Structure Ideas for Fiction Writers by Dave Haslett

Author:Dave Haslett
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: ideas4writers
Published: 2013-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

29. Multiple viewpoints 2.

Something worth bearing in mind when using multiple viewpoints is that the characters shouldn’t all get the same number of scenes. There needs to be one main character – the person who the story is mostly about – who should have the viewpoint about seventy percent of the time. How many scenes the other characters get depends on how important they are to the story.

Spend a few minutes thinking about this and construct a hierarchy list: most important viewpoint character at the top, least important at the bottom. In a story with 100 scenes and four viewpoint characters, the hero should get approximately 70 scenes. You might decide that the villain is the next most important and make him the viewpoint character for 16 scenes. That leaves 14 scenes to divide as you see fit between the other two characters.

You probably won’t want to put each viewpoint character’s scenes all together in a single lump. It’s usually best to scatter them throughout the story, so we see what they’re up to only at the most relevant times. However, you could group three or four such scenes together or give one character a whole chapter if that seems to be the most appropriate. The best way of deciding whose viewpoint to use for each scene is simply to pick the person with the most at stake.

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