Enhance tension and dimension with multiple viewpoints

I use multiple viewpoints in all of my novels. I tried limiting viewpoint to just one character in a first-person coming-of-age novel, and it worked okay. But okay wasn't good enough -- there was another fascinating character, the female protagonist, that the reader in me wanted to know more about.

What the heck, it's only writing, right? I converted the entire novel to third person, changed a few chapters to the girl's viewpoint, and added new chapters for her. For me, the result was a much more satisfying reading experience. And I wasn't the only one. That novel now has a special place in my agent's heart (yes, they do have them) and he's determined to find a publisher for it even though it's a tough one to place.

And here's what a contest judge said about that novel in a critique:

"Switching viewpoints between Jesse and Lola is a nice touch that gives the reader a wonderfully shifting perspective on the other characters."

Here's what Donald Maass, fiction agent extraordinare, has to say about multiple viewpoints in his book, Writing the Breakout Novel. After acknowledging that many bestsellers offer a single pov and that many failures work with multiple viewpoints, he says:

"That said, I must admit there is something satisfying about reading novels with multiple points of view. These views provide diversion from, and contrast to, the protagonist's perspective. They can deepen conflict, enlarge a story's scope, and add to a novel the rich texture of real life."

Having multiple viewpoints can enhance tension and "page-turnerness," too. Naturally, even with a single viewpoint you strive to end each chapter with a cliffhanger, a quivering, compelling story question of some kind. But how much better it can be if you take your reader to that point of tension…and then break away to another character altogether! I think the phrase is, "leave them hanging." And hang they do, the tension you've established waiting, pacing the floor of the reader's brain pan, eager for what's going to happen next.

But the plot thickens around the new viewpoint character, too. While the tension from character One is throbbing for release, you take character Two to a cliffhanger…and leave the reader hanging there, too! Now you have tension times two.

That's with just two characters. If you have more than two -- in the two novels of mine that I consider the most successful, one is told from the viewpoints of five characters and the other from four -- you gain immense flexibility. You can leap from one cliffhanger and back into the story of character One…or go to character Three…or, if the needs of the story demand it, stay with character Two for one more round.

A caution for novice writers: using multiple viewpoints does NOT mean springing from one viewpoint to another in the course of a scene. Called "head-hopping," that's a quick way to tell an editor that you're an amateur. Now, I know that a number of novels do this, especially in some romance novels, but that doesn't mean it's good storytelling.

A good guideline is to wait to shift to another character's viewpoint after a chapter ends. The break is clear and clean, and it's easy (with the right transition) for a reader to shift gears.

Or you can shift viewpoints after a scene ends. I've found helpful for the reader to add an extra line break with three centered asterisks to help clue the reader that things are a'changin'.

I also believe, if skillfully done, that you can shift viewpoints within a scene, too, and enrich the narrative. Here's an example drawn from my work in progress. Note that I'm using a couple of other techniques not recommended for the novice: I'm writing in the present tense. There is actually a technical, storytelling reason for doing this that has to do with how the novel ends, but I also like it for the sense of immediacy.

The second thing is that my primary protagonist tells her story in first-person narration, and I tell the stories of the other characters in third-person. These two techniques were a little off-putting for some of my critique group members at first but, once into the story, they're fine with it.

So, here's the end of narration from one viewpoint and a shift into a second. This is from a scene in the second chapter. We are in the Chicago Art Institute. Some things you need to know: the first character wields a kind of magic to disguise herself with an illusion she refers to as a "glamére" because she and her race fear being discovered … and she's received unsettling attention from a man with what looked like a video camera when she entered the Art Institute. She can also "see" aura colors that reveal the nature of a person's thoughts, in this case, deception. Oh, and the protagonist is severely depressed and contemplating suicide (the reader knows all of this at this point).

Hurrying footsteps sound behind me and I turn and see a thick-bodied female museum guard hurtle up from the lower-level stairs. She stops abruptly, then sends her gaze on a hunt through the Art Institute lobby. I've never seen an Institute guard hurry -- they are usually older people who meander, wearing bemused half-smiles, lucky to be paid to spend their days surrounded by treasure.

This guard is far younger. Broad-shouldered. Short black hair. Pale skin. Now that I focus on her, I see that she radiates threads of deception. And she, too, carries a video camera. A guard with a video camera?

Does she seek me? Perhaps my leper glamére is too grotesque and the cashier alerted the guard. Maybe I went too far, letting the ugliness inside me show so malignantly.

The guard's attention unnerves me, so I hurry on, considering what countenance to adopt next. Something innocuous. I just want to be left alone.

* * *

KB sees a tall, hooded figure in a long coat heading away from her, down the hall with the knights in it. The person glances back, and then increases speed.

KB glimpses a brown-skinned face and swallows hard. Where a nose should be is a gaping wound, surrounded by angry lesions on cheeks and forehead. Nausea rises in her throat; she fights it off. The face is inhuman. Now fear prickles her skin. What if the Others aren't human? Nobody'd thought about running into ET. She aims her thermal imaging camera down the corridor. A bright glow flares in the viewfinder. Gotcha!

Reflex sends her hand inside her coat; the Walther 9mm automatic is there, snug in its holster. She can handle whatever the Other is. She steps out in strong strides and hustles after her quarry. She'd like to run, but doesn't want to alarm her. It.

You be the judge (of course you will). I think the switch here -- and remember, we'll have been in the first character's viewpoint for several pages, this is just the tail end -- gives the reader a much richer appreciation of what's happening and how it's affecting the two characters involved.

If you want another example, visit the first chapter of my novel We the Enemy, which was just rewritten thanks to the input of several Flogging the Quill readers. The first chapter alternates between two points of view -- the male and female protagonists -- and, in my view, gives you a good idea of whose story it is and raises all kinds of interesting story questions.

Extreme care is needed, though, in your transitions from one viewpoint to the next. The first sentence of the new viewpoint narrative has to make it perfectly clear that you've shifted.

For what it's worth.

---

A plug for a pal.

One of my critique group members, Bharti Kirchner, has a dandy article in the current issue of The Writer magazine. Her writing is always delightful, putting you right there. In her article you learn about how she learned the lesson of show versus tell from examples taken from her first published novel. For a good lesson or reminder, see what she has to say.

Later,

Ray

Free edit in exchange for posting permission. You send a sample that you have questions about and of which you'd like an edit. I won't post it without your permission.

© 2005 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Shelly]

I love multiple povs. I've read some nice ones that switch from first person to third, too. House of Sand and Fog has 2 distinct first person narrators and in the latter section of the book, added a third person narration for a third pov.

And yet, one of my fav writers use first person, one pov, to great effect in creating suspense: Barry Eisler (I'm so hooked on his John Rain books).

[cj]

Great advice!

[Susan Gratton]

I'm having a difficult time finding a readership for my novel, Copper's Bluff. I've written it in multiple viewpoints--I thought it was TPO--but maybe it's just multiple viewpoints, where I get into the heads of all my characters. I'm writing a series, and I intend to do all of them this way, so it's important that my readers understand where I'm coming from. I've entered the novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, and I'm worried that I won't make it past the first round, but I'm still planning on self-publishing anyway. What do you think? I like the way I wrote it, and I think I have a good plot and the tension is high, so---