The process, part 3 - Point of view

Which Point of View (POV) to use to tell the story is one of the most important decisions an author must make and although I chose the POV for the trilogy during the planning stage for The Connickle Conundrum, I thought I would explain the differences between the POVs available and the criteria for picking the best suited to your genre.

So, what is a POV? The author must tell the story from the perspective of a narrator or narrators and there are ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ associated with each POV type.

There are five common POVS -

• First person

• Second person

• Third person limited

• Third person omniscient

• Omniscient narrator

For the purpose of this blogpost, I am not going to deal with Second person POV and Omniscient narrator because I have no experience of writing, or reading, stories using these perspectives. The other three are by far the most used POVs in popular genre fiction. Let’s deal with each in turn…

First person

First person POV is written from the perspective of the reader and uses the pronouns - I, me, we and us. Example - I called John and, after a brief chat, we decided to grab a bite to eat.

Using this POV connects the reader to the story on a personal level but limits to author to telling the story from one perspective. The story is told from what the main character sees, hears, smells, tastes or feels. Consequently, this POV is best suited to whodunnits, young adult romance and horror stories where the reader solves the mystery/crime, experiences strong feelings or jump scares along with the main character.

Third person limited

This POV tells the story by following one character only and uses the pronouns - he, him, she, her, it, they and them. Example - Harry called John, and after a brief chat, they decided to grab a bite to eat.

The reader has access to the main character’s thoughts only and the story is told from that character’s perspective. Many genres utilise this method of story telling especially historical and young adult fantasy.

Third person omniscient

This utilises multiple character POVs and uses the same pronouns as Third person limited.

Often authors use one third person POV for a scene or even for a whole chapter before switching to different POV. It is important not to ‘head-hop’ and access different characters’ thoughts and perspectives within a scene. One of the advantages of this POV is that the reader knows what is happening often before the main character knows, enabling the author to build tension. Consequently, this POV is used most often in science fiction, high fantasy, historical and speculative fiction

Can you guess which POV the ABC Chronicles trilogy uses?

This week’s writer and musicians are -

Kim Newman - Horror, science fiction and fantasy novelist extraordinaire.

Myrkur - Amelie Bruun, Danish black metal and folklore.

Next time… Plotting