Beginning: Deciding POV

Usually I write in the third person POV, mainly because I don't like being stuck in a single person's head for the entire novel. I have used first person in some of my shorter stuff though.

One time I was having problems with one of my characters in a novel I was working on, so I wrote out the scene in first person, then converted it to third person. Sounds counterproductive, but it worked. I would have liked to have kept it in first person, but there was too much other stuff I would have had to cut from the novel to make it work.

One thing to keep in mind is your audience. I'm really surprised at how many people out there won't read a book written in the first person. Personally, I really enjoy them.

I write romance, so usually throughout the POV is balanced between two characters. However, one character usually has more to risk or gain in the story. That character carries the plot and is the main protagonist.

As such, that character gets the opening POV... and usually the closing POV as well.


ETA: Oh wait... is this really POV or is it person? I'm exclusively third person past. Anything else gives me the twitches.

My current WIP has 3 POVs. 2 are 3rd person limited and 1 is first person. My previous WIP had 2 3rd person limited POVs. I like telling the story of more than one character so instead of having 3rd person omni, I have alternating chapters of each character.

In my current WIP however, I wanted to tell the story of a woman who is telling her story to someone so I used 1st person. I love the Southern storyteller tradition (books like Fried Green Tomatoes, The Help) so I wanted to incorporate that and 1st person seemed the best way.

3rd person limited is my favourite narrative though. I can get into a single characters head but still be able to write around him and explore things he doesn't know.

Each narrative style has its benefits and it usually is what 'feels right' but I think it has a lot to do with the story you want to tell and the characters you want to tell it through.

Pick a POV based on what the story requires. In the novel I just finished, I used 1st person present for two very specific reasons:

1. Present tense: I wanted there to be some tension as to whether the character lived or died at the end, and telling it in past would kind of give away that she did. (also achievable by 3rd person, but the second reason, below, meant I couldn't use it)

2. First person: I wanted a narrator who wasn't necessarily reliable. By telling it in first person, you only see what she wants to tell you, how she tells you. The entire world is filtered through her limited vision, so what you're told isn't necessarily the truth but just the truth as she believes it. Your picture of what's going on is also limited to what she sees and knows.

For other projects I've used third person, because I wanted the reader experience to be more an invisible observer of what was going on, and have a clearer picture of the story than just one limited perspective. So what it comes down to is: what works for the story you're telling? Something very limited, or something broader and a little more distanced?

I recommend The Power of Point of View by Alicia Rasley. She talks inspiringly about what each POV has to offer, why you might choose one over another, and how you can shape them to make your story the best it can be. I found it very useful.

I use what I think of as cinematic limited POV. Rather than an omniscient narrator, I treat it like a camera. I focus on one person at a time, but I switch. If you've seen Robert Altman's movies, he likes to enter a scene with one character and when that character leave, the scene continues. He could end up following four or five or more people for one very long continuous take. I don't get that involved. But I did use it to follow one character into a scene, pull back from 3rd person inside on character's head to 3rd person general and then go in close for 3rd person inside another character's head. If you just jump from one character's thoughts to another's it is jarring, but if you pull back and then go in, the readers aren't jarred and the story flow continues. It works for me. That's not to say I use it constantly. I still do scene breaks, but some scenes need to continue irrespective of the characters.

My guide?

1st person must be kept to a single person, inserted into the action and be around all the large scenes. It's difficult, but works. (I don't like multiple 1st POVs)

3rd limited can be used for everything. My fall-back. Multiple POVs. It's nice to view other characters through another character's eyes also.

3rd omni, for a more packed story. If you have a lot of characters who need spotlight in the same scene. Or, if there aren't many characters and you need to explore the world/action more.


Present is good for simpler stories. Short vs long stories will vary from writer to writer.

Past is good for longer or more complex. (Also better dialogue).


I write in 3rd limited, past tense. Why? Because it's simple, keeps the reader and doesn't try anything different. (I hate writing present tense).

There's a good deal to read on POV, in books and on-line. O. Scott Card's book in the WD Elements of Fiction series is fine on the topic.

