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I read a good book that explained how to do shifting POV's (though I forget the title now). The author had an example of a flood. Through the POV of the husband, who also happened to be a firefighter rescuing people, he was thinking what a bad flood it was and how he was hoping his family had drown so he wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. Switch to his wife and cat stuck on the roof. His wife is worried about their daughter at school and wondering about her husband. Switch to their daughter stuck in a tree thinking that her daddy will come and save her and worried about the cat. No character can know what the other is thinking - even if they are in the same scene. They can guess. But if you pretend you are the character when you are writing them then you can see that you can only observe others and guess their motivations but not know them - you can only know yourself. Perhaps for a writing practice make up a scene where there are more than one POV - like a book launch and write the scene through different eyes. The novel I am writing is in three POV's. Each chapter is a different character. The way I organized it was to lay out my outline in point form then write one character's initial by each scene. That way when I'm writing it I have a reference and don't just have to go off the cuff. It seems to be working. This is my first time using multiple POV's too. Good luck to you. |