How to Write with Multiple Perspectives

*Writing multiple perspectives is hard. At least, I know I struggle with it. I’m writing a story right now that currently has six perspectives in it, so that’s what inspired me to write this. Well, I hope this helps you make your stories flow nicer. I try to remember these tips myself when I’m writing. So, look over these 10 tips I came up with and enjoy!*

### Ten tips:

1. **Focus on one character at a time.** If you’re switching characters a lot, then you have to remember who does what and stuff like that. Keeping track of all of their thoughts and opinions can be tricky. I recommend writing things like that down somewhere so that you can reference them when you’re unsure of something. Also remember that when you’re in the head of one character, you’re not in the heads of others. For that scene, you are that character and that character only.
2. **Remember their previous scenes.** Especially if you’re writing a lot of characters. For example, if your character just lost a sibling and is grieving, then the next scene in their head wouldn’t make sense if they are happy and joyous. Remember what they were thinking about before. It’ll make it less confusing and even help the readers remember what was happening previously.
3. **Don’t switch too often.** I struggle with this one a lot myself. But you have to be careful. You should try to aim for more than a few paragraphs for just one character. This helps with developing them more and also not making the story too choppy. If one minute you have one character’s thoughts and then there’s a totally different scene, then that would be hard to follow.
4. **Make your transitions flow.** Having good transitions from scene to scene is essential in general, but it’s better with a multiple perspective story. If you’ve ended on a character pondering something about another character, then perhaps you could switch to that other character so that the reader can get a glimpse into their thoughts. If you didn’t alway know, knowing something that other characters don’t is called dramatic irony and it’s always a nice touch to any story! It can draw readers in more, so that they’ll want to find out what happens.
5. **Plan out the storyline.** This is almost necessary. If you want something big to happen with a certain character, then make sure that you know when that one is coming up, so you’ll have time to possibly throw in some foreshadowing. Also, don’t just rush through other character’s scenes to get to the one you want, but don’t draw them out either. This can create the effect of choppiness, sloppiness, or even a boring story. This tip is also helpful if you need a character’s thoughts that’s crucial to the plot.
6. **Write your characters in order.** This doesn’t have to happen, but it’s better and even easier to deal with. I get it that writing them whenever could be easier in the way of deciding who gets to do what and when. However, you could run into problems such as not giving enough attention to certain characters, losing track of their scenes and who did what, and just giving it a sloppy or a too “sudden” effect. This doesn’t have to be a problem with only three characters, but dealing with six main characters like me, that’s a different story. So, I highly recommend writing your characters’ scenes in order.
7. **Don’t add too many huge plot events.** I know I said that you don’t want to draw them out or rush through them, but this is a little different. You’ll want things to happen with certain characters, I know, but main characters mean giving them writing time and plot events. Just remember, not every character scene has to have something dramatic happen. Just sprinkle in a little change here and there and that way, readers will want to read more. Every character should get their turn in the spotlight, but not all at once.
8. **Develop. Your. Characters!** This is always important, but it’ll give your multiple perspective story a better feel if every character is different. This goes along with my next tip as well. Your characters should have different thoughts and opinions. That’s the whole point of having several character perspectives in a story. What’s the fun of having all of them if all of their thoughts and feelings are the exact same? If you realize this is happening, then maybe one of your characters needs to be cut as a main character. They can still be in the story, but maybe they just won’t shine as bright as the others that are really essential to the plotline.
9. **Give your characters personal problems to deal with.** Again, usually necessary in a single perspective story, but this is great for a multiple perspective story as well! Having them deal with things that others don’t know about is great, and that’s a reason to have them as a main character. If they’re all different and struggle with separate problems, then that makes the story interesting!
10. **Try not to start off with too much action.** Yeah, yeah, I know, you need a hook to get people to read it. But that doesn’t have to be the case. You can just as easily start off an interesting story with a character’s thoughts. Especially if they’re expressing their opinions on another character. If you start off with too much action, then readers may get confused about why you’re switching off to a different character when you haven’t even given info on the one you were just writing. Try to do this for the first time a character appears, and *then* you can get to the real action once you start the second scene of the first character you wrote. This is exactly what I did with my story.

*Remember, if your story doesn’t follow these tips exactly, that doesn’t mean it’s bad! These are just what I consider helpful for myself and hopefully others, too! Well, I hope this has helped you with writing a multiple perspective story. I’m not an expert, but I’m just giving some tips that I know help me. Thanks for reading, and good luck with your writing!*

***If you’re wondering what my multiple perspective story is, it is called*** Lost Warriors ***and is on the Warriors Fanfiction Wiki. If you want, you can go check it out and see how I incorporated these tips into my story. Perhaps you can reference it for your own story. Just remember, maybe I didn’t always follow every tip exactly, but I think it’s pretty much the same. Thanks again, and bye!***