It's my turn on the Summer Under The Stars blog tour and I'm delighted to be sharing Kate's thoughts on how she writes using multiple viewpoints.
Your books, including Summer Under the Stars, are written using multiple points of view. How do you go about writing a book like this?
I’ll be honest—every time I finish one, I vow never to do it again! And Summer Under the Stars was no exception. I love the result, but the effort it takes to get there is huge.
When I write, I set a few key rules for myself. The main one is that I want each of my characters to be equal. There’s no one story that matters more than the others. Because of this, my characters speak in rotation—they each get their turn to tell the story.
In Summer of No Regrets, that structure worked quite naturally because the friends were apart for the summer, each on their own adventures. But in Summer Under the Stars, they’re all together—so the story is happening to all of them at once. They’re experiencing the same events, but each with their own opinions, hang-ups, and emotional reactions. That made the writing experience very different.
Traditional story structure and beat sheets don’t always fit. You can’t have four main characters each go through their own inciting incident or darkest moment one after another—it just wouldn’t work. So the editing became the biggest part of the process by far. My editor and I spent a lot of time trying to make the story feel right—and every time we pulled on a loose thread, whole chapters would unravel. There are the four character arcs to manage, but also, just like in Summer of No Regrets, there’s a fifth arc: the story of their friendship.
That said, what I love about writing in multiple POVs is the chance to really dig into each of my characters’ lives, motivations, and challenges. I get to walk in their shoes, see the world through their eyes. I’m fascinated by why people do what they do, and what shapes them—and this style of writing lets me explore that deeply. It also lets me show how they interact from all sides of a conversation, which I think helps bring the reader in too.
My favourite moments to write are when they’re just together—chatting, joking, supporting each other through the good times and the hard ones. That mix of banter, honesty, and love is what makes their friendship feel real.
And if I had to pick one scene I loved writing most? Definitely the food poisoning scene! They’re up in the night at a campsite in St Malo—chaotic, gross, hilarious. It’s one of the few scenes that made it through the whole editing process almost unchanged. It still makes me laugh, even after reading it dozens of times.
Summer Under The Stars is out now. You can read my review by following the link here
Kate has put together a play list to go with the book so if you fancy a listen, follow the link here My song today is the classic 'Drive My Car' by The Beatles.
