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How (and Why) to Write through One Character’s Eyes at a Time - Using CHARACTER POVs to Make Your Writing More Visceral and Emotional

*Just thought I'd share this writing tip that I learned over many years of reading and experimenting on my own, because I don't often see this stuff talked about anywhere. Hope it helps someone else! :)

There’s something that’s very rarely talked about when it comes to prose and fiction narration, which brings me to writing this.

And that’s character perspectives.

This is NOT a post about choosing between first and third person perspective. Choosing a character perspective (aka POV, or point of view) is a step after that, and it’s a step that some writers don’t even know exists (no one told me, at least, lol).

This post is about the importance of writing in one character’s perspective at a time. By “at a time,” I mean per section. (Think, every time there’s a chapter change or a line break, that’s the end of a section.)

Staying in one character’s head/POV at a time in third-person is essential to get the reader emotionally invested. Without it, your reader is just reading a bunch of interesting events one after another.

Now, what do I mean by staying in one character’s head at a time?

Before we get really into this, let me give you an example.

Here’s an example of not staying in one character’s head:

Aiden pulled up on his motorcycle, feeling pride well in his chest that he managed to get his license before his sister, Lisa. Over on the driveway, Lisa watched Aiden sit on his motorcycle, jealousy running through her every vein. The front door opened, and their parents walked out. Their mother frowned. I never wanted him to drive that thing, their mother thought bitterly. Their father smiled wide, feeling his own sense of pride that his son was able to finally drive his old bike.

I switched POV four times in that paragraph - I went into each character’s head.

Now I’ll do the same exact scene, staying only in Aiden’s head:

Aiden pulled up on his motorcycle, feeling pride well in his chest that he managed to get his license before his sister, Lisa. She stood there on the driveway, arms crossed, eyes narrowed at him. He smiled a little more to himself, knowing how jealous she was. A creak tore his attention from her, seeing his parents come out of the house.

First his mother, who frowned immediately, looking at the bike with something between anger and worry on her face, eyeing the machine like it was something disgusting. In contrast, his father walked out with the biggest smile, and Aiden knew he made him proud.

-.-.

Now in Lisa’s:

She watched from the driveway as her brother rode noisily down the road and onto the driveway. I’d have done that way better, she thought bitterly. Aiden, however, gave her a smug look as he took off his helmet, making her glare deeper at him.

She heard the front door open behind her. Her mother came out, and Lisa was happy to see the woman frown instantly, even if Lisa knew it was because she didn’t like the bike rather than the boy riding it. It was her father’s bright smile that made her blood boil more, for that smile should have been for her.

-.-.

The mother:

Mother heard the machine before she saw it, feeling dread. She walked outside anyway, her husband following her, to see her little boy step off the dangerous thing. That smile meant he passed his test, and it made her frown.

She could see Lisa’s negative reaction as well, glad she wasn’t alone in that. But her husband’s clear excitement made her worry shift instantly to anger. I’ll be talking to him about that later.

-.-.

And finally, the father:

Father heard the engine the moment it turned onto the block, and he quickly followed his wife to the door.

There he was, in all his glory, his bike. And, of course, his son. That smile on Aiden as he stepped off the bike made Father’s grow. Father was elated; he was passing down the same bike he was given to by his own father.

He knew his father would be proud he was keeping the tradition alive.

-.-.

Notice how in these four examples here, we’re sticking with one character, seeing that scene as if through the character’s eyes, one by one.

That’s how you want to think about third-person, 95% of the time.

As if you, the writer, are inside the character’s head, only able to hear, smell, touch and feel what that one character can.

The big question: why do we want to do this? Why shouldn’t we live in everyone’s head?

Because - which of those examples did you enjoy more? The all-four-at-the-same-time POV, or the one by one? If anything, you were able to feel more in the one-by-one. And that’s because you were put right in the character’s shoes to experience what they experience.

That’s the beauty of reading (and writing) - being able to live vicariously through characters.

