In rereading your post, I thought I'd add a final thought. Have you written the first draft? If not, I suggest writing it with however many POV characters you want. Then when you read it through, ask yourself, do I need this POV? What does this character add? If I took him or her out, what would be missing? How could I tell the story without this person's POV?

While multiple POVs can add suspense and perspective to a story, I think you lose in character richness and development. By focusing on one character, and showing what happens to him or her, you usually have a more engaging and poignant story.

I think I read the first two chapters of Forward Motion. If I remember, that was one of my comments, that there were just too many POVs. Part of the problem I thought was that you switch POVs many times within a chapter, though you do change scenes. I think this is pretty ambitious, and leaves for a jolting, disorienting experience for the reader. It becomes hard to know what the story is when you're switching POVs, because story and character are inseparable. When you switch POVs, you essentially switch stories. GRR Martin gets away with it because he's telling multiple stories, all tied together. Even he limits POV switches to one a chapter. And again, he is a master at characterization.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited December 28, 2007).]

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

Agreed. How few can you get away with and still tell the story?

Don't forget, too, to carefully choose which of your 6-8 characters get the honor of being point of view characters. Which characters are most important and why? Which can the reader most clearly identify with? Which have the best view of the action? Which have interesting motives that might add interest and depth?

Posted by KPKilburn (Member # 6876) on :

quote:
I think I read the first two chapters of Forward Motion. If I remember, that was one of my comments

That's why I was asking. I was always concerned about the POV from the beginning, but more from the perspective of ensuring that the thoughts/descriptions were correct for the POV character experiencing them.

What I didn't pay attention to (from ignorance of POV) was just how many POVs I had and that they changed mid-paragraph sometimes. I tried to separate them with more spacing so that it cues the reader, but I'm not sure how that works.

I'm a big fan of Quentin Tarantino and how he uses multiple POVs for telling the same story. Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are good examples. I also like his (as Wikipedia puts it) "splintered chronology. Although I'm not writing a screenplay, I'm trying to go for that effect where you (as the reader) discover things through the various POVs and flashbacks. Of course my concern is if it works in a novella or not.

[This message has been edited by KPKilburn (edited December 29, 2007).]

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Well, my last finished story came out at twenty thousand words---I had two major and four minor characters---which seemed far too few for the length involved. (I was thinking of turning it into a novel by writing more segments, and introducing more characters, each segment planned for several thousand words apiece---unfortunately, I can't remember what I had in mind. Perhaps a reread in a few months...)

Posted by KPKilburn (Member # 6876) on :

quote:
Well, my last finished story came out at twenty thousand words---I had two major and four minor characters

Did you write the story with a POV for each of them or only a few?

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

quote:
Did you write the story with a POV for each of them or only a few?

Just the one POV---first person, yet---so it seems even more space wasteful...