Dual POV in middle grade

The Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimaeus Trilogy) is told in alternating POVs: in first from one character and in third from a second character.

The Kane Chronicles trilogy by Rick Riordan has dual POV-- brother and sister, too! Also a big contrast in their voices-- they were raised separately and in different countries, so they have a different "accent" as well as a different 1st person voice.

They are really fun books. First one is The Red Pyramid. Check it out!

The one I just sold has dual POV (3rd limited, so not quiet 1st but pretty close) and while that's of no use to you right now I'm happy to chat about it with you and maybe we can help each other out (I have at least 2 more books in this series to write with the same thing and I found it quite a challenge).

The Wanderer by Sharon Creech is also dual POV. I think it's probably really challenging to get the different voices and tones right, but there are also a lot of benefits. In The Wanderer, it allows you to see what each character is leaving out of the story. Best of luck!

Well I also wrote my YA with three POVs (again third limited) and I think the challenge for me is making sure that each character gets equal air time, if that makes sense. It almost becomes like a math equation, trying to keep track who's POV we've spent more time in and who's we need to beef up.

But the hardest thing I've found is when the characters are in the same scene. How do you decide which POV is the right one? I've actually had to re-write scenes and change the POV because it ended up not being right. So I guess any advice I can offer is don't be too married to the POV you choose in the moment, and be willing to be flexible. I know my own stubbornness has held my writing back before .

What about you? What challenges are you facing?

Toothpaste said:

But the hardest thing I've found is when the characters are in the same scene. How do you decide which POV is the right one?

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I write some YA with alternate POVs, and I often run into this problem. Most of the time, my brain comes up with the natural POV on its own, but there are times I'll have to reevaluate. I'm a little at odds with myself about it. Sometimes, I want to use the POV of the person with the greatest emotional investment in the scene because I want to show that from inside her head... other times, though, you can get more impact from showing someone's emotion through another character's eyes... so yeah, it's a process, I guess.

A nice thing about having the POV characters in the same scene is that the one you choose can comment on the other. You can get some nice insights that way.

I'm so glad I found this thread, even though it's been around awhile.

Does anyone think it's advisable or would be interesting to have this dual POV if it involved two brothers and one was older and they were separated? That's what I'm currently working on, but it's been very difficult to figure out exactly how to tell the story and keep it MG. That's why I came up with the dual POV idea for it. The older brother is going to have such a different perspective of what's going on in the world from that of the younger.

I'm not sure I can pull it off, but if the consensus is that it's a wash, I won't bother.

Thanks for any input and opinions.

Is the older brother older than the MG age range? If he isn't I don't see it being a problem. However I think if they are both protagonists but one is older than the MG age range that could be an issue. You need to ask yourself why you want to tell this story this way, and why you want it to be MG as opposed to any other genre. Also you should ask yourself who your readers are, will they relate or even be interested in the POV of an older character? And I will say personally when I was a MG reader, I had little interest in older characters because I just couldn't relate. Even a teenager seemed uber old to me, almost adult (I remember as a pre-teen feeling uncomfortable reading SEVENTEEN magazine. Not because of the content, it was the same as so many other magazines of its ilk which I happily read, but because of its title. Seventeen just sounded SO old.

This isn't to say an older POV can't work, it's just going to be more of a challenge.

Thanks so much, Toothpaste. And I apologize. It isn't my intent to sabotage your thread, Shandylous; I'm just curious, too, because I'm looking at the same situation.