Storybites Blog

How many points of view can you have in a novel? That’s up to you, but personally, I think less is generally more. It also depends on the kind of novel you’re writing. Is your novel centered around a unique character? Tell the whole story from a single point of view if the protagonist’s impressions of his world are critical to understanding the book. A good example here is Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.” The protagonist, an autistic teenager named Christopher, solves a mystery in a way no one else could, because no one else thinks quite the way he does. Sharing the narration with Christopher’s neighbor or his social worker would have diluted the power of the story.

But there may be reasons to use more than one point of view. You may want to alternate a husband’s point of view with his wife’s to show there are two ways of looking at an issue. This technique normally works in novels in which the theme is more important than characterization. And in a more plot-centered novel, you may want to write successive chapters in different points of view.  This allows the reader the broadest view of the story, but there’s a catch – it also distances the reader from feeling personally involved with the characters.

Whatever route you choose, however, keep the same point of view throughout an entire chapter. This means if Johnny is telling the story from his point of view in Chapter One, the author can’t tell us what Marcia thinks, feels, suspects, or believes. Johnny can tell us how he thinks Marcia may feel, but not how she really does feel, because he’s not Marcia! And nothing can happen in that chapter that Johnny doesn’t know. What if you need to tell us something Johnny doesn’t know, or tell us how Marcia really does feel? The simplest solution is to start a new chapter and change point of view.  You may be able to think of a better solution, though, that is consistent with the kind of book you’re trying to write.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.