If we switch from head to head of the characters in the same scene, the moment you settle into one person’s shoes, you’re taken out and put in someone else’s. It’s like someone letting you sit in the driver’s seat of a new car and asking you, “How does this car feel?” As you start to see what you feel, you’re picked up and pushed into a new car, and asked the same question. Naturally you’d respond, “I don’t know what I felt; I was only there for two seconds!” Since that switch happens so often, you never get to settle into it, you never get to relax into it, you never get to sit there long enough to really feel it. Only long enough to get an idea of what that car is like on a more objective level.

In stories written in prose, we want to let the readers sit, feel and settle into that character so they can experience it. Just like you want to feel that car seat and atmosphere, so you can experience the journey of your drives. Not just get to your destination. (AKA, not just list plot point after plot point).

The reason this is just for prose and not script or playwriting is because both scriptwriting and playwriting don’t stay in one character’s head; it’s in all the characters’ heads the whole time. Simply because the script’s job is to tell the director and actors how to show it. If the script says Lisa is jealous, the director and the actress will decide if she crosses her arms or glares.

But, in prose, we (the writers) do the showing. And showing occurs where we show how characters feel. A script is a bit more open for interpretation, but a prose story or a novel is more like a moment captured in time, and we’re just recounting exactly as it happened. It won’t be done a different way; this is it.

It’s vital to write in one character’s POV at a time in order for your reader to not just know what’s happening in your story, but to experience your story. To live through your character. If you don’t stay in one character’s POV at a time, your reader will not be able to feel what your character feels. This makes the difference between a reader simply understanding what’s going on in your story, and actually living vicariously through your characters.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STAYING IN ONE CHARACTER’S POV AT A TIME

I’ll reiterate that this post is not about choosing first or third-person POV. However, to explain what I mean about character POVs, let’s revisit first and third-person POV.

We’ve all heard of the two major narration perspectives in novel writing: first person and third-person. (There’s also second person but less than 0.5% of books are written in that one). To quickly define them:

First-person narration speaks from one person’s mind and perspective as if written like a diary straight from their mouth. It uses I, me, we.

Ex. I walked to school today. Dana didn’t talk to me. Instead I spent the day with Ashley; we walked home together.

Third-person narration speaks as if from an unrelated party that follows the main characters around. It’s like that deep narrator voice that comes on before or after many cartoons and says things like, “Superman has saved the town; now our hero is off to his next adventure.” It uses he, she, they.

Ex. She walked to school today. Dana didn’t talk to her. Instead, she spent the day with Ashley; they walked home together.

(If you’re curious, second-person speaks with you and us and is most often used when writing a letter to someone. Ex. I miss you, do you miss me? Therefore it’s used more rarely in stories as narration, though sometimes this peeks in even in 1st person narration where sometimes the character will address the reader as “you”, as in the narration.)

BUT that’s not all we need to know about character perspectives! There’s something about POVs that people forget or don’t understand about third-person perspective that people usually do with first-person.

To get the most emotional investment, you have to stay in one character’s head at a time, even in third-person.

It’s most obvious in first-person to see when a writer jumps from character to character in the same paragraph, chapter, or book as a whole.

Let me explain:

Ex. I love her. I look at her across from the quad, wanting to tell her. I love him. I see him staring at me from across the quad.

Here the confusion is clear.

First you’re confused because you don’t know what’s going on - those things contradict and don’t make sense next to each other, and somehow later you find that they’re not the same person.

But say we separate it with a line break or making it two chapters:

Ex.

I love her. I look at her from across the quad, wanting to tell her.

.-,-

I love him. I see him staring at me from across the quad.

Here, it makes much more sense. Names would make it even easier to discern, but we get the fact that two people are here.

It is possible to write first-person stories in different characters’ heads, but usually the author will let you know which character is speaking by posting their name before their section or making it very obvious.

But, what I want to talk about here is that we need to do the same thing in third-person perspectives.

