Choosing a Viewpoint Character

In most cases, the viewpoint character of a novel (the one whose eyes we witness the events through) is the same person as the novel's protagonist (the central character, or the one the whole novel is "about").

(You will find an article on choosing the protagonist in the section on Creating Characters. For most novels, though, the choice is an obvious one. In fact, the central character is often the spark that ignites the novel in the first place.)

And so, given that you know who your novel's protagonist is, and given that the protagonist is also the viewpoint character in most novels, the question of who to choose as a viewpoint character has conveniently resolved itself.

Well, mostly...

There is still the issue of choosing viewpoint characters who are not the novel's protagonist.

There are two circumstances under which lesser characters - that is, non-protagonists - will become pov characters...

1. In a Multiple Viewpoint Novel - that is, novels in which more than one character is a viewpoint character.
2. When you use a First Person "Observer" as a narrator - which isn't nearly as complicated as it might sound.

Let's look at them one by one...

1. Multiple Viewpoint Novels

It is possible to write a Multiple Viewpoint Novel in which every pov character is of equal importance - meaning all of them are protagonists.

• You could write a boy-meets-girl novel, for example, told from both the boy's and the girl's viewpoints equally.
• Or you could write an ensemble piece, told from perhaps a dozen viewpoints, in which each viewpoint character's story is of more or less equal importance - a murder-mystery novel, for example, told from the viewpoints of the twelve suspects.

But in most multiple viewpoint novels, you have the novel's protagonist, who gets to be the pov character in most of the chapters (not least the opening and closing ones), with the remaining chapters being told by one or more of the lesser characters.

The question is: Which of your lesser characters should you choose to be a viewpoint character?

And the answer is this: only those characters who have an interesting mini-story to tell, one which sits comfortably within the main story and adds an extra dimension to it.

So suppose you are writing a detective novel and you can't decide whether to tell it solely from the detective's point or view, or to give the detective's sidekick some chapters in which to be in the spotlight...

• If the sidekick has no role in the novel other than to act as a foil to the detective, don't make them a viewpoint character. They are not interesting or important enough.
• But if you make the sidekick Muslim, say, and if he is on the receiving end of racism at work, and if the murder is racially motivated, then, yes, the sidekick's mini-story would certainly be interesting enough to weave into the fabric of the main story.

2. Using an "Observer" Narrator

The second circumstance under which lesser characters can become viewpoint characters is in novels using a "displaced" or "observer" narrator.

I actually referred to this earlier in this section, when I talked about the Sherlock Holmes novels being told not by Holmes but by Doctor Watson.

Holmes is clearly the protagonist of those novels, but it is through Watson's eyes that we see the events unfold.

Under what circumstances should you consider using a Watson-type character as your pov character?

If your novel's protagonist, like Sherlock Holmes, is too big, too mysterious, too brilliant - too anything to really connect with the readers then one solution can be to tell the novel instead from the point of view of somebody more ordinary - somebody more like Doctor Watson, somebody more like the readers.

Next Step...

I will be talking much more about "observer narrators" in this article: First Person Narration Using an Observer.

But right now it is time to look in detail at Multiple Viewpoint Novels...