{"id":3471,"date":"2013-06-09T08:17:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T07:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2013-06-09T08:17:01","modified_gmt":"2013-06-09T07:17:01","slug":"whose-story-is-this-anyway-managing-multiple-points-of-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=3471","title":{"rendered":"Whose story is this anyway? Managing multiple points of view."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
You need a good selection of coloured pencils and some graph paper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I saw a review of Farmer Needs A Wife<\/em> 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 \u2013 but there were actually eight POV characters in that book.<\/p>\n

Eight! In my first book. What was I thinking?<\/p>\n

A few fellow writers have asked how I managed them all. The answer is via a brilliant little graph.<\/p>\n

Please note \u2013 I take no<\/strong> credit<\/strong> at all for this method.<\/p>\n

It was passed on to me by the fabulous Annie Burgh<\/a> \u2013 who writes complex, fascinating novels \u2013 with lots of characters and plots and sub-plots. She is also a fabulous teacher. This is what she taught me to do\u2026<\/p>\n

When I start a new book, I take a page of graph paper \u2013 and coloured pencils\u2026 one colour for each POV character.<\/p>\n

As I finish each chapter \u2013 I draw a bar on the graph \u2013 just like back at school. The colour\/s of the bar represent the POV character or characters \u2013 and the height of the bar represents the number of words in the chapter.<\/p>\n

The secondary characters \u2013 those who don’t get a POV – are the little bits of colour above the chapter.<\/p>\n

Thus \u2013 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 \u2013 so I don’t lose them.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 and I can slap them down a bit and put them back in their place.<\/p>\n

It also gives me the added reward of a few minutes playing with coloured pencils when I finish a chapter.<\/p>\n

I write the chapter number under the bar every 5 chapters \u2013 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 \u2013 but just for the key turning points in the novel.<\/p>\n

\"POV<\/a>
The POV chart for Flight to Coorah Creek - I have blurred a couple of important hints - no spoilers here!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve tried to get the number of POV characters down \u2013 my second book only had five. My third only three \u2013 but as two of them had two POV sections \u2013 one as a teenager and one as an adult \u2013 that sort of puts it back to five.<\/p>\n

I’m being tougher with myself now. I swear I only have four in the new book. Honestly!<\/p>\n

Four\u2026<\/p>\n

But then again \u2013 there’s that girl sitting over by the window… I think she wants to tell me her story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-TZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}