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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38615
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Generally speaking, you want to offer consistency in your style, and erratically switching to a minor characters' POV for one random chapter can appear jarring. An example would be in _Enduring Love._

This is a story about a scientist who witnesses a disaster, along with a devout Christian man. The Christian man makes a religious remark, and he says, to the effect of 'yeah, it's not for me'. Said man obsesses over converting him to the point of stalking him way after he's relevant for testimonies, and is strongly implied to also be homosexual (as he hates the fact he has a wife).

Now, the scientist becomes paranoid about this man and takes precautions, which his wife doesn't understand. This provides tension, until eventually the Christian stalker nearly kills his wife, gets driven to suicide, and traumatises them all.

For the most part, this is a good book, and there's two main POVs: The scientist's, and the stalker's. However, the thing that I most disliked about the book was its two uses of POV changing to randomly switch to the wife's POV.

It's not that the wife isn't important or that the wife's POV wasn't worth exploring, but it _was_ inconsistency without enough of a use (only two chapters), especially given most of what was said were thoughts easily gleaned from her husband's chapters (for example, she thinks he's paranoid/insane/a closeted gay who's contemplating an affair and doesn't know how to deal with this, and is asking herself if their marriage is salvageable).

With this in mind, ask yourself: Is this single-use/rare-use alternative POV necessary? Or can most of the story that's being told be told using a more consistent method? Because shifting between every minor character ever is a good way to give a reader whiplash.

Original score: 1