Story Magic
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Story Magic
117 - How to write in different POVs
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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about writing in different POVs.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- Knowing your character well enough to see from their perspective
- 1st person vs 3rd person perspectives
- Tips and tricks for differentiating between your different POVs
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Foreign. Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
Rachel:I'm Rachel.
Emily:And I'm Emily.
Rachel:And today we are talking about writing in different points of view POVs, something.
Emily:You are very familiar with.
Rachel:I have been around the POV block before. Yeah. Somehow I decided for the. I. You know what I'll say. I have always written books with multiple point of views. I don't know that I've ever written, like, written a manuscript that only had one point of view. I don't know why, but I did choose from, for the first book I was going to publish, to have six point of views. And then now that I'm writing the fourth book in that series, there are seven point of views.
Emily:It just. There were eight in the first manuscript I ever tried to write, so that's true. And now I'm writing one. I have to say, it's really nice.
Rachel:I. Yeah, I. I am convinced that after this series is over, I mean, I. We will not go back up to this high of a number. There will be four. Maybe seven is a.
Emily:No, seven is too many. Okay. So I feel like people ask questions about points of view a lot. What are the questions that people ask?
Rachel:How do they plan our episode as we sound different? Yeah. How do you make them sound different? How do you get in people's different heads?
Emily:How do you decide what moments to do from which points of view?
Rachel:Which. Yeah, exactly. I think the ones I get asked the most is, like, making different point of views sound different so that they don't sound like the exact same person speaking. Like the voice behind that.
Emily:Yeah, voice. One of those vague things. One of those vague terms. How do you. How do you approach it? Do you approach it in, like, an intentional way?
Rachel:Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes and no. I think, like, the unintentional way that I'm about to. To tell you is, like, it's probably not very helpful. So just bear with me because I do have some advice. I think when I started writing this story, like, this series which started with six point of views, I, like, had a very good vibe when I started of who I wanted each of the guys to be. So if you're unfamiliar, if this is your first time tuning in, I write, why choose Mafia romance, which means it's a large cast and they are all in a romantic relationship together. So there are, at the beginning of the story, five guys and one girl. Those are the six point of views. The girl POV is pretty easy. She's like, after My own heart a little bit. All the different guys was really the challenge in, like, making them sound different. And the. The unhelpful part of this going into it is, like, I think as a person, I had a pretty good grasp of different attitudes. You know, like, there's going to be a guy who's grumpy, and there's going to be a guy who's sassy, and there's going to be a guy who's sweet. So I think, like, knowing those bas lines was helpful going into what they sounded like.
Emily:Yeah.
Rachel:But where the intentionality comes in are all of the points of a person that make up their voice, and those points of a person that make up their voice are what they believe, what they want, and, like, how they've been hurt before. So with, like, my grumpy guy, you know, who started out, he started out feeling like he's, you know, he's. He's meant to be this bodyguard. He's meant to be this strong man. He's meant to be, like, very. He's not good enough for the girl that he loves, and he believes that he has a duty to her, and so he has to do that duty no matter what. And so the voice that he has stems from not feeling like he's good enough, being grumpy about that, and yearning constantly, constant yearning, yearning for this girl that he loves that he thinks would never love him back. So then with, like, my sassy guy, he doesn't really care about anything except for money, so he'll say whatever he wants to say. He'll. He'll be mean if he wants to be mean. So his voice was a little bit different where I didn't have to think when I was thinking of what he would say dialogue wise, but what he would think inside his head. He doesn't have a filter because it doesn't matter to him. Like, other people's feelings don't matter to him, so he just says whatever he wants. But that, again, stemmed from his wounds, and it stemmed from what he wanted, like, his goals and his. His backstory. So I think where people get tripped up is, like, they want a voice to sound a certain way, but they don't think about, like, what the voice of this character and how. What they believe and what they think and what they feel is all determined by what they want and what they've been through and, like, the experiences of their life. So the intentionality for me, comes behind, like, fleshing that voice out. But the beginning part is, like you, I like to choose an archetype of, like, this man is going to be sassy and mean. Because I like that. So let me then build in reasons for why he's sassy and mean. But I have chosen him to be sassy and mean. So I think there's a. There's a aspect of you. For me, you have to just choose something and then build the character around that to flesh it out, to, like, give it life and give it an edge.
