Writing from Multiple Viewpoints
Writing from Multiple Viewpoints
Natalie Lund
My first novel, We Speak in Storms, rotates between four perspectives—three teenage outsiders who encounter an abandoned car in the wake of a tornado—and a fourth voice, the ghosts of a tornado that struck the town drive-in generations before. In my second novel, The Sky Above Us, I rotate between the first-person perspectives of Izzy, Janie, and Cass as they wake up on a beach after a senior party and witness a plane crash that changes their lives forever.
I also rotate between the close-third person points of view of Nate, Shane, and Israel in the month leading up to stealing the plane and crashing it. As though six perspectives weren’t enough, I also have a few interstitial sections that include emails, police interviews, discussion posts, essays, and journal entries.
Why juggle all these perspectives? Switching voices keeps me from feeling stuck. If I write myself into a corner with one character, I can work on the other for a while. Usually, stepping away from the character for a while shakes something loose. For example, in The Sky Above Us, I wasn’t sure how to get Shane into the pilot seat. What would make the has-everything popular kid want to take flight lessons? Writing in Cass’s perspective helped me determine that motivation. Cass, his recent ex, was heading off to college and would leave him behind on the island where they grew up. Learning to fly would offer him his own escape.
Although I enjoy writing in multiple perspectives, I also find it challenging. There’s a lot to hold in your head at once. I keep a spreadsheet that includes the chapter number, date and time, POV character name, and a summary of events. That way, I can easily filter the spreadsheet and view one character at a time or reference events that happened in previous chapters as I write new ones.
I also keep a character sketch document where I describe each character’s physical characteristics, their relationships to other characters, their motivations, their dreams, and backstory. I turn to these if I’m feeling stuck, digging deeper into a given aspect of their personality. They are also important for me to reference if I forget something like a character’s mom’s name or what color I said their eyes were.
For both of my novels, I primarily wrote the chapters in chronological order rather than writing all one character’s sections in a row. I find I get into a rut with description or dialogue when I’m in one character’s voice for an extended period of time, so switching to another character forces me to be more present and intentional with my language.
I have to remember how this character thinks, acts, and speaks. Sometimes, I flip back to the last section I wrote in that character’s voice and reread to remind myself of the rhythm. For example, in The Sky Above Us, Izzy is sharp and brash, with a tough exterior and a sensitive interior. She’s quick and cutting in her observations and dialogue but gentle when she thinks of her brother, Israel, and best friend, Cass.
Cass is matter-of-fact in her observations, practical in her thinking, and usually quite calm in her dialogue except when Izzy doesn’t give her space. Janie is the dreamy one and the more socially awkward. Her observations have more whimsy and her dialogue includes poorly timed pauses and interjections.
Writing in chronological order rather than sticking with one voice does make consistency harder to achieve. A reader will notice if a character speaks or acts one way in one section but then entirely differently in another. I usually address this challenge in the revision stage by rereading one character all the way through the novel at a time.
For example, with The Sky Above Us, I’d read all the sections in Nate’s perspective one after another, ignoring the chapters that fell between each of his. As I was rereading, I made notes about sections that felt inconsistent. I then reread a second time, adjusting as I went. With my third novel, The Wolves Are Watching, which I recently finished drafting, I had to create a vocabulary and syntax guide for one character because she spoke so differently from the other perspective character. Each time I reread, I noticed opportunities to improve the consistency or to replace a word with one from my guide.
One of the greatest payoffs of writing a novel from multiple viewpoints is that readers get to see the world through so many different sets of eyes, which I think can be especially important for teenage readers. Reading can build empathy, giving teens the opportunity to be someone different or experience something they haven’t before. It can also allow them to feel something they have felt before, which shows them that they’re not alone. If my characters can do any of this for the readers, then I will have succeeded.
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Natalie Lund is the author of THE SKY ABOVE US (April 13, 2021; Penguin Random House/Philomel Books) and WE SPEAK IN STORMS (September, 2019; Penguin Random House/Philomel Books), a 2020 ITW Thriller Award nominee and an Illinois Reads 2020 selection. A graduate of Purdue University’s MFA program, where she served as the fiction editor of The Sycamore Review, she is also a former middle and high school teacher. She lives in Chicago with her husband. You can visit her online at natalielund.com.
THE SKY ABOVE US
“A compelling, well-voiced look at how teenagers deal with tragedy.” — School Library Journal
From the author of We Speak in Storms comes a twisty, psychological thriller about three friends searching for the truth in the aftermath of a plane crash.
The morning after their senior year beach party, Izzy, Cass, and Janie are woken by a thundering overhead. Then they and their classmates watch in shock as a plane crashes into the water. When the passengers are finally recovered, they are identified as Izzy’s twin brother, Israel, Cass’s ex-boyfriend, Shane, and Janie’s best friend, Nate. But Izzy can feel when her brother is in pain, and she knows he’s not really dead. So she, Cass, and Janie set out to discover what actually happened that day–and why the boys were on the plane.
Told in alternating timelines and points of view, this powerful and captivating novel follows the three boys in the weeks leading up to that fateful flight, and the girls they left behind as they try to piece together the truth about the boys they loved and thought they knew. A spellbinding story about the ripple effects of tragedy, the questions we leave unanswered, and the enduring power of friendship.
Praise for The Sky Above Us:
“Achingly human with hints of magic, this tale of loss in its many forms builds a compelling mystery.” —Booklist
“Lund proves adept at smoothly navigating a complicated plot, building and holding suspense, and creating easily relatable, multidimensional characters.” —Publishers Weekly
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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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