Point of view is one of the most important parts of a story, even before you get the writing down. Your POV is our lens to the world, so it needs to be the best possible option for your specific story.

Types of POV

Here’s the common POVs you can choose from, as well as suggestions for when they might work best.

Any of them can be used with either past or present tense. The tense you use will vary depending on whether you want a more immediate feeling or whether this is meant to be more like a tale passed down through the ages.

It’s possible to mix tenses, but this is tricky and needs to be done carefully to avoid confusing the reader. If you want to use different tenses, do it chapter by chapter rather than switching in the middle of one.

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Third person limited

Here, we’re staying close to a specific character, usually the MC. Everything will be in third person, and other characters’ thoughts and feelings are mostly unknown.

This is my preferred POV, as I write very character-driven stories. Some may say my typical POV is more third person close because we hear so much of the POV’s thoughts and feelings, but the two are a little different.

Many authors use multiple POVs to add more depth to their story. However, you should do them a chapter at a time, or at least include section breaks so that readers don’t get confused.

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Third person omniscient

We get incomplete POVs from multiple characters, usually the most important ones. They will be separated a bit by “zooming out” and then returning to another POV.

Third person omniscient typically requires a strong narrative voice that is separate from the characters themselves. The narrator will give asides we understand not to be from any of the named characters. This is a great option for satirical stories.

Terry Pratchett’s work is an exemplary display of third-person omniscient. It’s difficult to pull off without getting confusing, so I’d caution newer writers from using this POV.

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First person

This is the “I novel,” used throughout the ages in many different texts. It’s very popular in certain genres, especially YA, where the reader is supposed to feel like the main character could be a close friend.

The epistolary (letter) format was common in Romantic and Victorian literature, such as Frankenstein, Through a Glass Darkly, the Sherlock Holmes novels, and the highly underappreciated Scottish classic, The Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg.

Some of my favorite authors, including Edgar Allen Poe, Willa Cather, and Herman Melville, also wrote a lot in first person. Suffice to say that if you work in first person, you’re in great company.

However, it’s crucial that your POV character be incredibly interesting; you’re more likely to lose the reader’s attention if they don’t care about this individual, moreso than in third person.

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Second person

A rarer and more challenging POV. This one is often seen more in fanfic, specifically reader insert fanfic, than published fiction.

The reason this one is rare comes from the simple fact that readers don’t want to feel like you’re lecturing them or assuming things about their lives. If they don’t have the same thought processes as your second person POV, it’s going to break immersion, causing them to get frustrated.

You could definitely have a lot of fun with second person if you’re skilled. For example, you may make the second-person MC so unlikable, so confusing, so weird that it challenges the reader’s perceptions of themselves. To do this, you really have to go all in on it and come up with a fascinating, unnamed narrator.

Like with third person omniscient, I’d caution you if you’re not entirely sure you can pull it off. I’ve never played with it because I’m certain I couldn’t do it properly, and I’ve been writing for over 15 years.

You will see second person in epistolary novels, like This Is How You Lose the Time War. It’s understood that the character isn’t speaking to us, but to another character. Technically the POV is first person, but it can feel like second person.

So now that we know about our choices, let’s consider how we can use POV to maximum effect.

Your POV is the lens into the world and shapes our comprehension of the plot.

This should go without saying, but for some reason, I see this problem crop up all the time. The writer chooses the nicest and sweetest character as POV, despite the fact that this character doesn’t necessarily give us the best perspective.

I think this might happen because the writer wants us to like the MC, believing that this makes them more relatable. Thus, they pick the one they like most and try to make us like them too, even if the MC isn’t that fascinating on their own.

We do not need to like your MC. In fact, we can absolutely hate their guts and think they’re the worst person ever, but still be fascinated by them. All that matters is that they are interesting and give us a unique look into the story.

If your character is sweet and cute and very passive, consider picking someone else. We might even like them more because we get to see them as a lovable sidekick rather than an insufferable doormat.

The POV character must take an active role, even if they aren’t the most interesting character.

It can be fascinating if your POV character is more of an observer or interpreter, such as John Watson versus Sherlock Holmes. Watson is, of course, far less exciting than Sherlock, but we like hearing his thoughts because then we don’t know Sherlock’s.

We, too, are dragged along into the mystery, trying to figure it out ourselves. If we got Sherlock’s perspective, each story would last like five pages, case closed. Watson, loveable idiot that he is, has no idea what’s happening, so we don’t either. I’ll discuss this more in a little bit.

