POV Counting

[Gruud]

This a two (or three) parter, and for clarification, I should state this is for a novel (or so), not for a screenplay or some other medium (at least for now  )

I’ve been wondering, how many POV characters are just too many?

Consider your typical party of five (or six) adventurers who have set out on the Epic Quest.

They will all most likely make it through the journey alive (or at least the bulk of it) as they will be needed later, when the Party is (inevitably) broken up into pieces.

Now true, some will be there at the very beginning, while others will be added along the way; but, for the sake of this posting, imagine they are all present with “the Hero” prior to the end of the first third of the story.

Can/Should all of them be allowed to take the stage as POV characters?

And if so, how often do they need to be brought to center stage?

In a slightly different vein, but within the same Quest/story, what about characters that join for a brief period but are then left behind along the way? Can they be POV characters too?

Their primary purpose is to provide the Reader with knowledge of current events in various locations, things that the hero and the Party have no way of knowing.

In essence, they will be introduced, and then left behind somewhere in order to keep the Reader up to speed while the Hero is off Questing.

And, for those left behind, how often should they be brought forward, to say their piece then fade back again?

Add these four (or five) “left behinds” together with the members of the Party and the Hero, and you easily have over ten Separate POV characters, not counting any additional ones the narrative may need along the way.

I guess the goal here is to not whipsaw the Reader back and forth from POV to POV, without leaving a Voice silent for too long and have their reemergence break immersion.

“Who the heck is that? *flip flip flip* Oh yeah ... I’ve not seen them since page two …”

Heh, easy stuff, right? 

And as an added bonus, why did omniscience die?

*sigh*

I am very aware, and am prepared to deal with, the fact that it has died, and that using it would be pretty much instant death to a modern work of fiction.

But why did it die?

It was sooo much more useful ...

PS. You have to take a pass at the first questions before tackling that last bit. 

[Starbeam]

I wouldn't say the omniscient voice died out, just that most authors don't seem to want to write in it much.  For myself, I want to keep the reader a bit more invested in the POV characters, and omniscience generally doesn't do that for me.  In other words, I write what I'd like to read.  A bit part of choosing the style of POV to write in is pretty much up to you and what you're comfortable using for any given story.

As for the question of POV characters, you don't have to have a POV for every character you have, even if it is something of a group to begin with.  You can have the POV as the main character and just have other characters explain what's happened when they were separated--if I'm not mistaken, I believe David Eddings did this in the Belgariad books.  Or you could have one POV with the main character, and then follow the secondary characters when they split off, but still stick with the main POV when they're together--sort of like Robert Jordan did with Wheel of Time.  Although he branched off a lot with POV characters, usually depending on what he wanted the reader to know.

But same as with choosing the POV style, the POV characters, as well as how often to use them, comes down to how you want to do it.  I have one story where I originally started in 1st person, then on a suggestion switched to 3rd limited, and in doing that started out with 2 POV characters, introduced a third, and at some point will use 2 other secondary characters as POV characters, mainly depending on how subplots develop and how the group splits off.

[meg_evonne]

Anyone counted POVs in Lord of the Rings?  (within the 3rd that is?)

[Starbeam]

I was going to use LotR as an example, but it's been some years since I read it so I couldn't remember if it fell under limited or omniscient.  Or both.  Though from what I recall, I think each section, after Fellowship, follows the smaller groups with one POV in each group.  But not certain on that.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

LotR is omniscient.

If you are going for tight limited third, well, GRRM gets away with upwards  of a dozen in the first three ice and Fire books, IIRC.  So it;s workable.  (I do not think he does in the fourth.)

But then, he has a huge story. The question I would ask is; what do you gain from any given POV ?  What does it add, and can you get anything it adds in somewhere else.

If you have one party going linearly from A to Z through the book that never splits up, to my mind, uinless you have a pretty solid reason otherwise, the appropriate number of POVs is one.

[KevinEvans]

As for POVs, numbers and types, you need to consider you prospective audience.