In 95% of all writing scenarios in fiction prose, it is essential that you stay in one character’s head at a time (per section, chapter, or the entire story). That 5% of scenarios is for where emotional investment is not as important; think of slapstick humor, or stories where we get the rare chapter that follows the bad guy, say in a spy novel, where the chapter is only there to give us exposition. (That’s not to say you can’t write your story in one head at a time 100% of the time, nor is this to say that you’re wrong if you do not. This is just a more impactful way of writing, so I recommend it, but writing is also art, and therefore I would never come out and tell anyone they are doing it wrong.)

Again: this is for prose, not script or playwriting.

Notice also my mention of: emotional investment.

This is all about connecting your reader to the story in the strongest way possible.

At this point, you might be wondering something like this: “But if I have a scene with two or more characters, and both of them do something vital in a scene, how do I write it just from one of them?”

Have no fear!

There’s two ways around this: one is to write the scene in one person’s POV, and then in the next chapter, backtrack, and write the same thing from the other character’s POV. If both POVs are super vital, this is really great for that. I’ve done this many times, but it’s not viable for every situation. It works best when, say, the characters were in different locations but talking on the phone, and we get to see what both of them were doing and feeling at the same time. Or, if one or both of the characters are hiding a secret or their intentions from the other character, and we want to backtrack so the audience has both points of view. There’s a lot of reasons to do this, and we’ll go over that a little later.

Essentially, you’ll choose one person’s POV for each scene, and there’s a special way to decide on that character, and a special way to factor in the other character’s actions and emotions without a flashback.

The second way around it is to commit to one person’s perspective by deciding whose perspective is the most important to the story.

And if you’re wondering but what about the other characters?, I’ve got tricks for that too.

There are many ways to tell the reader what the other characters are doing, thinking and how those other characters feel without being in their head or perspective.

Sound like witchcraft?

It… kinda is.

But first…

We need to figure out what character’s perspective is the best one to choose, and this is, at least, how I do it.

HOW TO CHOOSE WHICH CHARACTER TO SEE THROUGH

In 95% of prose (that other 5%, again, being more exposition scenes or scenes where it’s not really about emotional investment such as slapstick comedy) we need to choose one character’s POV to follow - one set of eyes to see through at a time. Think of that one character you’re choosing as the camera we’re seeing through. And remember - you can change character POVs throughout your story. Just make sure you make a break in the chapter when you switch, or start a new chapter entirely so that the switch doesn’t confuse your readers.

But here’s the million dollar question—how do you choose which character to see through?

That is entirely up to you, the writer.

There’s a few ways you can decide.

The best way to decide which character POV to use is which character is most essential and interesting to see through?

That entirely depends on what is going on in your story and what matters to you.

For example, if the story is about how Aiden goes off to be this champion of motorcycle racing, about his struggles and journey to win the pride of his father, then we probably want to see things through Aiden’s point of view, feel his pride, etc.

But what if this story is about Lisa? What if Lisa wants to gain her father’s pride, and this moment with Aiden showing off makes her determined enough to go out and get her own license and race against him, winning the race and her father in the end? This chapter from Aiden’s POV doesn’t make sense anymore then. The story is about Lisa, and this is a pivotal moment where she gains enough fire to spur her into action.

But what if the main character is the father? And this is the moment where his son is beginning to set after the dream he’s always wanted for himself? And the story is about how the father bonds with his son in the way he never did with his own father, achieving a goal he never could himself? In that case, this scene doesn’t make sense in Aiden’s nor Lisa’s POV.

But what if the mother is the main character? What if the story is about how the mother lost a sibling to a motorcycle accident, and now her son’s dream is to race them of all things, so she sets out to try to stop him from following his dream by sabotaging the championship, and perhaps her relationship with him and her whole family in the process, leading her to have to make a very crucial decision in the climax? In that case, again, no one’s POV makes more sense than hers.

See how it totally matters on the context?

But, what if the story has two main characters? And you want to spend time with both of them because they both are interesting and essential to see through? What if it’s a sibling rivalry between Aiden and Lisa, and both are important to the story? How do you choose which character’s perspective to take for a scene they’re both in?

I fall into this trap all the time. Often I have more than two characters I want to use for the scene I’m writing. So, how do I choose which POV to take?

