So what is a point of view? The point of view in a book is the perspective of the character telling it. The most common are a first person POV, where a character is telling the story him or herself, or an omniscient point of view, where we have an unseen narrator.
The one thing that I absolutely loved when I started reading romance novels was how we, at least 95% of the time, were given dual point of views. Meaning some chapters are told from once character’s POV and other chapters from another. And these are almost always and only the main 2 characters.
I think it adds so much to be able to hear the voices of both our main characters as they find themselves and each other. Of course, there are some authors who can pull off one point of view while still developing the love connection flawlessly (I’m looking at you, Donna Augustine).
But what about when an author adds a few other voices to the mix? In particular, the villain. I’ve never read a story with a villain’s POV where I thought it was 1) needed and 2) appreciated.
I think villains are so hard to write to begin with (so flawed, selfish and unlikable). So adding their warped mind to the mix might hurt the story rather than help. When a villain exists in a story, there is generally a mystery involved …possibly a “who done it” scenario. Seeing his/her perspective takes some, sometimes all, of that mystery away and has us now focused on that person and his/her motivations rather than the main characters.
The surprise factor of finding out who the villain is adds to the appeal of a story. And adding the villain's POV can create a much more predictable plot.
I really hate that hard stop when a villain's POV is introduced and it’s not uncommon for me to just skim over these chapters rather than giving them my full attention.
What do you think?