Robert Jordan's WoT had an enormous number of parallel plot lines each with multiple POVs, he struck something of a chord with his readers, as the books have a truly enormous fan base.

On the flip side, the "Amber" series by Rodger Z. had a much more limited set of plot lines, with only two or three POV's in each novel. And this set of books also has a huge fan base.

I think that it really boils down to, what you are comfortable with, or better said, which mode lets you tell the best story. Set your POV's to the number that you work "needs". For me, limits help a lot, the last novel we (my wife and I) finished was not working, it turned out that in our world building, I had a case of Monty Hall syndrome. I made the starting conditions too easy, and no one had any real motivation to do anything interesting.... adding limitations made every thing more plausible.

As for Third Omni, it declined in popularity from over use, and the entrance of Movies and TV in to the main stream of culture. The limitations of film and broadcast entertainment imposed a third person limited POV on the presentation, and popularized that POV with the market. If you end up as a top name in the market, you can make judicious use of Third Omni, but as a midlist or lower writer the market will ignore you. (Unless it is a really, really great story. Grin)

Regards,
Kevin

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

As for Third Omni, it declined in popularity from over use,

I would argue that it declined in popularity because Dickens broke it, and degenerated into bestseller omni, where you hop into and out of heads with no discipline or control at all, and where your POV is messy enough that you can stop in what is supposed to be a character's POV for a camera-eye description of them.

[Gruud]

From Wikipedia (stop snickering  ) , RE: A Song of Ice and Fire

“ The series is told in the limited third-person through the eyes of a number of POV characters. By the end of the fourth volume, there have been twenty-five such characters, although these include eight who appear only once.”

Wow, that really is a lot of viewpoints. I can’t see as I would need anywhere near that many, and probably no one-shot POVs. And I reckon I would be trying to use subjective third person, with some smatterings of omniscience …

I’ve not read any of these books. How is it, from a Reader’s standpoint? Is it okay to follow along with, as opposed to riding in one character’s head for the bulk of story, or does it get tiresome after a while?

I mean generically, not specifically as executed by GRRM.

I guess what I’m looking for is a way to have a closer emotional investment in the individual members of the group, as opposed to concentrating solely on the Hero.

I’d like to be able to explore the emotions and motivations of the secondary characters, but I don’t think I can pull that off with my l33t dialogue skillz.

It will also give me a way to add emotional and/or storyline sub-plots for some of them, and be able to follow them whether the main character is there, or not; which will sometimes be the case.

I’m also hoping to use the various POVs to convey background information, rather than using expository dialogue and info dumps.

Trust me, I could really do some info dumps. 

Maybe what I’m really looking for is, as a Reader, how many is too many to follow, enjoyably?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

From Wikipedia (stop snickering  ) , RE: A Song of Ice and Fire
“ The series is told in the limited third-person through the eyes of a number of POV characters. By the end of the fourth volume, there have been twenty-five such characters, although these include eight who appear only once.”
Wow, that really is a lot of viewpoints. I can’t see as I would need anywhere near that many, and probably no one-shot POVs. And I reckon I would be trying to use subjective third person, with some smatterings of omniscience …
I’ve not read any of these books. How is it, from a Reader’s standpoint? Is it okay to follow along with, as opposed to riding in one character’s head for the bulk of story, or does it get tiresome after a while?

From a reader's standpoint, it's fine up to the end of book 3; book 4, which I have only read once, worked less well for me, but it is worth noting that all the one-chapter-only characters show up either as prologues or in book 4. 

I'd recommend them, btw; they are very good indeed.

I mean generically, not specifically as executed by GRRM.

I don't think its an issue where it's possible to have a general opinion, because it's one of those things where how it works depends an awful lot on the quality of the execution.

I guess what I’m looking for is a way to have a closer emotional investment in the individual members of the group, as opposed to concentrating solely on the Hero.

Doing their POVs does not necessrily give this, though.  Doing their POVs well might, but so would presenting them well from the POV of one character.  (There is no reason why only picking one character and telling the whole story from their POV necessitates you to pick the hero.)

