A narrative structure that tells the story through two or more point-of-view characters, each bringing their own perspective, knowledge, and emotional experience.
Multiple POV structure is a way of organizing a story so that different sections are narrated from or focused on different characters' perspectives. Each POV character becomes a lens through which the reader experiences the events, and the interplay between their different perceptions, knowledge, and biases creates a richer, more complex narrative than any single perspective could achieve. The structure can alternate between POVs chapter by chapter, section by section, or even scene by scene. The key is that each perspective genuinely adds something the others cannot.
Multiple POV structure lets you show the full complexity of your story's world. A single narrator can only be in one place, know certain things, and interpret events through one set of biases. With multiple POVs, you can build dramatic irony (the reader knows things individual characters do not), create empathy for opposing sides, and reveal the same events from angles that complicate simple interpretations. It is one of the most versatile structural tools in fiction, and mastering it opens up stories that simply cannot be told from a single perspective.
The gold standard for multi-POV fantasy. Each chapter is told through a specific character's perspective, and characters on opposing sides of the conflict both feel sympathetic because the reader has lived inside their heads.
The alternating POVs between Nick and Amy create a devastating unreliable narrator effect. The reader trusts both perspectives until the structure itself reveals that trust was misplaced.
The alternating perspectives between Connell and Marianne show how two people in the same relationship can experience it in completely different ways, creating aching dramatic irony.
Five women in the same family narrate their experience in the Congo, and their wildly different perspectives on the same events reveal character, theme, and colonialism's impact simultaneously.
Every POV character should offer something the others cannot: unique information, a contrasting worldview, or access to scenes the other characters are not in. If two POVs feel interchangeable, merge them into one.
Each POV character needs a distinct way of seeing and describing the world. If you cover the character's name at the top of a chapter and cannot tell whose perspective you are in, the voices need more differentiation.
Readers will start skipping chapters if one POV is less compelling. Give every POV character their own stakes, their own mysteries, and their own reasons the reader should care about their sections.
If you cut away from a POV character right before a crucial moment and pick up the aftermath in another character's perspective, it can feel like a cheat. Make sure POV switches serve the reader's experience, not the writer's convenience.
Write the same scene from two different characters' perspectives, each in 300 words. Choose a scene with emotional stakes: a breakup, an argument, a shared meal after bad news. Make each version reveal something the other misses or misinterprets. Pay special attention to voice: each character should notice different details, use different vocabulary, and interpret the other person's behavior through their own biases.