What is Point of View?

Point of View (POV) is the choice the author makes in determining who will tell the story. Will the story work best if told by a narrator who is not a character or from the perspective of one ore more of the characters?

First person stories – “I” stories – are told as if one of the characters in the story is telling what happened. “I woke up with a headache and headed for the drug store.”

“He” or “she” stories are told either from the narrator’s point of view or one of character’s viewpoints.

The omniscient narrator viewpoint allows the narrator to see all and tell all. It’s the style story teller’s often use when telling a ghost story around a campfire. “It was a dark and stormy night when two teenagers parked out at the old abandoned mansion…”

This style of storytelling allows the author, as narrator, to inject himself or herself into the story to offer an opinion or to express a reaction to the story. Some readers and critics find author intrusion annoying. The literary term is didactic. The big thing to keep in mind is the narrator acts like a god because the narrator sees all, hears all, and may tell all.

There is a softer version of this type of story in which the narrator is less intrusive. The author tells the story from the viewpoint of a single character, like the “I” story, but uses “he” or “she” style writing. “Bob Shay woke up with a headache. He headed for the drug store.”

In this type of story the author parks an imaginary movie camera on top of the head of one of the characters and records what goes on as the character goes through his or her day. This type of writing limits the story to what one character sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels. In some stories, the author moves the camera from one character’s head to another character’s head so you get more than one viewpoint.

Do you have a preference when it comes to POV?

POV is an important component of all stories, including my novel Fulfillment. You may click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare told mainly from the POV of Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places.

Here’s another novel idea…
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