Point of View Pointers: A Guide to Writing Perspectives
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Point of view (POV) is the perspective used to tell a story. Some readers have strong feelings about POV and refuse to read books written in certain perspectives. Classic literature or literary fiction can also play fast and loose with perspectives by modern standards, and some books shift seamlessly through multiple perspectives. What’s the difference and why does perspective matter?
Think of it like a film: who is the camera focused on?
If the view is what the character is seeing, that’s first person; add a voice-over narrator and you’ve got close first person.
When the character looks or speaks directly at the camera to engage the viewer, that’s second person.
If the camera is looking at a cast of characters and showing all of their reactions at once, that’s omniscient third person. If the camera zooms in and follows only one character for a scene, that’s limited third person.
Like a director making a choice of what the audience should see, an author also needs to make choices about what to present to their readers.
Every POV has pros and cons, and certain genres expect certain POVs to be used. Here we’ll touch each perspective to give you tips on how best to employ them in your writing for your desired effect.
First Person
I, me, us, we.
First person puts the narration into the mouth of a central character who is telling the story to the reader. It’s intimate and immediate. Especially when paired with present tense, first person gets you as close to the action as possible and enables the reader to insert themselves into the shoes of the protagonist.
Popular in young adult fiction and fantasy, contemporary romances, some thrillers, and nonfiction like memoir and autobiography, first person POVs most closely resemble conversations. Everything on the page is filtered through that character’s senses: what they see, hear, smell, feel, and believe.
The plural form (we, us) is welcoming, inclusive, and engaging. Especially when telling an anecdote or giving advice, this POV brings the reader in to share the lessons or experiences being told. This can resolve some of the alienation readers may feel towards you statements, especially when their experiences don’t align with the narrator’s.
Unreliable Narrators
One of the benefits of first person is that people can be mistaken. Whether ignorant of the truth or willfully obscuring the facts, first-person narrators can mislead readers without them even realizing it. This works wonders for creating drama in a romance (miscommunication or withholding the truth) or tension in a thriller (lying by omission, self-deluding, or selective memory).
Unreliable narrators require the reader to read critically, as the twist isn’t necessarily told on the page but arises from the divide between what the reader knows and what the narrator is telling them to believe.
An excellent example of this is in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. With a tight first-person narrative, readers aren’t even aware that they don’t even know the protagonist’s name until another character directly calls it into question halfway through. This kind of misdirection allows the author to set up twists or reveals that are subtle and surprising.
Stream of Consciousness
While stream of consciousness doesn’t need to be told in first person, it’s frequently paired due to its intimacy. This style of storytelling discards many of the structures of the novel, especially around pacing and framing. The narrator flows from observations about the events unfolding to associated memories, realizations, feelings, or new observations. This meandering technique carries the reader through on a ride that rarely pauses to let them reorient themselves.
Most commonly used in memoir, literary fiction, or topical popular science, some of its most famous examples are James Joyce’s Ulysses and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. The challenge with stream of consciousness is the reader has to trust the journey you’re taking them on. If you meander too far from the point for too long, they can lose the thread of the narrative or lose interest in waiting for the payoff. When done poorly, it comes off as exposition dumps or irrelevant details.
Free-Indirect Style
Likely the least-commonly used narrative style in modern fiction, I’m including it because you’ve likely seen it in action. Attributed to Jane Austen, free-indirect style combines the closeness of first-person observation and internal monologue with an omniscient third-person narrator who flits from character to character. This is the literary equivalent of zooming in for close-ups on specific characters for dramatic moments or insights before pulling out again for more unbiased storytelling. This style is notoriously difficult to balance.
Aside from its presence in classic literature, those writing historical fiction or historical romance in the vein of Austen, Tolstoy, or Flaubert may want to study this structure to capture the feeling of the novels of the time. The benefits are giving the narrative a timeless feeling while still providing insightful character details, interiority, and dramatic irony within a larger cast.
Second Person
You.
There’s a risk when inserting a reader into a story. Some readers resist being told what they’re thinking or feeling. Others see it as a gimmick that might work for a brief period but wears thin over the length of a novel. However, when done well, it can broaden the horizons of the story, getting the reader to engage with the text on deeper levels than the standard passive reading experience.
Where you might see second person used most is in nonfiction (or in articles like this!). Here, the author speaks to each reader as if they are the only reader, and the narrative becomes a conversation. In self-help or memoir, that enforced intimacy can make advice more palatable or realizations more pithy or self-deprecating. Conversely, it can alienate when the author’s assumptions about their readers miss the mark.
When second person slips into fiction, it can break the illusion of the worldbuilding being a “real” place, especially in historical fiction or speculative fiction where the reader’s awareness that they’re not actually able to go to the setting may take them out of the story. A notable exception is in N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, where second person is used to explore trauma and grief. I won’t say more because of spoilers!
