After many life interruptions and various artistic attention shifts (music and illustration), I’m back to working on my Thriller Novel “Cadaver Dog”. This time though, I’m rewriting the bulk of it from multiple POVs. Wby? you might ask. Because I’ve learned to appreciate how the practice can enhance story telling.
A bigger world with more characters than before.
Normally, when I write, it’s by telling stories through the Point of View of the Protagonist alone, or both the Protagonist and Antagonist characters. Cadaver Dog is a larger piece then my past works, it’s a much bigger world with many more characters with intersecting subplots and such. So, I figured, to represent this bigger world and present a broader view of the story and the complex dimensions of the characters involved, a multiple POV structured approach would best suit this novel.
As a reader, when a book is written from Multiple POVs I always feel like I’m in on everybody’s dirt. I like knowing what characters think about each while they themselves are in the dark. So, when Character A is acting weird around Character B, and Character B has no clue as to why, it puts a certain kind of gossipy-joy in my heart to know that Why. Reading characters trying to hide things from each other adds an amplified kind of suspense to a scene when you know what they’re trying to hide, and you’re waiting to see if anyone will slip up and expose themselves, or by chance, they figure out what the other is hiding.
With what I’ve rewritten so far, I already feel that kind of energy spreading throughout the story. Having to write out how my characters feel about the main character and each other, and not just “knowing” how they feel, because I’m the creator, is very liberating. More of the characters are coming to life and starting to do things on their own as they lead their individual scenes.
Also, seeing the Antagonist and Protagonist directly from eyes of the supporting cast really highlights their character flaws. Seeing how they behave towards others, without being in their heads, has been an eye opening experience.
I can definitely see myself using this structure a lot more in the future. It’s a lot of fun.
Until next time…
scribereglyph 