Creating a Multi-POV Outline

I recently finished a rough outline for my new multi-POV YA novel, and it was tons of fun!

I’ve never written a truly multi-POV book before, and I was new to the challenges of outlining one. I had to consider not only what order events should unfold in, and how they should lead into each other, and all that, but I also had to consider which POV to show them from. At first I flailed a bit, but then I found a method that not only worked well for me, but turned it into kind of a fun logic puzzle which served to draw ideas together to form scenes that would carry more punch than those ideas would have separately.

I am SO not an expert at this, but nonetheless, I hereby share this method with you in case it’s useful to anyone.

For each arc or section of the book (around 5-7 chapters’ worth), I made lists of the following:

Events that Need to Happen – The key points that formed the backbone of the arc, and that absolutely had to happen in this section.

Perspectives I Need/Could Use – Characters who I should definitely use as POV characters at some point in the section, either because what was happening was particularly important to them, or because they were at a key point in their own internal arc regardless of what the main plot points were, or just because we hadn’t seen them in a while.

Relationships I Need to Develop – This might be romances blooming, friendships strengthening, enemies turning on each other, familial relationships that needed establishing, etc. Any relationship I needed to establish, strengthen, or change around this point in the book, whether it seemed to tie into the plot arc or not.

Things that COULD Happen but Don’t Need To – This was often a wonderfully fruitful list. Some items were things from my original sketchy outline that could happen here or elsewhere; others were new things I brainstormed on the spot; others might be ideas I’d originally had but wasn’t sure about anymore. I could draw scene ideas from here that combined well with the relationships, perspectives, or events in the previous categories, or I could send ideas here to die if they didn’t fit in anymore. It gave me freedom to brainstorm and be creative without feeling like whatever I put in this list was canon.

I had a fifth heading at the bottom of the page: Scenes This All Suggests. By the time I was done filling up the previous four lists, usually there were some clear combinations and clumps forming, where a needed POV fit perfectly with a needed plot event and a relationship I had to develop. (For a made-up example, I might go “Hey, I need ninjas to attack and kidnap Hubert, and I also need to establish romantic attraction between him and Bessie, so I can have the kidnapping scene be from her POV so she’s all worried about him and we know she likes him!”)

I found the lists made it easy to look at the elements of my developing story, moving them around and recombining them like Legos. Seeing the lists right there next to each other helped my brain make connections, and often I’d wind up excitedly brainstorming new scenes right there in my notes as I thought of cool ways to combine things to increase dramatic tension or add layers to a scene.

It was a lot of fun, and turned the outline from a messy tangle I couldn’t get a grip on to something I could understand and manipulate much more easily!

I’d love to hear from others who’ve written multi-POV. How did you handle the planning stage?