I’d like to be able to explore the emotions and motivations of the secondary characters, but I don’t think I can pull that off with my l33t dialogue skillz.

That's just a question of learning the dialogue skills, though.

It will also give me a way to add emotional and/or storyline sub-plots for some of them, and be able to follow them whether the main character is there, or not; which will sometimes be the case.

How many of those sub-lots are essential for what the novel as a whole is doing, and how much of what the viewpoint character is not there for can they just tell the viewpoint character later ?

Maybe what I’m really looking for is, as a Reader, how many is too many to follow, enjoyably?

Sorry to be unhelpful, but it depends entirely on how well you do it.

[prophet224]

I’ve not read any of these books. How is it, from a Reader’s standpoint? Is it okay to follow along with, as opposed to riding in one character’s head for the bulk of story, or does it get tiresome after a while?

Ok, I just want to quickly touch on this first.  A Golden Rule would be "Read of those who have gone before."  Whatever your intended genre, immerse yourself in it.  If you haven't read Martin or Jordan, I would suggest you do so, as it will give you some idea of how to do the epic (mostly) well.  Take a look at Fiest's "Magician" as well, though there are a lot fewer POVs there.
(There is no reason why only picking one character and telling the whole story from their POV necessitates you to pick the hero.)
[/quote]

Now on to other things:

I’d like to be able to explore the emotions and motivations of the secondary characters, but I don’t think I can pull that off with my l33t dialogue skillz.

I second the "l33t skillz develop with practice" motion from neuro

(There is no reason why only picking one character and telling the whole story from their POV necessitates you to pick the hero.)

In fact, it can be argued that many truly successful stories use someone else.  Why, for instance, did Doyle write the Sherlock Holmes stories from Watson's point of view?


Now on to the original post:
Can/Should all of them be allowed to take the stage as POV characters?
- Yes they can, but they shouldn't necessarily.  It may be better to have one (not the main hero) who is the POV.  However, you can rotate through.  There's nothing that says you only have to have one main character, though one will usually tend to stand out anyway.

And if so, how often do they need to be brought to center stage?
- If they are that close to the hero, not often if at all.  If they are the 'sidekick' POV, all the time, by the nature of the thing.  If they are one of the main characters or dual (tertiary, etc.) heroes, also all the time if you want to use their POV, but ideally again just keep them center stage but from someone else's viewpoint.  For instance, it is much more interesting, in the Chronicles of Prydain, to see how Taran (the former pig-boy) interacts with the other warriors, his newfound friends, and his own fears than it would be to watch from Gawain's (the prince) POV.

In a slightly different vein, but within the same Quest/story, what about characters that join for a brief period but are then left behind along the way? Can they be POV characters too?
- Yes they can.  Anyone can be. The question is do they need to be?  I understand the point of this, but make sure you have a subplot that ties in.  For instance, if you are following (POV'ing) the 'hero', you can't just drop people off needlessly, but you can drop the pig-boy off in a town, thinking you are leaving him in safety, only to have him get mixed up in just the trouble you were trying to avoid.

And, for those left behind, how often should they be brought forward, to say their piece then fade back again?
- As often as needed.  If they are doing something interesting, it should be worth showing.  HOWEVER: Consider that if you use 3rd person limited you can always hop over to the bad guys and listen in on their conversations.  Then give the bad guys a reason to get together and try to stick with one POV per group.  Go back to them occasionally, but not overmuch. 


Finally a note on one-shot POVs.  They can be useful, but should be used sparingly.  Take for instance a scene from a story I'm writing.  We have a view from space as missiles head in to Earth.  Then We flash to a local in (specific continent undetermined), get a taste of his life, and use his POV to show the pretty wicked devastation and turmoil caused on the ground when one of these hits.  The POV is dead afterwards, so we are good to go. 

Similarly another POV is used just as you are mentioning (left behind characters), but throughout the book.  I found some ways to tie him in more tightly (brother of the main character, saves some asteroid miners from death) before he gets killed towards the end.

Anyway, just my $.55.   Hope it helps!