Emily:Yeah, yeah.
Rachel:But what about you?
Emily:I think that that advice is, like. That's, like, the number one thing. You got to know who your character is, because who they are determines what they're. How they talk to themselves, which is really just what voice is. Right. Because when we're reading a story, we are reading the character telling us the story, basically, and we're living through their experience. And the way that they tell us the story is through what they're thinking in every any given moment throughout the book and throughout the action and the experience that's unfolding. And so the way that they talk to themselves, that is their voice. And we all talk to ourselves very differently. We all have, like, different. Different wounds, different inner voices, different doubts and fears that kind of manifest in the way that we think. And the way that we think manifests or influences sort of how we see the world, how we feel influences how we see the world and how we describe it. So that all kind of goes to shape the way that your character is going to think out loud on the page. For me, I think I'm trying to. It's been so long since I've written, like, that many points of view. And I do feel like in Crimson, I had Frieren and I had Bregan, and he had a much more jaded view of the world for reasons that were based in his backstory. And she had a much more sort of hopeful, ambitious view of the world. And so that. And that came from her background. And so it was pretty like, I didn't have to think super hard about it. It was actually harder in this current book that I'm working on that doesn't have multiple points of view to get the voice. Because I just didn't know her super well for a while. Like, it took me several drafts to get to know her. And I think that's okay. It's okay if your first draft, like, all your characters sound the same or they don't feel like they have a unique voice like that that can and will come over time. And for me, like, some of the tools that are really Helpful for me to get to know them, which is, like we said, the first step to getting to know their voice is going to be like, really sinking into their experience. So for me, that, like, backstory is a huge piece of that, like, exploring and really living through those moments that shaped them and that shaped their voice can help you kind of like you get to live through bringing their voice to life because their voice is shaped by all those big moments in their life. So I find that really helpful. And then I, like I've talked about before on the podcast, I use visualizational lot and like, you know, character interviews, like sitting down with my character, like, asking them questions, asking them how they feel about a scene, about a moment, helps me sort of get into the way that they see what's happening on the page. And the way that they see it again influences the way they think about it on the page. And so that gives me, like, more nuance and voice to work with when I'm actually writing. So it's kind of. That's kind of how I approach it.
Rachel:I like that I recently had a one on one client who was working through, like, making her to, like, young adult female characters sound different. And we talked about how I think people's differences show up a lot in conflict. So one of the things that I will do is do a free. It's an. This is an exercise. And because I enjoy this so much on the page, this is usually how I learn about my characters on the page. But as a pre writing exercise or as a, as a background exercise, I like to ask these different point of views, like the same question or like to get them to argue with me. Because I think different characters and different people have different coping mechanisms and different thoughts about conflict and aversions to conflict. And the way that people argue, I think says a lot about their personalities. So if I ask one of my characters, you know, this really charged emotional question, like, how do you feel about locking Leona away in the penthouse so she can't be in danger anymore. They're gonna argue about it, and I'm just gonna put two characters in a room and be like, okay, have at it. Tell me what you think. But letting them like that helps me get into their voice because, you know, I do have some characters who will try to smooth over conflict. And I do have some characters who are like, I will fight you. And yeah, and that speaks a lot to voice. But with this, with this one on one client, like, asking them to argue about the values of their small town, like, was is helpful to. To try and bring those things out to life. Because I think when we are. When we as humans are under pressure, that's when all of our wounds come out to play, and that's when we are. That's when our true voice comes. And there's the voice you say out loud, and there's the voice that goes on inside your head. And for many characters, those are not the same voice. So you do have to work out. Like my sassy man. He will say whatever he's thinking, but like, my sweet, quiet one won't. He will say nice things because he's nice, but on the inside, he might feel a little bit differently. So I. I like to work through those kind of things and, like, ask my characters to fight with each other and try to bring out the worst in them on the page. Yeah, As I think when people differentiate themselves and not. Not necessarily in a good or a bad way, but I think we all react differently to different triggers. So trigger them and see what happens.
