Hello my beloved welcome back 🫶

I will give you a quick (“quick”) breakdown of a handful of my fics re: which POV I chose and why. Spoilers for when someday comes, racehorse, bone sick, and sticky butter.

Fic: When Someday Comes

POV: singular, Seungmin’s

Reasoning: WSC is about Seungmin going to Seoul as a young adult because he believes he may have been kidnapped from there as a child. He wants to see what his life would've been like had he never left before he starts the next chapter of his life (college, adulthood). While there, he meets regular guy/college student Minho, who takes Seungmin under his wing.

If we consider the questions from my last response, Seungmin is by far the character who has the most to learn both internally and externally. He doesn't actually know if he was kidnapped; what to do about his suspicions; what to do with his life; who he is at all; and he doesn't know anything about Seoul; the lifestyle there; etc. The only thing Minho has to learn is who Seungmin is, but even Seungmin doesn't really know who Seungmin is. Therefore, Minho's POV doesn't add anything to the narrative that we can't also get from Seungmin.

Fic: Racehorse

POV: singular, Hyunjin's

Reasoning: Racehorse follows childhood BFFs Hyunjin and Minho's relationship throughout different periods in their lives. It explores how they navigate their codependency, sexualities, careers, and other problems they encounter that bring them closer, pull them apart, and bring them closer again.

In this one, we can consider character motivations. Minho believes a romantic relationship with Hyunjin is impossible for various reasons, so he spends a lot of the story trying to separate himself from Hyunjin so he can get over his feelings. His motivations: get over the crush, move on, find someone new.

Hyunjin, however, spends much of the story trying to reel Minho back in, and he makes some crazy decisions to accomplish that (losing his virginity in a threesome and sending a pic of that to Minho unprompted/as his way of coming out....damn). His motivations: do whatever it takes to keep Minho around.

Between the two, Hyunjin's motivations are more likely to push the narrative forward because he's seeking out the relationship, whereas Minho is trying to avoid it. Since their romance is endgame and a central focus, it makes more sense for us to be in Hyunjin's head than in Minho's, as Hyunjin is the one pushing us toward our endgame. Additionally, there are a few instances where Minho is keeping secrets not only from Hyunjin, but from the audience. If we were in his head, it would be more difficult for these secrets to serve as a plot twist. Hyunjin has secrets from Minho, but not from the audience. His secrets serve more as a source of tension and dread for the audience, but not surprise. As such, his head is safe to be in because he doesn't need to conceal anything from the audience the way Minho does.

Fic: Bone Sick

POV: dual, Felix and Chan's

Reasoning: Bone Sick is about Felix and Chan, who both find themselves stuck in their hometown after having failed to accomplish their dreams. Now, they have to figure out the best way to move forward.

For this fic, we can look at the central themes I wanted to explore here, which include: how to move forward when you don't live up to your own expectations; creating new dreams once your original dreams are no longer possible; guilt; shame; and forgiveness.

Both Felix and Chan have backstories that support these themes. Felix had plans to move away from his hometown and live a grand life with his partner. But, his partner died and he blames himself for that. Chan was an Olympic hopeful who ruined his own career by being reckless and getting injured. Both of them need to learn the lessons supported by the themes I wanted to explore.

Additionally, both of them are able to conceal and reveal information to the reader at appropriate times. They both have secrets from one another and from the audience that are interesting to explore. As such, a dual POV makes sense because each POV supports not only the messaging of the story, but also the practical storytelling methods used in keeping a reader invested

Fic: Sticky Butter

POV: trio, Jeongin and Hyunjin and Chan

Reasoning: Sticky Butter is about a heist gone wrong. Jeongin and Hyunjin are accused of stealing something valuable, and Chan is one of the officers in charge of interrogating them. Despite what they may claim, all three of these characters are much more intertwined than they let on.

This is a backstory heavy fic. It's told out of order, so you don't know why Jeongin/Hyunjin are being interrogated or if they're guilty at first. The more we explore their individual backstories, the more we understand why they ended up in a heist situation to begin with. They aren't career thieves, so why are they stealing? What in their pasts led theft to be a viable option for them at all? How did we get here? Only exploring one POV would answer these questions for only one character. So, we needed to explore both.

As for Chan's POV. We need to know his backstory, too, to understand why he ends up helping Jeongin and Hyunjin instead of sending them to jail. So for everyone who plays a major role, we need their POV so we can understand their backstories and motivations. If we limited the POV to just one character, the story being told wouldn't make nearly as much sense.

I do think there are ways to explore stories/characters like the examples I've included by using different POVs than I chose. For example, in a racehorse type story, maybe you think it would be fun to explore the POV of the character avoiding the relationship. Maybe you can take that character and develop them in such a way that they serve as a really strong, interesting person to guide us through the narrative. Personally, I couldn't/didn't. So, there aren't any hard and fast rules. Whatever feels right to you is right. And the more you practice, the more POVs will just come naturally to you. Eventually you won't even need to think about which POV to write from because you'll just know automatically