Monday, 4 March 2013

Creating Different Character Threads to Form a Tapestry

How often have you been engrossed in an exciting part of a book only for the chapter to end, then when you start the next chapter you find the author has moved to a different character altogether?

This shifting of a novel’s emphasis is one of the many tools in an author’s armoury. It allows the author to create a cliff-hanger or two keeping the pages turning. 

Character threads don’t have to be about the hero, victim or villain. Sometimes they can be of a minor character that has an important piece of information or sub-plot to share with readers. 

These different threads can also be used to help with the ebb and flow of a novel and with the aforementioned cliff-hangers, are a great way of building a tension over a large amount of the novel. 

The best example of a book which uses this technique is the second installment of Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers). Tolkien tells the reader three separate stories by interspersing the action between various characters that had been split up at the end of book one.

Authors may also use varying points of view between chapters to add different perspectives to the same thread or multiple threads. Matt Hilton (next week’s guest blogger) writes his main character in a first person POV and all others in a third person. This lets him have different threads while retaining the urgency of first person point of view. 

When you analyse books as I do (I’m always trying to learn) then you can see the mechanics better and I cannot think offhand of many authors who continually write with just one character thread.
Any suggestions would be welcome.
P.S. It's Crime and Publishment this weekend. We still have a place or two available if anyone wants to attend.


  1. I suspect that any author writing exclusively in the first person would only have one character thread......Robert B Parker's Spenser novels. Charles Dickens and er
    In the third person omniscient, you can of course, pop over to the villain's lair to see what he's up to

  2. Sure, Graham. A single character thread is like a burger without the bun (or mustard or catsup or fries). All those accoutrements comprise what we call the universe the character inhabits, his world if you will. Without those threads the protagonist simply moves through Flatland, a one dimensional place. I'm 50/50 on the insertion of completely different styles of pov (suddenly an omniscent voice appears in a chapter opening paragraph rather than the limited pov of the narrative) for the sake of explaining what happened to generate a series of events in a novel. James Lee Burke has been doing this recently in his Dave Robicheaux series which seems to me to be Burke's way of loafing.

  3. Though a single character thread is far more realistic....that's how we all experience life. I prefer it to the omniscient author who sees inside everyone's head.

  4. Good post, Graham. I like a story to flow from different POV's, but not necessarily from different 'real/human' characters. It could be a chapter about a derelict building, a prison/police cell or a secluded beach, etc, but the chapter will also have a purpose in the story and it also gives the reader a break from the main character.

    I, personally, don't think there is any right or wrong way to do it. If you write a story that flows and grips the reader, does it matter if it's one character's POV all the way through or half a dozen??

    God read, Mr Smith.

  5. No, it doesn't matter, Dave. Like you say, as long as the story is gripping then all's good. AJ sums it up well with his bun 'n' burger comparison. I don't use first person much because I feel too restricted, but it can be useful, especially in short stories. I agree that Matt's nailed it with his switching of POV, and found an effective balance. It's my preferred approach, as you can use always use it to let the reader know about a little nugget of info that the protag' doesn't know - e.g. "No, don't go in there!" Like Andrew, I prefer the omniscient, all seeing POV best, but as long as it works...

    Good post, mate.

  6. Thanks for commenting guys.

    There is no right or wrong for me as long as the story works. Lee Child and Ian Fleming write in first person and close third person respectively and have very few separate character threads if any. However I suspect that it is much more technically difficult to build and maintain tension with a single thread than it is with multiple threads which allow the author to dangle the reader with a change of thread.
    Having said that, the story is the be all and end of what we're about so if it doesn't work then no amount of threads can rescue it.

  7. I found a needed a second POV character as otherwise it was all *way* too dark and gloomy! A lighter subplot was a good contrast and gave the reader a bit of breathing space before the next onslaught.