Why Multiple POVs Can Make Readers Love Your Characters More

Multiple POVs—should you use them or should you not?

That’s a question with huge implications for your story. It will influence everything from structure to pacing to character arcs. Most importantly, it will have a huge influence on your readers’ experience of the story—for better or worse.

More genre books than not use multiple POVs to present multiple protagonists—or sometimes just to give readers a glimpse at what’s happening behind the protagonist’s back. There can be many drawbacks to multiple POVs, not least that readers may significantly enjoy certain POVs more than others, which can in turn contribute to a poorly-paced plot in which comparatively little happens.

Although I am personally a huge fan of single-POV stories, today I want to talk about something I love about multiple POVs, and that’s what I call the Vicarious Love Factor. Sounds complicated (and maybe a little kinky), doesn’t it? But it’s not!

What Is the “Vicarious Love Factor” Offered by Multiple POVs?

The Vicarious Love Factor is the phenomenon in which readers’ feelings about one character are shaped by other characters’ perspectives.

One of the inherent limitations of a single-POV story is that readers experience the protagonist almost exclusively from the inside out. They know what the character thinks, but they don’t often get to see that character the way everyone else does.

After all, most characters aren’t especially objective about themselves.

For example, a protagonist may genuinely believe he or she is ordinary, incompetent, or even unlikable. Another character, however, may recognize courage beneath that same person’s self-doubt, kindness beneath the reserve, or integrity beneath the flaws. That outside perspective can reveal dimensions that the protagonist’s solo POV can’t convey as easily.

Thanks to a glimpse through the objective eyes of another character, readers are able to better understand the protagonist. When a protagonist is loved by another character (whether or not that love is deserved), readers are also given a major subconscious incentive to love that character too.

And, of course, the reverse is also true. If another character distrusts, fears, envies, or even hates the protagonist, those emotions become part of the lens through which readers interpret the story.

This isn’t just because multiple POVs give readers more information about a character. They create emotional investment by inviting readers to participate in the relationships between characters. When readers witness one character’s love, loyalty, admiration, or heartbreak for another, they share in those emotions.

For example, if one character grieves, readers are more likely to grieve. If one character desperately wants another to succeed, readers often find themselves wanting the same thing. In many ways, the emotional connections between characters become the emotional connections between readers and the characters as well.

How Multiple POVs Deepen Reader Empathy

Readers naturally understand characters through relationships.

Think about the people in your own life. Rarely do you form an opinion of someone in complete isolation. You also notice how others respond to them:

• Are they respected?
• Are they dismissed?
• Do people trust them with their secrets?
• Do people turn to them when life falls apart?

One of the most useful things about multiple POVs is that they allow readers to experience a protagonist from both the inside and the outside.

Internally, readers witness the protagonist’s doubts, fears, rationalizations, and private struggles.

Externally, they see aspects the protagonist may not have the self-awareness to recognize (e.g., courage, kindness, leadership).

Or, vice versa, readers may witness the character’s unwitting hypocrisy. Either way, readers may come away with a richer understanding than either viewpoint could have offered alone.

Writing Your Story’s Theme (Amazon affiliate link)

More importantly, every relationship says something about both characters. When one POV character admires another, readers also learn something about the admirer. The emotional currents flowing between characters deepen characterization on both sides, often reinforcing the story’s theme without ever calling attention to it.

Should You Add Another POV?

This effect can, of course, be achieved without multiple POVs, and sometimes the pitfalls of multiple POVs won’t balance out their advantages.

Structuring Your Novel: Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition (Amazon affiliate link)

Before deciding to include a new POV, always consider its overall effect on the story’s cohesion and resonance, not least in the plot structure. Every POV should earn its place by deepening conflict, revealing new dimensions of character, advancing the plot, or illuminating the theme in ways no other perspective can.

If the POV’s only purpose is to provide commentary on the protagonist or to reveal plot events that otherwise would happen offstage, the effect can often feel empty. But when another viewpoint genuinely deepens or advances the story, that character’s perspective of other characters will influence your readers’ feelings about all of them.

Note: This article has been revised and expanded from an earlier version.

Want More?

Outlining Your Novel (Amazon affiliate link)

If you’re deciding whether your story really needs multiple POVs, that choice is often easiest to make before you begin drafting. In Outlining Your Novel (and its companion workbook), I help writers think through big-picture questions like POV, character relationships, and story structure while it’s still easy to experiment. A little planning up front can save countless revisions later!

Available in paperback, e-book, and audio.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Do you feel that multiple POVs help readers connect more deeply with your characters? Tell me in the comments!

The post Why Multiple POVs Can Make Readers Love Your Characters More appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.