A line break lets the reader know that something is changing and they should look for indications of a new POV. If you don’t want whole chapters dedicated to a single character, you can use a line break (three blank lines) in your chapter to signify a switch between POV characters. The most common way to do this is to head the chapter with the name of the character being profiled. Each chapter in a story can be from a different character’s POV. At the very least, always use a paragraph break when shifting between two characters. Now we’re going to give you some tools you can use that will having you shifting POV characters with ease. So how do you shift between POV characters?Īt the beginning of this article, we stated you should avoid head-hopping. The Great Gatsby is told from Nick’s POV, not from the main character’s, and it works really well. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. That way you can get deeper into character development. A good rule of thumb is to focus the POV on the character with the most to lose in that scene.
You have two main characters and it’s common to switch between each of their POVs to understand the story from both perspectives. These show you how using multiple POVs can make a big impact and get the reader inside different characters' heads like the proverbial fly on the wall. Some books are written from the POV of multiple characters, usually separated into chapters, like Allison Winn Scotch’s In Twenty Years and George R.
We have an excellent article on the different types of POV, What is POV? And How Do You Choose the Best POV for Your Story, that delves deeper. You choose a POV and you write your entire story or novel from that decision. In the majority of novels, POV is a static choice. So how do you shift between POV characters?įirst and foremost, POV is a tool a writer selects, usually at the beginning of writing a story:.