Breaking the Fourth Wall
Breaking the fourth wall, or meta storytelling, is a technique where the book (or comic, or film) is self-aware that it is a piece of media and therefore aware of the conventions of its storytelling mode. By speaking directly to the audience, it can make commentaries about the plot, other characters, or conventions to which the story is expected to be faithful. (Reader, it’s often used for comedic effect!)
A great example is Clive Barker’s horror Mister B. Gone, in which the book speaks directly to the reader in the hopes of convincing the reader to burn the book. It aligns its second-person narration with references to what’s happening in the text: aware when you’ve turned a page, hiding content behind black pages, and using repetition to weave its spell.
Comic book fans or cinemagoers might also be familiar with Deadpool’s famous use of metastorytelling to reference the fact that he’s in a comic book or how absurd something is. Tongue-in-cheek commentaries like this can sustain a reader’s willingness to go along with outrageous twists, plot holes, or inconsistencies. By pointing to them, the author indicates they’re fully aware of the discrepancy and they’re using it for effect.
Third Person
He, him, she, her, they, them.
Third person is often the closest analogue to watching a movie. You can see the character in the context of their setting and how they interact with other characters. As a reader, you get the whole scene and can make up your own mind how to feel about any and all of it.
Common places to find third person are in biography, children’s books, history, and fiction (especially mystery, thriller, and adult speculative fiction). Fans of third person describe it as “seeing” the characters interacting in scenes, as well as experiencing the surrounding setting and getting to inhabit the world of the story. It’s no wonder these stories so often get optioned for film adaptations!
Detractors feel like the action happens at a distance, so they don’t feel as engaged in the story or can’t connect with the characters. This can be because there is less focus on the characters’ interiority and more focus on their actions or choices. This can especially be the case when paired with past tense: knowing the story is complete or “already happened” can lessen some of the dramatic tension (despite the fact that present tense stories are also complete!).
Limited Third
Limited third POVs pick a single character to follow. This is where the word protagonist is clearest: who is the leading character? In limited third, the narrator is an invisible force that can see and describe the character’s actions, but also relates that character’s thoughts, feelings, and perception of events.
This interiority lessens the feeling of distance between the characters and the reader, as they are pulled along with the narrating character, mired in their thoughts and feelings, and limited to what that character knows. This can be an effective way to create an unreliable narrator or to create tension between characters who lack knowledge of others’ actions or motivations.
However, by picking a specific character to follow, the author may be unable to tell parts of the story that character can’t know about because they aren’t present. To get around this, authors can become overreliant on having characters explain information to other characters that the reader already knows, which can lessen tension, slow pacing, or result in too much repetition.
To solve this limitation, books can have multiple leading characters, known as multi-POV. Here, the scope is still tight to certain characters, but each chapter is assigned to one of a rotating cast. In these instances, modern practice is to include a subheading: the chapter’s number and/or title followed by the POV character’s name to swiftly orient readers. The downside is that the more characters you rotate between, the more you risk readers not connecting with certain POVs and either skipping those chapters or giving up on the story.
Omniscient Third
When you have a large cast or a sweeping epic, you need many characters to tell your story. You pull back to a wider frame and limit the interiority. Your narrator becomes a separate, invisible entity from any of the characters who knows everything that happens, including how each character thinks and feels.
The main risks with this perspective are head-hopping and remote impact.
Head-hopping is when the narration slides from one character’s perspective to another’s in the same sentence, paragraph, or scene in a way that disorients the reader and muddles the action. Even if you’re focusing on multiple characters, you need your “camera” to be anchored in one spot so that the spatial relationship between the characters remains constant. Omniscient third has the highest risk of head-hopping and it’s a challenge to balance, so the best practice is to only switch which character you’re following at a scene break or chapter break.
By limiting the interiority and spreading the time on the page between a higher number of characters, the reader doesn’t get to really connect with any one character. This remoteness can mean they are less invested in what happens to the characters. If the genre is a multigenerational family epic, a sweeping space opera, or an epic second-world fantasy, the real focus may be on the world or the plot, where the characters are closer to game pieces that cause events to happen. In this case, the genre expectations may be okay with this more removed storytelling.
Now you know what impact POV has on both a storytelling level and on the readers’ experience. Consider what effect you want to have for your story. Try rewriting a scene from a different POV and explore what insights it opens up or what limitations it imposes.
Some books, like the aforementioned Broken Earth trilogy, end up using different POV structures for different characters. Whatever you decide, be consistent in your choices to keep your readers invested in your narrative and recognize that some genres are strongly linked with certain POV styles, so if you deviate from that norm, you may alienate some readers.
All perspectives have their merits and uses. Your job as an author is to choose the best one to tell your story. Reader, there may be more than one right answer!
Astra Crompton (she/they) is an eclectic writer, editor, and illustrator with over twenty-five years of publishing experience. Her work has been published in anthologies, table-top RPG books, magazines, and in several novels. They have also successfully completed NaNoWriMo six times and counting. Astra is currently the Editing & Illustrations Coordinator at FriesenPress, where they manage, coordinate, and vet FriesenPress’s industry-leading editing and illustrations teams.
