My current project is in a format that I've never really attempted before. In the past I've always used one, or at most two POVs in a novel. This time, I have a spaceship with a crew of 52. In the opening 10K+ words, I've introduced six members of the senior staff, a mysterious alien that may or may not be an antagonist, and a handful of secondary crew to fill gaps (and probably serve up some gruesome deaths). So far I've limited the POVs to four of the senior crew, but I'll probably add the POV of the alien soon as well. Just wondering what you all think about what might work best regarding the number of POVs and the crew of a ship. Would it be better to focus on just one main character and show the story from the one perspective? Or maybe two or three at most? It would certainly be much easier to write it from a single perspective. I'm sure a lot of it will come down to, "depends on the story, depends on personal preference," but as it's new to me, I was hoping for some thoughts, tips, tricks. Thanks !
I think it very much depends on the story you want to tell and how personal you want to get. What or who does the story revolve around? Dune is told from a semi-close third, but switches between multiple POV characters throughout the book, usually changing from section to section as the focus changes. How strong and memorable are your individual characters? If they are too similar to each other, or genre archetypes, I would select one character to tell it from, but if not, and it's easy for the reader to keep them separated in their minds, you could certainly do it from multiple POV. How about telling the story from the POV of a junior crewmember, like one of the red-shirts?
Dune is full-blown omniscient. Herbert will hop between four heads in a single paragraph. Not for the faint of heart. What I've done with multiple POVs is rank them in a hierarchy for when they're in the room together. Like Billy, Bobby, and Bonnie might all have a dedicated POV but when they're together, Billy would take the lead over Bobby or whatever. Stephen King's is a great example. There's at least a dozen recurring POVs to various degrees (and probably 30 all told), with the 7 kids/adults obviously being the main ones. They are often together in varying groups but the main POV will switch depending on which character "owns" the scene. I haven't read it in awhile, but I believe King if pretty disciplined with it, sometimes using more of an objective, pull-back voice for the more energetic scenes. Overall, I would say multiple POVs work best when there's a good reason for them. Physical distance between characters is the obvious and most necessary one. Or distance between information sets where one character knows something another doesn't, whether deliberately or not. The reader obviously knows everything (dramatic irony), which makes it very easy to foreshadow, build suspense, rope-a-dope, etc. But sometimes just different perspectives on the same conflict or any plot element can be very effective. The biggest problem I've had with it has been padding page time to justify a character's POV. Like, shit, I haven't checked in with Billy for awhile. Better write a scene for him. That can get wonky. Then I learned that the POVs don't have to be balanced. They can't be superfluous either so it's a bit of a balancing act.
Yeah, there's distances of sorts to consider. The engineers are in engineering, the doctor is in the medical bay, the senior crew is on the bridge (where the commander typically holds the POV), and things happen to the characters in those different places. The next section of the story will involve most of the crew being in suspended animation, with a handful of crew members on duty rotation to keep an eye on the ship (and their alien guest). And later, there will be a group on a planet with another group still on the ship. I've pretty much committed to the multiple POVs thing. It's good to know what it's not really necessary to do "maintenance" on POVs that aren't getting as much use. I'd been wondering if I needed to come back to a character soon who was more prominent in the first 5K than in the following 5K. I guess I'll probably treat it similarly to Star Trek episodes and see how it goes. Like, ok here's a Geordi chapter/episode. And now here's a Data-focused one.
