I’ve been discussing description over the past several posts, and I hope that’s been helpful. Let’s move on to a different topic. One that’s really important.
Point of View (POV).
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, and one thing that has jumped out at me has been the issue of point of view. Many writers simply don’t seem to understand how to incorporate it into their stories correctly.
First, let’s talk about what it is and why it’s so critical that the author use it correctly.
“Point of view refers to the narrative perspective from which a story is told.”
That’s a pretty simple definition from Bing. Ha.
But it sums it up well. Point of view determines whose senses the reader experiences, which “head” the reader will be in. For example, think of the movie Castaway, with Tom Hanks. Honestly, I’m probably one of the few who hated the movie; but nevertheless, it’s a good example of point of view. Through whose eyes, ears, etc., did we, the viewers, experience the movie? Chuck Noland’s, the character Tom Hanks plays. We had no idea what the people in Tom’s life were doing while he was on the island.
That is what point of view is. We know what the character in the scene knows. POV answers the questions: Who is telling the story? and What information can they reveal to the reader? Meaning, the reader will only know what the character knows.
One example: If you have a couple and the husband is cheating on the wife but he hasn’t told her and no one else has either, the wife cannot know about the affair.
This is deep point of view. Meaning, readers experience what the character in the scene experiences. While there are exceptions to the rule, most publishers prefer this point of view for stories.
In short, POV not only determines what the reader knows but also how they feel about what they know. It guides the reader’s perspective and shapes their overall experience of the story.
In the story I’ve been crafting for these blog posts, we’ve been in Oliver’s point of view only. Yes, we’ve had other characters in the scene; but there’s been only one point of view.
Take a look at your story. Does each scene have only one point of view, or do you head hop (meaning more than one point of view per scene)?