Emily:I like that idea of asking them the same sort of confronting question. Other exercises I've used in the past, this is more of a descriptions exercise, but sometimes I like. I think it can be interesting to ask a couple different characters to describe something like the same thing, because they're all going to see something different about it, care differently about it, have different emotions about it. Um, and so you can kind of show. You can practice writing descriptions right, in a show format, but you can also get to know their voices that way. I also did an exercise once through Adrienne Young's Writing with the Soul course, where she basically said, like, take a really mundane moment. I think it was like a person walking down the street and up to a door. Like, something just really simple like that. And then, like, showing that moment through a couple of different people's sort of perspectives based on, like, what they want and what they're thinking and kind of their mood and how they're moving through the world and what they're after can influence sort of how you describe that same very simple movement. So I think that can be a helpful one too, if you're trying to feel out how your characters experience the world differently. And it's a great way to find out what they want and find out what they're scared of. And so you can kind of do it backwards that way too. Use those exercises to learn more about them.
Rachel:Yeah, I really like that. And I think, like, when I'm trying to diff, like, I think of each of my different characters When I'm trying to slip into their voice, writing their scenes, I think of it, like, I'm wearing different hats, and then I've chosen different parts about their internal monologue that are different, and that helps me slip in between their different personalities. And, like, today I'm gonna put on my Win hat. And, like, Win doesn't curse internally. And this is something that a reader might not consciously notice. But, like, I know he curses very rarely, and so the voice I slip into for him is a little more formal, a little more reserved, and he is a little more controlled with, like, the things he says. But Ryuji, on the other hand, is, like, gonna say the F word a thousand times because that's how he speaks and thinks. So I. When I was first starting to, like, differentiate between them, I was like. I made a list of all of their different quirks and all of their different speech patterns and all of the different ways that, like, wrapped up in their goals and stuff. But, like, I had one. This didn't end up working, but it was something that I experimented with where Obi, one of my characters, I had a whole draft where he doesn't speak in contractions. So whenever I would write from him, he would not speak or think in contractions. And I changed it because it was just. It was just too much. It just was, like. It felt very robotic. But that was something that I needed to try for him to, like, slip into his voice where he also very rarely curses. But he is so intellectual. He uses SAT words. Did you have this when you were. When you were in high school? Did you, like, study, like, flashcards of SAT words? So whenever I write Obi, I'm, like, thinking of the most fancy. And, like, he uses words like, exacerbate. Like, he is my SAT character. So he uses all of, like.
Emily:I love that.
Rachel:Very formal, intellectual, like, those kind of words. And sometimes it's hard. He. Obi's voice and Win's voice, I think, are the most similar because they're both so stoic. But Win is not as, like, quote smart and planny as Obi is. So I try to, like, find. I try to, like, thread these different needles and, like, think, how do they talk and what are their patterns? Um, and that. I mean, I explored that as I went, but I also was trying to be very intentional as I wrote. I want these people to sound different. And also, this is, like, part of my revisions process. I don't know if you did this for Fear and Bregan, but, like, every time I finish a draft, like, When I. When I'm in revision. So it's time. Check that when I'm done with the first draft. Cause I'm trying not to, like, get wrapped up in this in a first draft. When I'm done with the first draft, one of the passes I do at some point in revisions, I always have a checkbox for voice. So I go through each point of view and I reread their chapters and I make sure that they sound how I want this character to sound. So that's like number one, because since this is a four book series, I'm trying to make the voices sound coherent across all four books. Yeah, I just read a series where the voices completely changed in the second book and I was really mad about it. So, like, I'm consciously, like, I want them to sound coherent, but change changes. Like character growth changes their voice. So that's something that I'm paying attention to. And I'm also making sure that they sound different from each other. Because in a. In a first draft, usually Win and CL sound the same and I have to go back and change them because those are my nice boys. So I have to go back and I have to change my nice boys because they usually sound too similar. But that's why I went to. Well, Win will only curse in spicy scenes, but CL will curse anytime. So I, like, had to kind of make these different rules.
