Struggling with Point of View

I recently discovered that I really suck at Point of View.

For Arthur's Lady 1 & 2, I chose to write my POV in 3rd person limited. In 3rd person limited, the narrator can only delve into one character's thoughts and feelings at a time. Now some author's write a story following ONLY one character. My stories tend to have multiple POVs when I write in 3rd person.

It's just so much fun to read multiple minds.

When I finished Arthur's Lady : The Lady of the Lake, (and then revised it briefly so the plot made a little more sense), I handed it to someone to read. The most important thing I learned when they handed it back to me was one thing. I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY needed to fix how I handled my points of view.

Apparently, there are rules?

Now, I am a firm believer that some writing rules are meant to be broken (for example, I love fragment sentences in novels. Too much.), but at the same time, there are reasons these rules exist. Why do I think they exist? To stop people like me from writing terrible, confusing, contrived, not-able-to-relate-to stories.

So, before I started revising Arthur's Lady 1 again, I needed to address my POV issues.

My problems:

1) Head Jumping Within A Scene
2) Too Many Perspectives
3) Not Using Enough Perspectives (yes, I had both problems in the same story)


Head Jumping

The first BIG, "oh my goodness, what are you doing," mistake that I made was head jumping.

Definition: Head jumping: moving from one character's thoughts and opinions to another character's thoughts and opinions within the same scene.

This confuses the reader. One moment I'm in Agravaine's head, knowing his thoughts and feelings. The next moment, suddenly and without warning, I'm in his brother Gawaine's head. This is a snippet from Arthur's Lady 1 (which has now been edited):

Agravaine was beginning to believe that they were never actually going to make it back to Camelot before either he died from the annoyance of his brothers or he pushed them into the river himself. It was Gawaine that pressed onwards, choosing to ignore all three of his brothers.

Gawaine could almost see his destination in the distance. Cristal Lake. From here, he knew there would only be a day or two left of their journey. He was relieved they were almost there since it was getting dark and they had hardly eaten anything all day – Gawaine had noticed that his energetic brothers become more and more somber as the day continued. 

By switching from Agravaine's POV to Gawaine's POV so quickly, the reader, who was beginning to get attached Agravaine and trying to understand his side of the story, is now thrust into Gawaine's head. The reader is attempting to CONNECT with the characters, but it becomes increasingly difficult to do that if the author is constantly changing the POV.

So how do you fix this problem?

First, you need to recognize that you're doing it. That was the first step for me. I had NO IDEA until someone pointed it out. Now I can be more aware of it as I write more and more in the future.

Second, you need to pick a POV for that scene and stick to it. So at this point in my revision process, I would either pick Agravaine and Gawaine and retell that scene from one of their heads.

Always remember, the only way your POV character will know the thoughts and feelings of other characters is if they tell them! Unless you have a character that CAN read minds, then you've got other issues entirely :)


Too Many Perspectives

As I mentioned, the reader is trying to connect with the characters. If you have too many POVs, the reader can never fully attach to all the characters and all the voices. Frankly, there is too much going on.

Here's what I did. I wanted write a scene, but I didn't want to do the work to get one of my main characters there, or I didn't want to work the elements of that scene into other scenes. So I took the easy way out - I used a minor character who just happened to be there when that scene happened.

For example, I have a scene where Mordred (baddie) is yelling from outside the walls for Arthur to come face him. None of my characters from the 'good side' were there, so I used Kay, Arthur's brother (who has, unfortunately, been cut in my current revision). This was the ONLY scene from his perspective. By writing this scene from his POV, I needed to not only create a new and unique voice for him, but I also had to hope that the reader understood who was speaking, that they connected with Kay and that they wouldn't want to murder me when they realized they would never see inside his head again.

I did this for multiple characters. When all was said and done, I had 11 different POVs in Arthur's Lady. For a reader, that's way too many people and stories to keep track of and connect with (unless you're George R.R. Martin, then POV away!).

It's confusing. It's messy. It's unnecessary.

So how did you fix this problem?

The simple answer is that you need to narrow down your POVs. After looking at each scene individually and restructuring a little (okay, a lot), I came to four different POVs that I wanted to use. This did not surprise me, considering these four characters are my main characters.

How do you do that?

First, look at setting. When my book begins, I have four different locations that stuff is going down in. So, it makes sense that I would have four different POVs. I have Arthur in Camelot, Braen riding through the woods - encountering the enemy, Viviane helping Guenevere get ready for her journey to Camelot and Mordred in the camp with the enemy. Physically and geographically, I needed to have four different POVs.

Second, look at the characters individually. Whose thoughts and opinions do you want your reader to know? This is especially important if your different POV characters interact with each other. Is character A's POV necessary at all when you could tell all these scenes from character B's POV? Do they have secrets to hide? Are they secrets you want to hide from the reader? Would you use this character's POV often enough to warrant using it in this scene?

When I originally wrote Arthur's Lady 1, my opening scene was from the Lady of the Lake's perspective. Makes sense since this book is about her, right?

Well, as I began my revision process and was determing POV, I took this scene and held up to to those questions.

Is character A's POV necessary at all when you could tell all these scenes from character B's POV? No, Arthur was also in this scene. It could easily be told from his perspective.

Do they have secrets to hide? Heck yes.

Are they secrets you want to hide from the reader? That's what's fun about her? She's so mysterious!

Would you use this character's POV often enough to warrant using it in this scene? When I looked back at my POVs that I had originally used, I realized that even though I started the book with her POV, I NEVER EVER went back to her POV for the rest of the book.  Now that's just torture to the reader.

So, what did I do? I rewrote that entire scene from Arthur's POV and nixed the Lady of the Lake as a POV for the whole book. Trust me, it's much better now.

To sum up? Keep it simple - don't use more voices than you have to and have GOOD REASONS to use these voices.


Not Using Enough Perspectives

By the end of Arthur's Lady, I had scenes were most of my POVs were in the same room together. So instead of diversifying perspective, I picked my favorite. Every time I chose Viviane - even in times where the story might benefit from seeing that scene from Arthur's perspective.

To me, Viviane was the most fascinating character. She went through the most growth and change of any of my characters. She was strong, determined, loving, kind and a general BA.

So I loved it and I loved her.

However, my readers commented, "This is great, but what is Arthur thinking right now? We haven't seen his thoughts in a while now and I kind of miss him."

Oh, right. I have other POVs I'm supposed to be using. Other characters my reader had connected with that I kind of forgot about for the cool and awesome character I love.

There are two ways to fix this.
1 - rewrite the whole story from that single character's perspective that you love. This can be challenging, but if you find that your story tends to gravitate towards one character, maybe that's the approach you need to take
2 - fall back in love with your other characters as you rewrite that scene from a different character's POV (if you don't fall back in love with that character, why are you writing it from their perspective?)

Remember to balance your POVs. You created engrossing characters and used addicting voices for a reason. The reader got sucked in to that character's POV - don't just leave them behind in the dust. Go back to them. Nurture their story and their voice. Not only will your story thank you for it, but so will your reader!

Do you struggle with point of view? Always remember that revision is your best friend when it comes to perfecting POV! Good luck!!!!