I'm writing a horror/drama which features a woman who's lived her entire life in abusive relationships, and a billionaire psychopath who takes an interest in her because he is obsessed with beauty. This psychopath also becomes a serial killer through the course of the story. I was wondering how you guys feel about this dilemma I have with the story. Do you prefer to have two perspectives in the story, one from the victim and one from the killer, which means the reader will know who the killer is, or would you prefer it to stick to the victim's perspective and have the killer's identity be a secret? There is this plot point where the killer tries to trick the others into believing that he isn't the killer, but that it is someone else, and I feel like I've seen so many stories that have the "But HE was the killer all alooong!" And I dunno if it'll be as interesting as following the killer throughout the story as he plans out his murders and stuff. Whataya think?
If you're writing it as a horror story, the killer should be known by the beginning of the second act, even if you don't show him in all his beastly glory. If you're writing it as a murder mystery, keep his identity secret until the detective (whoever that may be, not necessarily a cop) reveals it.
I would stick to one POV and not change back and forth. I always like to read stories I feel like belong to someone, one of the characters. There's still a large lens to zoom in or zoom out even while using one POV. That's a style thing, I think. How far into the story are you? Have you been working with one POV or two?
My story has multiple POV's. So far I've had about five different ones (I doubt there will be more). I'm 40 000 words in right now, but since it's the first draft I'm sort of still exploring ways to tell the story. It's definitely a preference of style for me. I really love reading a story from the perspectives of several characters, so that's just kind of my style. I also really loved @Sack-a-Doo! advice. I hadn't thought of how in horror, the killer is often revealed very early. My story really isn't much of a mystery, so I think I'm sticking to having multiple POV's and letting the reader know right away who the killer is.