If they’re all essential in the scene, then move onto who is the most interesting in this moment? No matter what, someone will be.

Let’s take the example where Aiden and his father have the father’s storyline - where the father wants the son to win a race he lost as a kid.

They’re both main characters who will bond in the story. But in this moment, who is more interesting to experience this moment through? The same way you’d think about what outfit you want to wear today, think of your character POV. Which character seems like more fun to write right now? Which one fits the mood? The theme? Whose thoughts and feelings do we learn from more in this moment? Which character is more emotionally invested?

Well, I think this is the beginning of the story, and later Aiden will learn that his father is trying to live through him rather than support him. But he doesn’t know that in the beginning. So, Aiden’s simply happy. But his father is witnessing the beginning of a second chance. I think I’d take the father’s POV. There’s just more to work with there, and I feel an emotional weight with the father - I’m more interested in the story from that perspective. Basically, I have more to work with and draw on with the father, due to the emotional baggage he has and the ulterior motive. Aiden’s story is a bit more one-dimensional at that point, if we’re going with this context for the story. So I just simply have more pieces to play with with the father, and it’s much more interesting (at least to me).

And if you’re torn on which character to choose, do what I did earlier— write the scene out in each character’s POV separately. You’ll know which ones are more fun to write cause they’ll feel good. They’ll feel right. The ones that aren’t right will be shorter and harder to write. For me, that was the mother. I didn’t feel very interested in her part of the scene. That’s how you narrow them down.

There will never be a tie.

Someone will win.

And again—even if it ever does get close to a 50/50 split between characters, you can always backtrack. We’ll talk about that later.

HOW TO SAY WHAT OTHER CHARACTERS ARE DOING AND FEELING THROUGH ONE CHARACTER’S POV

So you’re probably thinking to yourself that if you have to stay in one character’s head at a time, everyone else’s thoughts and feelings and POVs are going to fall off the face of the earth, right? Actually, that doesn’t have to happen!

You can tell the reader what other characters are thinking and feeling even when you’re staying in one character’s head at a time.

This is not as hard as it might seem.

The best way to think about this is to think about how you would describe people sitting in a room with you.

Say you’re in a waiting room at the DMV. There’s two people waiting beside you: a man and a woman.

Now if someone asked you what the man was feeling, would you be able to say, “He had his license taken away and was nervous he wouldn’t get it back”?

Of course not!

He’s a stranger. And unless he says these words out loud, we have no idea what he’s feeling or thinking. And we certainly can’t literally feel what he’s feeling.

What we need to do is infer.

We can infer what he’s feeling. If someone is crying, they’re probably upset about something. If someone is tense, they’re probably nervous. If they’re holding a bridal magazine, they’re probably getting married. Do we know this for sure? Of course not. But this is as far as we can get to knowing those people around us, because we are in our own head, and we cannot go into someone else’s.

So, put your main character—let’s call him Jack—in this waiting room. If we have this guy sitting next to him in the waiting room, and he’s all tense, not even leaning back into the chair, and very uptight, what can we infer? The man beside Jack looks like a deer in headlights. He seems to be nervous about something.

The word seems (or synonyms of it) will be your friend.

Because if instead we say “The man beside Jack is nervous,” we don’t actually know that. We’re inferring based on what we see. Remember: we only see and feel through one character.

Let’s take the woman.

There’s a woman waiting next to Jack. The woman is dressed to the nines, and briefly Jack realizes her purse must cost more than his whole apartment. She’s inspecting perfectly manicured nails as if looking for a flaw. She seems to think she’s better than this place.

More inferring. We’re taking what we see the woman wearing to give her the beginning of a personality, the beginning of us trying to understand what she could be thinking and feeling.

Doesn’t mean we can’t do this:

The woman dials a number on her phone, telling the person on the other line, “Yeah, I’m still waiting. … Look, I don’t know why I had to go and get these stupid clothes and manicure. I hate these nails. I can’t wait to get them off.”

Now we have a totally different personality. Our character was wrong about this woman. You can also show what other characters think and feel through dialogue, just like in the example with the woman on the phone.

