How to Write a Novel: Point of view
Point of view (POV) is about the particular perspective you tell your story from and which character or characters you choose to focus on for your book. This choice shapes the language of your novel.
But your choice of POV also affects story structure, plot, and the reader’s experience. You need to choose the right POV to tell the right story, and some writers will start one way and shift later because they find more creative gold writing from another character’s POV.
How does POV change the story?
Take your life as an example. Here’s an example from mine.
I’m the eldest of five siblings and I am twelve years older than my youngest sister. My parents divorced when I was young. I’m happily married for the second time, but my first marriage and divorce were difficult.
Here are some different story angles based on POV:
• My divorce story from my POV.
• The divorce story told from my ex-husband’s POV. Very different from my own!
• A family wedding story with scenes from my youngest sister’s POV as well as my dad’s POV, and perhaps the celebrant’s as well. Different generations, unique life experiences, and varied views on marriage and love.
Think about the story you want to tell. How might it change if you choose to write from the perspective of a different character?
Let’s look at the most popular POVs to help you decide.
First-person POV: I walked into the bar.
The use of ‘I’ demonstrates first-person POV. The scene is told from that character’s perspective and the reader is in their head. It is intimate and readers often feel a deep connection to the character this way.
Narrating an entire book from first-person POV can limit your story. The character can only be in one place at one time. The reader has to stay with that character and can’t know any more than the character knows.
Some authors do use multiple first person POVs, but that can be confusing for the reader — and the author!
First person POV is more common in particular genres, including YA (young adult) and romance.
From The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course she did. This is the day of the reaping.
From Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James:
I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair — it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission.
Third person POV: Jim walked into the bar.
This is most commonly used in novels because you can tell the story from multiple different perspectives.
George R.R. Martin does this in A Game of Thrones, telling the story from different character viewpoints in third-person POV. He even titles his chapters with the character names, which helps readers get oriented right away, though alternatively you can just use the character’s name in the first sentence of the chapter.
For example, here is the first sentence of the first chapter from Jon Snow’s POV:
There were times — not many, but a few — when Jon Snow was glad he was a bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more from a passing flagon, it struck him that this might be one of them.
If you need to expand a book, just add more character POV chapters.
But beware, A Game of Thrones is also a good example of how a book or series will expand considerably if you add more POV characters. If you have to write the entire story from the POV of five major characters, all of whom have well-defined character arcs, then you may end up with a series as long and sprawling as Martin’s.
Most stories have one main protagonist and the chapters of the book are weighted toward their POV, interspersed with POV chapters from minor characters as needed to move the plot forward.
I predominantly write my ARKANE thrillers from Morgan Sierra’s POV with a few scenes from the antagonist and also from Jake, Morgan’s ARKANE agent partner, and sometimes others. When I wanted to explore Jake further as a character, I wrote him a whole separate story in One Day in New York.
Third-person limited or close third-person POV is when you only see the story from the character’s perspective. Third-person omniscient can give a more bird’s eye view of the scene but if you’re not careful, you can end up head-hopping (more on that below!).
Second person POV: You walk into the bar.
This is rarely used for a whole book as it’s difficult to write and difficult to read, although some authors use it effectively for a chapter.
Here’s an example from How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid:
The whites of your eyes are yellow, a consequence of spiking bilirubin levels in your blood. The virus afflicting you is called hepatitis E. Its typical mode of transmission is fecal-oral. Yum. It kills only about one in fifty, so you’re likely to recover. But right now you feel like you’re going to die.
Can you blend different POVs in one story?
Yes. You can have some chapters that are first person, others that are third person, or whatever combination you like.
Thriller author Lisa Gardner uses such a combination in Catch Me.
From the Prologue in third person:
The little girl woke up the way she’d been trained: quickly and quietly. She inhaled once, a hushed gasp in the still night, then her eyes fixed on her mother’s drawn face.
From Chapter 1 in first person:
My name is Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. I live in Boston, work in Boston, and in four days, will probably die here. I’m twenty-eight years old. And I don’t feel like dying just yet.
From Chapter 2 in third person, but a different character from the Prologue:
Boston sergeant detective D. D. Warren was on the case and she was not happy about it.
The rhythm of alternating POVs is maintained through the book, blending intimacy with a wider perspective.
What tense will work for your book?
Most writers will have a default tense they prefer to write in, and any of these POVs could be written in past tense or present tense.
If you’re telling the story in real time, you can use present tense. It’s immediate. The reader feels like they are right there in the moment, experiencing the story with the character.
If you’re telling it as a narrator about the past, it’s a memory so can be past tense. Past tense, like third person, is more flexible. It’s easier to weave in back story and interior thoughts because the narrator has had more time for reflection.
Again, you can blend tenses across a book, but it’s not often done within a chapter or scene. Revisit the books you love and see how they use tense.
Beware ‘head-hopping’ within a scene
If you’re writing from a particular character’s POV within a scene, stay with that character. Don’t ‘head-hop’ into another perspective. Make it very clear whose perspective you’re in for each scene.
This is a common issue with new writers, and although there are always exceptions, you will generally find that even the most rule-breaking writers stick to this one.
If you want to write from another character’s perspective, consider using a different chapter, as Gardner and Martin do in the earlier examples. Or use an ornamental break in the text to indicate a switch within a scene.
How to decide what POV to write in
Revisit the five to ten books that are like the story you’re writing, or any of your favorite novels. What POV are they written in? Does it vary by scene or chapter?
Some authors have a natural sense of how they want to write, and if the majority of the books you love are written in a particular POV, then that’s probably the one to write in.
Personally, I like to read and write in third person. I want chapters from the antagonist as well as the protagonist. I want a chapter from someone who ends up dying later. First-person novels are too restrictive for me. But then I know lots of authors who love reading and writing in first person, and I occasionally write this way for short stories.
Only you can decide for your novel — and of course, you can always change it as you write.
It’s all too complicated!
Don’t spend too long deliberating on POV and tense. Start writing and you will probably find yourself using aspects naturally without overthinking it. You can always clean it up in the editing phase, and if you work with a professional editor, they can help you, too.
Questions:
• Think about the story you want to tell. How might it change if you choose to write from the perspective of different characters?
• Revisit the five to ten books that are like the story you’re writing, or just any of your favorite novels. What POV are they written in? Does it vary by scene or chapter?
• What POV will you write in? What tense will you write in? If you can’t decide, just start writing and your preference will probably emerge.
Resources:
• Point of View: How to use the different POV types, avoid head-hopping, and choose the best point of view for your book — Sandra Gerth
• Steering The Craft: A Twenty-First Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story — Ursula K. Le Guin
