I’ve never really been a fan of writing in first person. Though I don’t mind reading books that follow this style, I’ve always found it a little self indulgent. Perhaps I’m the type of storyteller who watches my characters from afar and writes, rather than actually becoming the lead hero or heroine in a tale. Writing in such a way allows me to follow several characters within a single book, which offers all sorts of freedom, and difficulties. Having now started the second Inside Evil novel, I’ve been struggling slightly with which Point of Views (POVs) to explore.

The first draft of Inside Evil was fairly disorganised, with several POVs inter-tangled. Eventually, Roberta Arlington, Karl Frans and Susan Lingly became the main focus, and the book developed particularly well from these view points. In book two, heroine Roberta remains, whilst I love writing scenes with Susan and Martha Wittle, so again, Susan stayed. My struggle began when thinking about how to involve both Karl and Sam Carter to the story. Having both been important characters who played their parts in helping Roberta, it was vital for their stories to continue in some way.  Having had Karl’s POV in Inside Evil, it seems only obvious to continue this thread, but then, I wanted to develop Sam. However, the logistics of the story pretty much mean that Sam is isolated from the other groups and needs to forge his own path.

So, Sam has become a POV for the second novel in the series, with Karl’s future still in doubt. As many characters often do, Sam is already proving that it was the right decision and has already started to forge his story across my computer screen. But it leaves me with the question…do I increase POVs to four by including Karl, or does the incompetent detective simply become a secondary character for the time being? Will this irritate readers?

Time will only tell, and as the book progresses, I’m sure Karl will start being difficult if he’s not happy with taking a back seat on this one. In the meantime, I better get back to seeing what Sam has in store for me.