5 Multi POV Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them)

Telling a story through multiple viewpoints can be a great way to create a more expansive (and objective) look at your characters, world, plot, or theme. But, with each additional viewpoint character you add, the more room there is for story-ruining mistakes.

However, if you know that writing a novel with multiple point of view characters will help you tell the very best version of your story, then here are some of the most common mistakes to avoid (and how to fix them).

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Writing A Story With Multiple Point of View Characters

Mistake #1: Including too many POV characters without being intentional about WHY they’re included.

Many first time writers feel that the best way to create a compelling story is to include a bunch of different point of view characters. And these writers usually want to include multiple perspectives for one of three main reasons: 

• To give readers a glimpse into why another character is doing what they’re doing—to inform the reader of information the protagonist can’t naturally provide
• To create suspense, thinking that if the readers knows what’s coming and the protagonist doesn’t, it’ll help create tension and suspense
• Because the writers love their characters or their world so much that they want to explore the story through as many eyes as possible. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, all of these instincts and reasons are great, but they're not necessarily good enough reasons to include a bunch of different viewpoint characters.  

When you have too many POV characters without having a strong enough purpose for including their perspectives, you could end up creating a story that reads more like a tangled web of overlapping and confusing stories versus something that feels organic, intentional, and well put together. 

The key thing to remember is that a viewpoint character needs to exist for their own story purpose—not just to offer up key plot explanations or to carry your protagonist to the next stage of the story. 

So, a good way to look at a potential viewpoint character is to ask yourself: Are they going to have their own arc of change? And is their growth thematically relevant? 

If not, you’re probably better off not using their perspective—and instead, challenging yourself to look at whatever you wanted to include from their perspective to see how you can still get that into your story using a point of view character who does have an arc and whose arc does touch on your theme. 

Now, let’s talk about antagonists for a second... 

Many writers want to include scenes from their antagonist’s POV because they think it’s a good way to show readers what their antagonist is doing and planning—and they think this will create suspense in the reader because the protagonist doesn’t know what’s coming. But this isn’t really how it works.

In many cases, including the antagonist’s POV only serves to essentially broadcast what’s coming, which spoils the tension for the reader.

Now, some stories work well when they include the antagonist’s POV, but they evoke something different in the reader—dramatic irony. 

Dramatic irony occurs when the reader knows more than the character, thus making the reader concerned about what’s to come. Creating dramatic irony is not the same as creating tension or suspense. They’re two different reading experiences, and neither is “incorrect”—it just depends on the type of story you’re trying to tell.

So, the key point here is that it’s important to be intentional about what kind of experience you’re giving the reader. And POV plays a huge role in the different types of reading experiences you can offer. 

If you can't quickly think of how each one of your viewpoint characters will play an integral part in your story, and also experience a story worthy transformation arc of their own, then you probably are better off sticking with one point of view character. 

Mistake #2. Not developing each point of view character with their own goal, motivation, and conflict.

Another mistake writers make when writing from multiple perspectives is not giving themselves enough time or space to properly develop each viewpoint character. When this happens, there's usually one of two scenarios that I'll see on the page:

• Either all the point of view characters are underdeveloped and it feels like there’s not enough time and space to get to know them
• Or some POV characters are way more developed than others—and the underdeveloped POV characters stick out like a sore thumb

This is one of the reasons why multi point of view stories are harder to write. 

You have to develop each character as if they were the protagonist of their own story, and give them enough time and space on the page without writing a story that's too long compared to the average word count length of your genre. 

This means you have to make sure that each of your viewpoint characters are different enough so that the readers don't confuse them with someone else, which means doing the work to flesh out their goals, motivations, backstories, inner obstacles, and more. You'll also need to give each character their own unique individual voice so they sound different to the reader—whatever it takes to avoid confusion. 

Now, let’s say you’ve outlined or written a draft and you know that one (or more) of your point of view characters isn’t distinct enough. So, they don’t have their own unique goals, motivations, inner obstacles, conflict, etc. This might be a clue that you don’t need to include scenes from their POV in your story. 

In this scenario, you can challenge yourself by asking: What did I want to convey through that character’s perspective, specifically? How can I include that from another character’s perspective?

Mistake #3. Not weaving the POV character’s storylines together to create one story told from multiple perspectives.

