Point of View

The ability to successfully manage Point of View (affectionately known as POV) is questionably the most important skill a fiction writer must have. Without it, your writing will go nowhere, you will never snag and agent and your work will never be published. By "published" I mean contracted by a royalty-paying publishing house. So here's a quick primer on POV.

When you begin writing there are several POV options for you to choose from.

First Person seems self-explanatory. Every detail in this type of story must involve "I". If "I" have not seen, heard, or been told the information, it cannot be included. First person POV is considered difficult to write because it is so limiting. However, many people find its intimacy appealing.

Third Person Omniscient was popular in Victorian novels--think Charles Dickens. Third Person Omniscient POV features a distant narrator who looks down on the world and describes what he sees. Unless you are writing a period piece and trying to achieve an authentic Victorian tone, current publishers will not consider this POV a good choice.

Close Third Person is the POV prefered by todays genre publishers. Over 80% of books published now feature this POV. Like first person POV, all details included must be filtered through your POV character's senses. If he/she does not see, think, feel it, if they have not been told by another character, you can't include it.

Cool or Distant Third Person is popular in hard-boiled detective books. Again, only what your POV character sees or knows can be included. In this style, emotion is kept to a minimum. If you want to explore your characters feelings, this is not the POV you want.

The single most important advantage of the Third Person POV is that you can include more than one POV in your work. Most commonly you will find three POV characters in contemporary fiction: the hero, the romantic interest and the villain. However you are not limited to these three. You are free to include as many POV characters as you need to tell your story. (Note: if you add too many you may confuse your reader.)

But there's one rule you can't break. Each scene can have only ONE POV character. If you want to change POV characters you need to end the scene and start a new one. You indicate this with a double line space.

This space alerts your reader to the POV change.

As with all rules, there is one exception to this. Romance novels are permitted to jump between his and her Points of View without limits.

If this is new to you. If you have never taken time to think through the POV you're using when you write, I encourage you to visit the library and borrow some books on the craft fiction writing. Just about all of them will include a lengthy section explaining the differences, strengths and weaknesses inherent in each POV. Study your favourite writers and see how they manage and control POV.

But be warned, although I've mentioned the most common POV's here, these are not the only variations available for you to use.

Jayne E. Self