The Price of Multiple Narrators

At Bouchercon this weekend, my editor Juliet Grames was on a panel of editors, agents, and marketing people in the publishing business. At the very end, someone asked her what made her love a manuscript. She said:

1. A single narrator.

2. No serial killers.

3. No pov from the villain.

4. Characters.

5. A hook

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that she agreed with me about single narrators, but it’s long been one of the reasons I tend to prefer YA fantasy and sf over adult fantasy and sf. Maybe this makes me shallow, but I don’t like head hopping.

Why not?

I like to get to know a narrator really, really well. This is impossible if I’m constantly being interrupted by other narrators. Sure, you can say this makes me simple because the more complex political stories require multiple narrators.

But guess what? I think a really good writer can tell a story of the same complexity with a single narrator as someone who writes multiple povs. A really great single narrator is going to have contact and conversations with lots of different people. And those different people can present their own pov, with the narrator having to respond to it. I love this. I love characters who are forced to deal with people who disagree fundamentally with them.

The problem with head hopping is that every time you change narrators, there’s a chance I’m going to close the book because I don’t like the new narrator. Yeah, again, call me shallow because I need to like a narrator. I don’t mean like-like, though. I mean, find this narrator fascinating enough to spend time with. And yes, brilliant writers (George R. R. Martin comes to mind) can still make me love every single narrator. And yet I still sometimes want to throw his books across the room because they play with me and refuse to give me closure. I like closure. Sue me.

I don’t really think that you have to do this one way or another to be a good writer. I’ve certainly written books with multiple povs. Let me tell you, though, they are not my most popular. I love first person when it’s done right, but I can also love third just as much. Just think about this when you’re writing. Is it really necessary to change povs? And is it worth the cost in reader investment in the story? Am I sure they aren’t going to close the book and go to bed instead of reading another chapter?