This is a problem because when the individual storylines don’t connect or impact each other, then what’s the point of including multiple viewpoint characters? 

Now, let’s talk about dual timeline stories for a second because stories with dual timelines are different from stories told from multiple points of view that intersect. 

Dual timeline novels have two separate, but parallel storylines set in different periods. Typically, there will be one timeline set in the present and one timeline set at a point in the past. They offer two (or sometimes more) different, but connected plots.

Each plotline in a dual timeline story has its own main characters, specific settings and time periods. So, they are two (or more) stories that are distinct but somehow connected. This connection is the defining characteristic of a dual timeline story—and it’s what harmonizes the two different realities.

An example of a dual timeline novel is something like The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. In this story, there are two timelines—the first in 1791 revolves around a woman named Nella who runs an apothecary. Long story short, a twelve-year-old patron makes a fatal mistake which kicks off a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile, in present-day London, we have another timeline. In this one, Caroline Parcewell stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago. So, it’s a dual timeline story that’s connected by these murders.

In contrast to that, think about something like Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. There are six POV characters (seven if you count the first POV, which only appears once) that are all brought together by the heist that makes up the plot. So, they’re all connected and affected by the heist—and all the plot lines are occurring in the same time period. 

So, the key point here is that if you’re writing a true multi-POV novel, make sure your POV characters share a common quest, journey, or experience to ensure your story ties together nicely. 

Mistake #4. Head hopping between different perspectives.

This is the most common issue I see with multi point of view stories. Head hopping happens when you switch from one point of view into another point of view without making this switch clear to the reader—and essentially, it leaves the readers feeling confused and like they’re floating unmoored through the story. This can make the plot difficult to follow and it can be hard for readers to feel a rising sense of tension if they’re generally confused about what’s happening or who it’s happening to.

A good rule of thumb to follow is to stick to one POV per scene. And when you switch to another character’s perspective, start a new scene and make sure it’s clear to the reader that you’ve made the switch.

Now, another thing I want to bring up here is the difference between writing a story from multiple perspectives and writing a story told from an omniscient point of view. A lot of writers get confused by this and I think this is why head hopping happens sometimes.

Stories that switch points of view are not the same as those that use an omniscient narrator.

Both techniques allow the author to: tell a larger story, dive into the heads of multiple characters, show more of the world—but they accomplish this in very different ways.

In omniscient POV the reader can see the inner thoughts and emotions of any character at any time. In omniscient POV, one sentence could reveal how the hero plans to escape, while the very next could show what the antagonist is thinking. A good example of a story written in third person omniscient is Dune by Frank Herbert. In this story, the omniscient narrator can dip into any character’s head to convey their thoughts and feelings or show how they’re reacting to the scene.

Now stories told through multiple points of view would ideally stick to one character's perspective per scene. This means that in any given scene, you're limited to the perspective of the POV character. So, readers can only see the story through their eyes, through their worldview, and through their perspective. You can read more about the different point of view options in this article.

Mistake #5. Rehashing the same scene from different points of views without offering the reader new and potent information.

This is a big one! Resist the urge to fall into writing the same scene from several characters’ viewpoints. This slows down the pace of your story, often bringing it to a grinding halt.

Consider it from the reader’s perspective—they’ve already seen the events of the scene play out, so unless you’re offering them new and potent plot information by rehashing the scene from another perspective, it's best to keep the story moving forward.

If you have a scene that could easily be told through the perspectives of multiple characters, consider the purpose of the scene when deciding which POV character to use.

• Which character has the most at stake in the scene?
• Who faces the toughest choice in the scene?
• Is there contextual information you need to relay that only one character would know?

Asking these questions will usually help you narrow down to the right point of view character to use for the scene. When in doubt, you can try writing the scene from two different perspectives to see which one feels the most impactful. 

Final Thoughts

Writing a novel with multiple points of view can be challenging—but it can also be a clever and satisfying method of storytelling. Some stories (like George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series or the Six of Crows duology) can use many point of view characters to their advantage—but this is the exception, not the rule. If you feel compelled to write a story from multiple perspectives, keep in mind the golden rule: less is more. Most multi POV novels will have just two to four point of view characters, depending on the genre.