Is more than one narrative totally necessary to your story? Bestselling author Elle Marr shares how—and why—to write a novel with two or more narratives.
Two is better than one. So say your kidneys, Noah’s ark, buy-one-get-one sales, and anyone who has ever searched for earplugs in the middle of the night. But is it always?
(Giving Readers What They Need)
Once I figure out a new story to write, I consider the best ways to present it to the reader. For my books, that means including more than one narrative—maybe more than two. My recently released thriller The Family Bones has—*deep breath*—four narratives, if we’re counting the journal entries written by someone close to my family of psychopaths, the Eriksens; the newspaper articles which document the crimes committed by the more socially deviant Eriksens; a true crime podcaster’s perspective; and my heroine who is studying psychology in graduate school.
Although a work of fiction, and thereby open to limitless possibilities, The Family Bones is a story told through these points of view for very specific reasons.
My Characters Made Me Do It
I did not set out to use multiple perspectives for this book. In fact, the first draft of The Family Bones only explored what happened when a family reunion of psychopaths—more specifically, a related group of people presenting with Antisocial Personality Disorder in certain variations, across several generations—goes horribly wrong in the mountains of eastern Oregon.
It was only after I finished the story that I realized something was missing: a foil to highlight Olivia Eriksen’s struggle, my Psychology doctoral candidate who is desperate to speak with her neurotypical grandfather about previous crimes committed by her relatives. Enter my true crime podcaster, Birdie Tan, who obsesses over cold cases that the media missed. I knew then that I had a cat-and-mouse dynamic worthy of following for a few hundred pages.
Codependence Works
At first glance, someone reading The Family Bones does not know how newspaper articles, journal entries, a Psychology PhD student, and a true crime podcaster are related—but [SPOILER] they are. And, maybe more importantly, they offer the reader greater insight into the world of the Eriksens, of modern true crime and armchair detectives, that helps orient the reader. Your purpose in including multiple points of view can offer a variety of benefits: new information around an event, a means of skirting the secrets of a story without revealing them too soon, a different interpretation of a pivotal moment, or the Big Idea you hope the reader leaves with as the final takeaway from your story.
However, if you’re considering including two or more narratives, I argue that the storylines must complement each other, regardless of whether they ultimately intersect. The best stories featuring two narratives have an inter-dependence between them that is satisfying for the reader, all the way to the final page. If the two narratives you envision don’t correlate or complement one another, they might be better off as two separate books.
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The Edit Machete
Although I am guilty of indulging my sweetest book ideas until the bitter end, once I realize the mistake, the edit machete comes down hard and swift on my manuscripts. Picasso said, “Art is the elimination of what’s unnecessary.”
Are two narratives for your story really necessary? Do they both serve your story in unique ways? Can one narrative be told in another way, or as a sub-plot from the primary point of view in a way that would better enhance the reader’s experience? These are essential questions to pose before anyone gets too attached—killing a darling when an author is not emotionally ready for the goodbye is a predicament I don’t wish on any creative.
If these queries lead you to remove a narrative, my advice is to stop what you’re drafting and commence the CTRL + F sequence to rid your manuscript of the unwanted POV. The longer it stays in, the harder it can be to separate the good content you want in your story—from the macheted.
While writing The Family Bones, I definitely had a moment where I wondered if a certain perspective and storytelling device was helping or hindering my story. After an angst-filled weekend where I considered revising a significant portion of my book, I compromised with myself and removed a smaller perspective that wasn’t serving the overall narrative. In this case, I didn’t so much “kill” a darling, but maim them—so they could later run.
Despite all of this back and forth, when debating whether to include two or more narratives, the answer should always boil down to the most important experience we as writers must consider: the reader’s.
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