Emily:That's so interesting.
Rachel:I don't know if that's helpful, but.
Emily:I think that's going to be super helpful, especially for folks who have multiple points of view. For Vera Breggan, I made the decision, and I want to talk about perspective because I made the decision in behind the Crimson Curtain to have fear and be in first person and Bragan be in third. And that helped me a lot because, like, there was no crossover. Right. I wasn't going to be like writing Dragon's chapters in Fearn's Voice because it was a completely different tense, so. Or not tense, but perspective. So I'm curious, like, for I. I can hear people asking us because they ask us all the time, right? Oh, well, that sounds great. For first person, which you. You write all your scenes in first person point of view. Um, but how does that work for third? So I'm just gonna throw. I know it's. We. We say this all the time, but people always ask it because there's this fear that there's a difference.
Rachel:There's not a difference. Guys, you're in your head. If you're like, I never make my third persons. Never Sound as. As close as my first person's. You're in your head. Go read more books. No, I. I under. I very much understand. I do think it feels natural to add all of this personality to first person. It is the only thing that's different between first person limited or, like, first person close and third person limited is tense.
Emily:Yeah.
Rachel:Like pronouns, pronoun usage. I guess it's really the same. If I were. Maybe I'll do, like. Maybe I'll post it on my sub stack. Like a version, first person and a version and third person and only change pronouns. Yeah. And it would sound. It would sound so similar. It's the same thing. You still need characters. You still need character thoughts on the page. You still need internal processing. You still need their reactions. Truly, it's just pronoun usage that is different. Omniscient. I don't want to talk about it.
Emily:Forget about it.
Rachel:We're talking about omniscient. We're talking about third person limited.
Emily:Yeah.
Rachel:Tell me about Bregan. Back to you.
Emily:Yeah. So for Bregan, I wrote. I have a tendency to write all of my backstory scenes in first person because I agree. I find it easier to slip into personality and voice in that first person. But then his actual chapter chapters were written in third, but I was able to carry that voice over, so. And I did that with. With my first epic fantasy project, too. All the backstory, all the ridiculous numbers. The pages of backstory that I wrote were all first person, but the book itself was in third. And so I do think that for backstory, if you're somebody who finds it easier to slip into personality and voice with. With first, backstory can be helpful to write in first because it sinks you into their skin a little, like, slightly deeper. There's not that pronoun different or distance. But otherwise, it's. Yeah, it's exactly. It's exactly the same.
Rachel:I'm going to. I think I just read. I need to double check, because to me, I feel like it's. If. If you're really that deep into it, like, you. You honestly can't tell a difference. Like, I think you get so good at third that it doesn't. No, this isn't first. I just read a book, and I thought it might have been in third, but it's in first. Um, that's it. You just only want to double check. But, yeah, I think, like, I think reading how it's done. Four. Third. I. Isn't the housemaid third. I don't remember. I'm trying to Think of, like a.
Emily:Heartless Hunter third, maybe Heartless Hunter. Heartless hunter is third. And that's very, very close point of view. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's third. Pretty sure.
Rachel:That's what I mean when I say, go read more books. Because I do think a third person perspective that's done really well and that's close doesn't feel like you're separate from the character. I think that's when people are worried about writing in first or third. They're assuming that third person means you're a greater distance from the character, and so you would write their voice differently. And that's. That's a false assumption, I think, when it's done well. So if you're thinking like, well, third doesn't allow me to get as close. That's not accurate. And I. I also want to acknowledge, I think that's trending more true now where, like, you know, in the early 2000s, I think there was less internal processing from both sides of this coin.
Emily:Yeah.
