Yesterday I braved the rain and scuttled to the village to meet a writer friend for brunch. She recently started a Masters and is loving learning specifics about the craft of writing. We discussed a lesson she’d learned about ‘third person limited’ over our eggs benedict and spicy chicken pizza (I know, who gets a pizza for breakfast? I was as shocked as you).
That led us to discuss Point of View.
Where is your mind’s camera when you read and write?
Maybe you’re watching the scene as if it’s a movie. Constantly changing angles like a camera would. A beautiful wide shot with mist over the moors, then in for the close-up as the leading woman expresses her love for the muscled farmhand, then a rushing tracking shot as the farmhand sprints across the paddock to catch a fleeing horse?
Maybe you’re inside the character’s head, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, hearing their thoughts.
👁️ Point of View
Okay so there are basically four main ones (there’s kinda five but the fifth one is so weird that’s rarely used. “Second Person”. Yeah okay, mate, sit down).
- The Omniscient Everywhereman
The all-seeing, all-knowing presence
The grand puppeteer of storytelling. The Great Eye. The ‘God’.
Imagine you’ve got characters scattered across kingdoms and cities and villages, each with their secrets and schemes, each with their own family tree. Omniscient POV lets you bounce into each their heads and tell the reader what’s going on and how they all connect.
Examples: A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman (proof that omniscient doesn’t have to be unemotional), A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (proof that an omniscient narrator doesn’t have to be dry), The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly.
- Third Person (Objective) – The Fly on the Wall
Perched, watching, reporting back to the reader
With the third person (objective) POV, you’re like a fly on the wall, observing everything without getting caught up in your characters’ inner turmoil. It’s all about what can be seen and heard. You can see the expressions on someone’s face but you can’t hear their thoughts.
Examples: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
- Third Person Close (Limited) – Angel on Your Character’s Shoulder
The Angel on your Character’s Shoulder
Third Person Close/Limited. This is probably my favourite point of view and the one I default to most often. It’s like a best buddy giving you the inside scoop. You’re deep in one character’s mind, riding the rollercoaster of their emotions.
Examples: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, Educated by Tara Westover, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie.
Special mention: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (unreliable narrator).
Very special mention: A Rockstar Has Explodedby Emerson Black (possibly the best book of the year).
- First Person - Your Reader is Inside Your Protagonist
Right up close and personal
You write as if you’re the main character, using “I scraped my knee” and “I feel pain” statements. The easiest way to throw your reader right into the action. Your limitations are obvious here though,. Like Third Person Limited, you can’t show your reader anything your character wouldn’t see.
Examples: Sherlock Holmes (although we’re in Watson’s head), The Hunger Games, Twilight series, The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett (probably my favourite book this year, actually).
The choice of point of view is perhaps the most important single decision that the novelist has to make, for it determines the texture, the color, and the structure of the whole fabric of the novel.
- Ursula K. Le Guin
🔭 What POV do I choose?
There are a bunch of things to consider when choosing your point of view. Here are four questions to ask yourself.
- Do I want to use the POV as an extra ‘tool’?
Do you want to play with your readers’ expectations and experience by giving them biased or limited information? Or do you want your reader’s mind camera to be completely free of obfuscation, so they know that what they’re seeing is real? Basically, do you want your readers to trust what they’re reading? If so, maybe go for Third Person or Omniscient. If you wanna play, consider First Person. - Do I want my reader to feel my story, or view my story?
Third Person Limited allows your readers to intimately experience your character’s thoughts and feelings, whereas Omniscient is more like watching them do their thing. First Person is even more engaging, but if your character is too different from your reader, you run the risk of alienating them a bit. - How important is suspense and tension?
It’s useful to compare the feeling of watching a movie to playing with a virtual reality headset. When you’re watching a movie, you can see the killer waiting behind the door, so every step your character makes toward the door heightens the tension. When you’re playing the game, you are the character walking to the door, so it’s more of a surprise when the killer jumps out. - Do I have any specific cultural elements or societal themes?
Having an omniscient narrator can provide a wider social context than limiting yourself to one specific character and experience. An omniscient narrator can also show your reader events from an objective angle, whereas being inside someone’s head (First Person), or right next to them (Third Person), can give your reader a much deeper understanding of your character’s struggles and tribulations.
I hope this was helpful. POV is a big subject and we played with the tip of the iceberg, so I encourage you to do some Googling and reading about the other ways POV can add or subtract from your intended experience.