The Journey to Writing a Successful Story: a tip book

Point of View

There's two questions that I see quite often:

"How do you switch characters?"

And...

"How do you know which point of view to use?"

I'm not talking about third person or first, but about characters.

Multiple people have their own ways to think through it, but is it the right way?

Yes, in writing, there is no "right way." Well... there kind of is... but that's besides the point.

I usually see this when it comes to switching: "Sarah's POV." It's either like that or in bold: "Sarah's POV." It's in the beginning of the chapter and then what people do is switch during the chapter. So it looks similar to this:

Sarah's POV.

.....

I knew it. I knew he had left me.

Devon's POV.

As I walked through the meadow...

-

This may sound like an opinion, which is half true, though... but that just looks unprofessional.

The reason is the bold, the way you word it, and even putting it out like that with two characters in one chapter.

Now yes, each writer has their own way to write it and you can do whatever you want. But I believe that the best way to tell your readers that you're switching is through the title of the chapter.

Chapter One: Sarah

Chapter Two: Devon

Or...

Awaiting the Darkness: Devon (or Awaiting the Darkness - Devon)

Light Through Heaven's Eyes: Sarah (or Light Through Heaven's Eyes - Sarah)

Or...

1... Sarah

2... Devon

-

That way, when your reader is wondering who it is, they can look at the title.

Don't do two characters in one chapter. No matter how small their scene is. It never really flows right when you have multiple POV's in one single chapter.

Another, thing though, is to think of the style. One reason why many people don't like character switching is because it confuses them - which is why it's usually best to write in third person because you're not using "I," you're using "her," "him," and their names, and so on. Which doesn't confuse them. But for a tip, what you could do if you're writing a story in first person and want to switch, you can do both characters in third person, or what you could do is use your main character for first person then the extra character is used in third.

Onto the second question...

When you're thinking of your main characters, think through what the story is about. Is it focusing on one character mainly?

Usually, the one character it focuses on is used as the protagonist. But if what you're thinking is where the story is narrating the life of one character, but the book kind of revolves around the other character, you could do that. For instance, in one of my favorite stories, Sarah Falling by mckenzierrobinson, the main character that is narrating is Josh, but he's telling a story about Sarah.

So when you're thinking of what the story is focusing on, you can try to look at it through different angles.