A Trick For Editing Multiple Point-of-View Manuscripts — That Only Sometimes Works

Back in 2020, I started writing this space fantasy — or space fairytale? Whichever. It took me two attempts, but I finished it back at the end of November.

My plan was to edit 20k a month until I was done, but that didn’t go so well. I hit April with barely 16,000 words edited in total. April’s Camp NaNo is going much better for me, and part of that is I decided to switch up how I was editing my manuscript.

What tip (or trick) helped me?

Edit A Single Point-Of-View All The Way Through

Instead of bouncing between characters — with different voices, motivations, and storylines, I stuck with one character and pushed forward.

And it worked! I made a lot of progress.

Until… it stopped working.

Why It Only Sometimes Works

Well, my favorite part of a multiple point-of-view story is when everything starts to come together. And? My main character’s storyline interweaves with each of the other characters at different points — which means some of the scenes she’s in are told by the other point-of-view character.

It’s a little harder to skip the other chapters when they move the main character’s plotline forward.

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Oh well, at least it worked for a while? My plan right now is to push through, and then maybe do a full read-through at the end, bouncing between all the characters.

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Have you edited a multi-point-of-view manuscript? Did you go through in story order, each character at a time, or something else entirely?