So, my WIP is told in 3 people's POVs. I'm really struggling with one of the characters, the female protag in the story (and the eventual love interest of one of the other POVs). She feels slippery to me, like I can't quite get into her head. She's also kind of a passive character, which might be related to my inability to tap into her personality.

Now, I'm considering cutting out her POV. It would be a _major_ change in the novel, since the novel, in part, is about the clash of cultures and how they sort of come to terms with each other, as told through the eyes of people in wildly different cultures. I would be able to show that but I don't think it would be as powerful, or as original.

So, while I understand the truism that one should use as few POVs as possible to tell the story, practically speaking, how do you decide? Is that fact that i'm just not "feeling" a character enough, or should stick to the original vision and really work on getting that character pinned down? Especially since, whether or not I write in her POV, she's still going to play a major role in the story. She also undergoes quite a bit of change, so the problem is not that she's static.

There is this character role grid with something like "helps" and "hinders" across the top and the kinds of characters along the side: protagonist, antagonist, sidekick, love interest, and so on.

The relevant thing here is that while the antagonist, by definition, does whatever possible to hinder the protagonist, and the sidekick does whatever possible to help the protagonist, the love interest helps sometimes and hinders other times.

That said, I would vote for keeping her POV and working on clarifying her as a person in your mind. I'm sure you've figured out what her motivations are--what she REALLY wants, even if she doesn't actually recognize that herself--but in case you haven't, that's a key place to pound on.

Another thing that can help clarify a character (at least, it has helped me), is to find a face for her. What works best for me is to pick an actor in a role that is similar to the one my character is playing. I had a couple of characters click into place for me once after seeing a movie with a character in a similar situation as one of my characters, and realizing that THAT was what I needed to "see" in order to make my characters clearer.

You can try interviewing your character, or imagining her carrying on a conversation with someone completely outside of your story.

That aside--either way, you're going to have to pin down your understanding of her. I'd spend a bit of time doing that, first (Kathleen has good suggestions) before deciding to drop her as a POV. After thinking it through, take each of her scenes and try to figure out what else she's thinking, and PUT IT IN. If that doesn't get you anywhere, THEN consider the POV elimination.

As for this case, it sounds like you don't really want to cut her and it sounds like she has a role, but that you don't know her very well. Maybe you need to sit down with her for a few days and chat. Or slip into her head and write some free-flow from a first person point of view.

Rickfisher, I don't know that there's a specific problem with passive characters--they are harder to pull off, but especially when I have such other active characters, I think it provides a nice foil. In this case, though, I think she's acting passive simply because I don't know yet how she would react--I get the feeling she's not passive by nature, I simply don't feel comfortable enough with her to know for certain what she would do, so she sort of thrusts about awkwardly.

Or maybe one you used to dream being in your future, but things never really worked out that way?