Rachel:So as we trend more towards. We want to be in our characters. Heads deeper. That's more true for both perspectives. But you might. Because now I'm thinking of the Hunger Games, where Katniss's voice is very clear, it's dry, it's very factual. But that's one point of view. But that's in third. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure Hunger Games is in third, but I think writing styles have changed over time. Yeah.
Emily:Yeah. We're definitely getting closer and closer to our characters. And I do think there is. We have veered more. There's more first person than I think there's ever been before. Because of that, like, people want to be super deep, and they're, you know, even that slight pronoun difference can. Can help some folks, and some people have preferences. Some people hate first, some people hate there. There's no like answer. Yeah. I think the other big fear that comes is the worry that if you have multiple characters or multiple points of view and they're all in first, that they're all gonna sound the same. And I think everything that we've said in this podcast episode up until this point, hopefully, has helped alleviate that fear, because it was very unusual before a few years ago to have books that were in first person that had multiple points of view. But that's where that voice differentiation comes in. Like, you're saying, like, you. You have seven characters. They need to sound different if they're gonna be in first person. Because you don't have the pronoun tags to, like, use their name to tell, you know, to signal to readers whose head you're in. So it does feel very distinct. But that it's so possible. Like, people are doing that.
Rachel:Yeah.
Emily:All over the place now. And like, I did, like, people are having a mix. Right. I had. I had a very specific decision for why I had feared in first and Breggin in third. Some people hate that. But, like, someone's always going to hate something about your book, so.
Rachel:Well, tell us more about. I don't think we've talked on the podcast before about that decision, so tell us more about that, why you chose to do it that way.
Emily:So it's a very like, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not like theater based, but it's very like, it's a narrative type of story where, like, she is telling her story and actually in earlier drafts, she was literally telling the story to someone. Like, I had a framing of the story where she was speaking aloud her story. And then when I added Breggins in, it just felt natural for it to come from a third person perspective because it's Fearen's story. Um, and so I just, given the nature of the story, how the story is about stories and like, stories within stories, like, that just felt like the right choice for me. Um, and then when I was writing, like, to be totally honest, it just felt better to have Bregan in third. Like, it felt weird to write him in first. Um, so that was kind of. It was a decision that I made when I thought that was going to be my framing. It sort of carried through because it just felt right.
Rachel:Yeah, that makes sense. I don't. I wish you guys don't see my office, but nowadays in my new home, my books are way. They're way far behind. I can't just grab one off the shelf without getting up from my book. But I want to go grab Name of the Wind because it's framed in a similar way. And I can't remember if the present story, the bass perspective is in third or first. So if Basque's perspective are in third, and I can't remember if Kvothe's story is in first.
Emily:It's in first. I believe it goes from third to first.
Rachel:So then Bas is third. And then when we're in Kvothe's point of view and he's telling the story, it's first.
Emily:Yes, I'm 99% sure.
Rachel:Don't come at us.
Emily:Yeah, don't come at us. If any of our. It doesn't matter.
Rachel:It doesn't matter. And, you know, we're going to stop the podcast and go look, and we don't need to. It's gonna be fine. So just don't worry about that.
Emily:The point is that if you can't remember, it means it didn't matter. You know, like, it doesn't. We sunk into the story.
Rachel:We were in the story for sure. I think that that is the key to any perspective, is that you are in that character's head. That is what perspective means. You're seeing it from their perspective. And if you get to a point. Yeah, if you get to a point where, like, all of your perspectives sound the same, that's when you ask yourself the questions we said earlier of, like, well, how do their goals influence their perspective? How is their perspective colored by their flaws? How does their personality show up through their lens? You know, like, it's. It's just you're putting on your other character's glasses. You know, I said hat earlier, but, like, sometimes I have my wind glasses on and I'm looking at the world through Win's eyes or through Leona's eyes, and they look at things differently. But those. The glasses are all of those things that we've talked about, and you're writing it so that you can show us how that character looks at their world. And it will be different than anybody else because everybody is unique, even your characters. Yeah.
Emily:Alrighty. On that note, if you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
Rachel:Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
Emily:Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.
Rachel:Bye.
Emily:Bye.