101 Writing Tips from an Exhausted Reviewer

Writing Multiple POVs

Once you have decided that, you have to work out whether you will write these perspectives in first-person, third-person, or a mix of both! I have a whole chapter about this already—let me know if you need help finding it! There are a lot of chapters in this book.

Make it 101 Writing Tips from an Exhausted Reviewer, they said. Don't make it 7 Writing Tips from an Exhausted Reviewer, they said. It'll be fun, they said.

Just kidding! I love writing this book.

2. Differentiate your characters.

We have already spoken about characters, side characters, love interests, antagonists, dancing noodles, and all that jazz. We have spoken about how each character needs to feel completely different.

This is especially important in multiple-perspective stories.

If a single character is missing a bit of depth, or missing a clear motivation—it sticks out the way a person may stick out if they wore giraffes instead of shoes on their feet. Each character needs to have their own backstory, motivation, character arcs, and conflict they experience—especially if they have their own perspective.

You have to know this character so incredibly well. You need to give them idiosyncrasies that make them stick out. Do they use different vocabulary? Do they have really different beliefs or goals to the other characters? Different flaws and fears? Their voices should feel all completely different. Again, I have more advice regarding this in another chapter about writing a good protagonist. Let me know if you need help finding it!

Now, onto more practical tips:

3. Clarity.

For the love of all things good and ice-cream tasting, please make it obvious whose perspective we are living and breathing each time it changes. This is where we want to be wearing giraffes instead of shoes on our feet. We want it to be so incredibly obvious that the giraffes have become our feet.

If you are doing this in first person, do not be afraid to make your chapter titles simply the name of the character who we are with for the chapter. That, or give headers to indicate the change. Heck, you can do this for third person, too, if you wanted!

Third person is a bit easier to work with, because the chapter tends to start with:

1. Tomato screamed.

2. Carrot was on a mission: a mission to manipulate that damned tomato.

3. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous! Apple could simply not believe that The Vegetables tried to tell Tomato that The Fruits would eat him!

Instantly, we sort of know whose perspective we are getting because it is easier to drop the names. It's trickier in first person, because if you wanted to name drop, it would look really weird, like so:

1. I, Tomato, screamed.

2. I, The Marvellous Carrot and Conqueror of Rabbits, was on a mission: a mission to manipulate that damned tomato.

3. Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! I simply cannot believe that The Vegetables tried to—oh, wait, I'm so sorry! How rude of me! I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Apple. Anyways. Ridiculous! Simply preposterous!

It's a bit more odd, for sure!

Either way, make it super clear to your reader who we are following for the chapter. Furthermore, when you write the chapter, blank out the names and show it to a reader/friend who knows about the story. Your character voices should be so distinct that, even with no names to help, your reader can work out whose perspective we are following.