I've come to my own umbrella decision, and that is to write third person limited, past tense, every time, unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise. This time, multiple POVs were necessary. How do I know a change is necessary? Er, I just do. The material demands it.


I read 200+ books a year, and I've seen exactly one book in the past year that had present tense first person and needed it. Most of them that were in first person present would have read better in third person past, imo. You may come to a different conclusion for yourself. Newer writers probably should try everything, at least for a long short story's worth, once...including some form of the second person, and various levels of third person limited (you can stay over the shoulder or you can get into the head quite deeply).

OpheliaRevived said:

I'm going to embark on a new wip, and I want very much to be more productive this time around. I hate how slow I am at producing that first draft. (It always takes me over a year.) Having said that, I want to know how you choose your pov? Is it really as abstract as "I write in the pov that 'feels' right"?

Is there a user's guide to pov's?

Click to expand...

POV is merely where the camera sits as the story unfolds. That's it. Really truly.

So when you think of the story, where does the camera sit? Does it sit behind a character's eyes? If so, it's first person.

If you're sitting behind a character's eyes and there's a narrator dictating everything that character does, it's 2nd person.

If it's floating around outside the characters (like the vast majority of movies are shot) then it's some kind of third person. If it comes with a handy narrator as well, then it's omni (which is a type of third person).

That's it. No big mystery. It's just a matter of where the camera sits when I'm envisioning the story. That's "what feels right".

First person here. Mysteries in the style of a Dashiell Hammett/Mickey Spillane/etc. The POV is chosen simply because that's the way the reader's knowledge should unfold, at the same time as the main character's. It's no fun when the reader sees the answer ahead of time.

But I could just as easily write it so the reader sees what's coming and is rooting for/fearing for the hero. So the POV really depends on the style of the writing, the genre (to some extent) and the story told.

Jeff

WillSauger said:

My guide?

1st person must be kept to a single person, inserted into the action and be around all the large scenes. It's difficult, but works. (I don't like multiple 1st POVs)

3rd limited can be used for everything. My fall-back. Multiple POVs. It's nice to view other characters through another character's eyes also.

3rd omni, for a more packed story. If you have a lot of characters who need spotlight in the same scene. Or, if there aren't many characters and you need to explore the world/action more.


Present is good for simpler stories. Short vs long stories will vary from writer to writer.

Past is good for longer or more complex. (Also better dialogue).


I write in 3rd limited, past tense. Why? Because it's simple, keeps the reader and doesn't try anything different. (I hate writing present tense).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. 1st Person Multiple just feels so weird. I can't bring myself to write it. And if it's weird/jarring for me to write, I gotta imagine it's going to be weird/jarring to read.

I tend to split my writing between 1st person, if one major character is the focus, and 3rd person sharp focus if I need to use 2 or 3 PoVs for the story.

Well for person I use third, past tense. It's what I grew up reading, it's what I still prefer to read and it accounts for the majority of books published in my genre. Books in first person have to be very well-written and almost immediately engrossing for me to read them. Unfortunately, I find very few that have this quality for me. Most of the time I feel like I'm slogging through the first chapter and I can't enjoy it. I rarely buy books in first. If I open it and see first person I'll usually put it back on the shelf.

I tend to work in 3rd person past tense. It's more versatile--you can get in super close and then pull back, you can use multiple characters' POVs, etc. But in my most recent completed WIP, I used first person. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it had to do with just how much of the "action" is internal. The heart of the story is the MC learning she had been taken advantage of and gotten herself into a sticky situation. That, I think, required us to get the story straight from her own mouth, so to speak.

Also, there are advantages to "I". Pronouns can be difficult at times in complex sentences/scenes. In first person, you can use "I" and there's no confusion about who's being referenced. *Shrug*

OpheliaRevived said:

I want to know how you choose your pov? Is it really as abstract as "I write in the pov that 'feels' right"?

Is there a user's guide to pov's?

Click to expand...

I figure out who my main characters are, and ask myself what each of them would add to the story if they were the POV character. Then I ask myself what would be lacking if that person wasn't a POV character. I usually end up dividing the POV between my two (or three, if it's a menage romance) characters, but sometimes I write from one POV for the duration of the story.

I write in first person unless a story absolutely demands something else.