This is where we get clever.

Just like what I did with the woman on the phone call, you—the writer—can come up with ways for the main character you’re seeing through to learn what the other characters are thinking and feeling. Using actions or things the other characters do or say, such as talking to our MC or someone else and saying things about what they’re thinking or feeling, or facial expressions, to help denote what they’re feeling.

This is an example of not staying in Jack’s head:

Jack looked over and saw a woman dressed to the nines. She seemed like she didn’t think she belonged here with the rest of them.

The woman, Sandra, hated that she had to come here. She was missing an important appointment with a divorce attorney, and she was nervous about it.

Across the room, Jared, a teenager was anxiously waiting to hear about the state of his license. He didn’t want to lose it for a dumb mistake; his parents were going to kill him.

Jack’s name was called, and he got up.

Here’s the same thing in Jack’s head:

The earlier examples of just staying in Jack’s head helped to keep us grounded in him more; this way around feels very surface-y.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU WANT TO GIVE MORE THAN ONE CHARACTER POV IN THE SAME SECTION

The first option you can choose is what I mentioned earlier; you can just do the same section twice, from both perspectives. I’ve used this for phone conversations a lot, to show what was happening on the other side of the line:

Damien shook his head to himself, sitting alone at the restaurant his brother was supposed to meet him at an hour ago. He dialed his number and waited as it rang.

“Hello?”

Damien’s brows kneaded at his brother’s voice; he sounded weird.

“Jack?” asked Damien. “Where are you? You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” he said, the accusation falling heavily.

There was a pause from the other line, and Damien’s anger was traded for suspicion… and concern. But before he could ask, Jack said hollowly, “I’m… in a little pickle, here. Can you come pick me up?”

Damien sighed, signaling for the waitress to bring the check for the drink he ordered. “Why?” he asked Jack, already knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer; his reckless little brother tended to get into these “pickles” often. “What did you do now?” he asked with an exasperated sigh.

Now, let’s see what was happening on the other line:

Jack’s phone suddenly rang; it was Damien.

Uh oh; his brother was going to kill him for being late.

Jack reluctantly picked up the call, panting hard from where he was stuck under the ladder that fell on him two hours ago. “Hello?” he coughed out.

“Jack?” came the confused voice on the other line. It was his brother; Damien. “Where are you? You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

Jack winced, trying and failing to free himself from the ladder pinning him down. “I’m… in a little pickle, here. Can you come pick me up?”

“Why?” asked Damien, but Jack could already hear suspicion in his tone. Then, an exasperated sigh. “What did you do now?”

If we kept this in the same scene, we miss the emotion, and we also miss the mystery. I, personally, love the fact that if the Damien perspective comes first, we don’t know what’s wrong with Jack yet, and we’re confused along with Damien.

Also notice things in this like “Jack could already hear suspicion in his tone.” This is another way you can be in Jack’s perspective, but tell us how Damien’s feeling. He hears suspicion in his brother’s voice, rather than coming out and saying Damien is suspicious. Or, Jack hears an exasperated sigh from Damien, rather than saying Damien is exasperated.

Plus, you can also have the characters simply just assume what the other is thinking or feeling. That’s such a human thing to do, and it makes your narration feel even more relatable.

This same technique works even if we don’t have a phone conversation in separate locations, and instead just want to see both perspectives so that we the reader have the whole picture, even if the characters themselves are still stuck inferring.

There’s a bunch of ways to do this, and relying on inferring things about the other characters is really key. When you only see through one character at a time, it’s all about what that character thinks about the other characters, what they assume, what they suspect. But that makes the story even more interesting and clever in its own right, because when the reader isn’t entirely sure what’s going on either (in a suspenseful way), it makes the story that much more satisfying. Even if the main character draws wrong conclusions and then later realizes they’re wrong. There’s so much room for interest and character development.

So, you don’t have to write this way; you can feel free to continue writing in all the characters’ heads at a time.

But if you do want to keep readers even more engaged, to really get them emotionally invested and allow them to live vicariously through your story, then I really do recommend trying this on for size. :)

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