The people in my books are pretty pushy. Each one likes to make sure they get their story told the way they want it. That’s why I write books with multiple points of view.
I saw a review of Farmer Needs A Wife which said something like.. “there are about 6 POV characters, but it’s well handled and I didn’t find it confusing”. That was nice to know – but there were actually eight POV characters in that book.
Eight! In my first book. What was I thinking?
A few fellow writers have asked how I managed them all. The answer is via a brilliant little graph.
Please note – I take no credit at all for this method.
It was passed on to me by the fabulous Annie Burgh – who writes complex, fascinating novels – with lots of characters and plots and sub-plots. She is also a fabulous teacher. This is what she taught me to do…
When I start a new book, I take a page of graph paper – and coloured pencils… one colour for each POV character.
As I finish each chapter – I draw a bar on the graph – just like back at school. The colour/s of the bar represent the POV character or characters – and the height of the bar represents the number of words in the chapter.
The secondary characters – those who don’t get a POV – are the little bits of colour above the chapter.
Thus – I can make sure each of my main characters gets enough room in the book to tell their story well. I can also keep track of the secondary characters – so I don’t lose them.
If I suddenly realise that there has been too much of one colour, or not enough of another, I know I am letting one character get far too pushy – and I can slap them down a bit and put them back in their place.
It also gives me the added reward of a few minutes playing with coloured pencils when I finish a chapter.
I write the chapter number under the bar every 5 chapters – so when I am editing and referring back to something I’ve written, I know where to go. I will also sometimes write a word or two to remind myself what is in the chapter – but just for the key turning points in the novel.
I’ve tried to get the number of POV characters down – my second book only had five. My third only three – but as two of them had two POV sections – one as a teenager and one as an adult – that sort of puts it back to five.
I’m being tougher with myself now. I swear I only have four in the new book. Honestly!
Four…
But then again – there’s that girl sitting over by the window… I think she wants to tell me her story.