Still, Watson has an up-close look at what is happening; he is part of the mystery too. Someone who doesn’t know what’s going on and is completely confused all the time is annoying and boring.

The best perspective will depend greatly on what you’re trying to show. A foot soldier in a war is great for showing the horrors up close and personal, but not so good if you’re exploring a more birds-eye view of international politics. They just don’t know enough about the situation and won’t be able to tell us what’s happening.

A hapless passerby who is not trying to solve a mystery is not the best person for telling us about a mystery because they have no reason to care.

Some random person tangentially swept up in a world-changing event isn’t going to give us a good perspective, especially if they don’t actively engage with it other than suffering under what is happening.

For example, telling the James Bond stories from the POV of a random grunt would just be stupid. No one would want to read that.

Keep the POV dynamic.

What I mean by this is remembering that all this is happening to the character; we’re seeing it through their perspective. As such, we rarely need these terms:

• She heard
• She felt
• She thought
• She tasted
• She saw

If we see, feel, think, taste, or see something happening through the character’s eyes, then we know that they are experiencing these things. Constantly reminding us that the POV character is doing these things takes us out of the story.

There are some exceptions to this, mostly when the character is kind of out of it. For example, if the character had a head injury, is dissociating, or is almost asleep, their sensations will be dim, and distancing them slightly is okay.

It’s also ok to occasionally use something like “he thought” if we’re getting a complete thought from them, just to remind us that they aren’t saying this out loud.

Don’t have more POVs than are completely necessary for the plot.

Some writers believe that the more POVs you have, the more high-brow and sophisticated your work is. This is simply not true. You can have a deep and fascinating story told from only one perspective.

If two characters spend most of the story together, we do not need both of them to tell us everything. This creates a situation where readers are forced to sit through recitations of the same facts told from two perspectives when one would have sufficed.

Multiple POVs works best when characters spend an extended time apart or meet only briefly. You can also use this if each character describes completely different parts of the story. This is common in romance stories, where the progression of the two characters’ relationship moves in starts and stops throughout time.

Stay close to a character and avoid head hopping.

Head hopping is when you veer into another character’s thoughts or feelings that are not directly apparent to the POV character. This is often unintentional, and it can be surprisingly difficult to catch.

Many times, the head hop only lasts for a single sentence or paragraph but muddies the water so we’re not sure who we’re following.

An example would be if you tell us another character is embarrassed, but they’re not showing obvious signs of it, like blushing or stammering. It might also happen if the non-POV character is thinking about something but didn’t actually voice it.

Now, if two characters know one another really well, like spouses or best friends, they may be able to tell that the other person is upset or scared or hurt without them directly saying it. However, you still need to translate that for us by making them do something to show it, which the POV character then interprets.

You can catch head hopping by imagining that you don’t have any insight into the character, thinking of them like a black box. You are then forced to show us how they’re feeling or make them say what they’re thinking so that the POV character understands.

Avoid the POV that gives us the most insight.

This may be counterintuitive, but it actually adds a great deal of tension to your story that may not otherwise be present.

My upcoming book, Funeral of Hopes, is about Orrinir’s estranged father dying. However, we don’t get the story from his perspective. Instead, we hear everything from his husband Uileac’s point of view, which adds a sense of mystery and intrigue.

Both the reader and Uileac have minimal insight into what’s really going on in Orrinir’s head. We see his external actions and hear the small amount of information he’s giving to Uileac, but everything else is hidden from us. As such, we learn everything at the same time that Uileac does, forcing us to put the pieces together too.

By making readers work for the information, you keep them intrigued. They want to understand what the focus character is thinking about, helping them empathize with the POV character feeding us everything.

In fantasy stories, don’t have a naysayer as the POV.

Here’s a niche circumstance. You have an atheist who doesn’t believe in miracles and is never swayed into believing in them telling us about the miracles.

I’m not talking about a circumstance where the person doesn’t believe it, then sees it and is convinced, but when they just … completely disregard the evidence right before them the entire time.

For some reason, this is weirdly common in worlds with magic systems or very present deities. It makes no sense. By having a naysayer tell us everything, you lessen the impact of the magic entirely. Now we also don’t believe in what you’re saying; it breaks the immersion and significantly damages your story.

You do not always have to have a magic user as the POV, but whoever you pick must believe in it too, or at least come to believe it over time. Otherwise, we also won’t be convinced in its reality.

So, with that, I hope you’ve garnered some ideas about how to select and perfect your POV. With time and practice, you’ll be able to find the best angle for the story you wish to tell.