Thoughts on point of view…

Since I’m writing a dual POV story for the first time.

My writing life is back in full swing and I’m so excited by the progress I’m making on Shadow Walker. This is the first book I’m writing consistently in two POVs and it’s been a good stretch of my writing skills and planning process.

My first book, Seeds of Power, was written in third person limited and my first reader caught at least one moment of accidental head-jumping, prompting me to rework the details to make sure my MC was the one getting the important information needed for the plot. (She had been in the room but wasn’t conscious anymore due to injury and other characters kept talking—oops!) After that mistake, I have been diligent about watching my POV. When writing the sequel to SofP, I ended up adding another third person limited POV since my big group of warriors were physically split up, but looking at the book as a whole, his chapters were only a fraction of my female MC’s. I shelved those books and tried not to think about that world, never figuring out what book three would entail.

I then spent four months writing four books for my Dreamcatcher series and that was a wild ride, changing the POV from third person limited to first person for my female MC when the story finally began to crystalize for me. (I am a pantser, not a planner and I went in a very different direction!) I eventually wrote a few scenes in each Dreamcatcher book with first person POV of other characters since my MC can dive into the dreams and memories of others. This writing experience showed me I prefer writing in first person in general.

Red Hour was a first-person tale that never deviated from the POV of my MC, and around that time I began to realize that my writing projects didn’t line up with all the writing styles I enjoyed reading. I often enjoy multi-POV tales, especially if there is a romantic thread in the story, so you can see what both people are thinking and feeling as they discover things and go on their combined quest.

With this in mind, when I decided to take two little scenes about a witch and werewolf that I had written for funsies and turn it into a book, I did some actual planning. Surprising, I know! I sat down and brainstormed chapter one (something I often have to rewrite once I’ve figured out the ending). I wanted a strong hook and to get some action going right away, with world-building and character development teased out as needed. I committed to swapping the first person POVs of the witch and werewolf every chapter—unless the plot and character development required me to stick with one character’s POV for a little longer.

Writing dual POV has forced me to plan more than I usually do. I can’t just say to myself, “And then what happens?” and keep writing. I have to think about which character would have the best insight to offer in the next scene as I share internal thoughts and feelings. That drives which POV I pick to write in. I also have to think about what secrets I am keeping from my reader to reveal later and at times use the other POV to help me hide them. I get so frustrated reading books where the POV character is obviously keeping something from me for a long time. It’s more confusing than a hook to keep reading. But, if I am looking through the eyes of another character at someone’s suspicious behavior, I am intrigued! It’s a delicate balance but a fun problem to solve.

At this point I’ve written over 83k words, and Shadow Walker is almost a 50/50 POV balance between the wolf and witch. I’ve already gone back and finished some middle parts I initially skipped, so it’s feeling like a pretty smooth story already. I need to write the last quarter and then I’m ready for beta readers. Yay for experimentation!