Choosing the right Point of View for your novel

Find your voice. Show me as a reader, who I should listen to, from what point of view (POV) I should imagine the story.

Choosing the point of view from which you want to tell your story should be done before starting to write. The POV needs to be established in the first few paragraphs, so the reader doesn’t get lost in the middle of the book. But, how to choose it? The answer is simple …it all depends on what you are going to tell.

Did you expect any other answer?

Although there are some POVs that at this point are expected of certain genres and age groups, the way in which your plot is organized is central at the time of choosing POV.

But, before we get into any specifics, let’s talk basics.

First Person POV:

The story is told through the eyes of the protagonist. We use the pronouns: I, me, my. The hero gives his vision of the world and gets direct participation in the events of the plot. It’s very common to find it in YA novels.

Examples: The Hunger Games and the Grishaverse sagas.

Second Person POV

It’s when the story is told directly to the second person, not a great explanation, right? Well, the story is told “to you”, the reader as another participant in the dialog. The second POV is most commonly used in non-fiction and therefore, I won’t get too deep into it in this blog post.

Third person ominiscient

The narrator knows everything about every character and situation in the book. The pronouns that are used in this case are: He, she, him, her, his.

Third person limited

The narrator is not the protagonist, but knows how he /she feels and the situations in which he is involved at all times.

But… let me tell you something, the way you develop your story does not depend on a specific genre, but on what you want to tell, the outcome of events, and how these affect your characters.

For example, if you are in the middle of a novel where the protagonist is a detective looking for clues to solve a crime, or a teenager in the middle of a dysfunctional family, the first-person point of view will work better for you. In these cases, the thoughts and feelings of your characters need to be very well portraited so the reader can feel close to them, feel their convictions, fears, and solutions.

On the other hand, if your story moves through paradisiacal islands, alternative worlds, or parallel moments of time, where several characters intervene, the third person POV will be your best option since you will give a more open vision.

But it’s better not to anticipate the facts. First, you need to get a closer look at POVs to feel certain about which option you prefer.

Open your mind, you have a world of possibilities and ideas to write. Feel free to make decisions.

So, settle in, here are your pros and cons. Choose wisely:

First Person Point of view

Our protagonist will be our ears, voice, and eyes in this story. He will be the one who will live the events and take us with him throughout history.

This POV is characterized by having a subjective language, where you must make prevail the feelings, thoughts and ideologies of the one who will tell the story.

Let’s see an example of a first-person narration:

I place the glass on the edge of the table, as I wish for it to fall to the ground and break into a thousand pieces. I am a coward, I know. What can people expect of a king who is not capable of taking justice into his own hands? My wife comes into the room, she doesn’t look at me anymore. That will make it easier. With trembling hands, I hand her the glass. She drinks some of the wine. That will be enough. With luck, tonight, I will be a widower.

Advantages

Writing in first person will give you the possibility of giving your story more suspense. Why? It’s simple. Because as the author, you can make your protagonist tell a false story, based on the ignorance of the reader and of the character, about the events that led others to do certain actions throughout the story. That simple. You can confuse the reader, taking him through an unsafe route, because the only vision he will have of the facts will be of the character who tells, and the information he knows.

Surprise the reader, by passing false information as true.

You will gain the confidence of your readers, because with the first person it is easier to get them to feel identified and empathize better with a character that does not keep any secrets, because all, absolutely all their thoughts and convictions, will be narrated to you. This makes us part of everything he does, as if we were reading his diary.

There are many creative elements that can serve you. Perhaps, take a journey through the experiences of a forty-something woman in an unhappy and unhealthy marriage. Or, more linked to horror genre, in the mind of a patient who suffers a mental illness, imagines things, and still lives in society as an apparently normal person. So, you see, you have thousands of options.

Something very important in this POV is the credibility it gives to the story. Let me explain.

As we are talking about someone who has lived the events and narrates what happens first-hand in his thought, it gives us a deeper vision of the story, more detailed, and, therefore, real.

However, everything in life has its cons. This POV is not the exception to the case, when writing you must also take these factors into account:

1st person POV disadvantages:

The narration is very limited. When we are narrating from the mind of the protagonist, it is extremely difficult to know the true feelings of the other characters. The protagonist cannot read the minds of other people, unless you get creative, and give him some superpower with these features, then yes, you will have an almost complete vision. But, in general, it happens that everything is centered in the mind of a single character, the one who tells the story.

Also, it can be the case that who tells the story, your main character, ends up ruining it, believe it or not. Imagine a situation in which a protagonist is an unpleasant person for the reader, either because of his arrogance, self-sufficiency, boring thoughts and, yes, that person is going to tell you a 300-page story. It’s not fun at all, is it?

There comes a time when our protagonist ends up monopolizing the story so much that all other interesting factors are unknown. Let me give you an example.

Imagine that at a certain moment in the story, an assembly is going to start in the kingdom to decide who will be the next king, while this is happening, the protagonist is cleaning the barn on his farm. Unfortunately, the reader will have to read the cleaning part, and then find out what happened in the assembly.

Be very careful with this, you must know how to unfold the story, so there are no loose ends, as in this example, if it is possible, have the protagonist as a spectator, or, at least give him access to these events of great importance.

To continue our POV tour, I’ll teach you what you need to know about writing in the third person.

Third-person limited Point of View

This POV follows the same overall rules than the omniscient in terms of the pronouns it uses (he, she, they, and their correspondents), however, in this case, the narrator only knows the feelings and thoughts of the main character.

Think of this point of view as a shadow that follows your main character around. It’s connected to him somehow, but it’s still watching the things from outside.

Let’s see an example:

“I’m fine,” Carol said, shrugging her eyes as she tried to clear her head from a terrible thought.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying. What if… what if your visions come back?
“I told you, I’m fine now.” She knew he meant well, but this was something she needed to do alone. She was as sure of that as she of the fact that those weren’t visions. “You can go. I’m fine,” Carol repeated, and the monster in the corner smiled at her.”

This point of view has a little bit of both the first person and the third person omniscient POVs. Why? well, as the first-person POV, it sticks to the thought and feelings of only one person; and as the third-person omniscient, the narrator occurs from outside of the characters.

Third-person omniscient Point of View

Even when it may not be as deep as writing in the first person, you will have more freedom to apply descriptive elements in your narration and give a much wider vision of the story.

 Let’s see an example of this:

The race seemed like it would never end. The horses ran wildly, jostling, cutting off the others’ ways. From the stands, the angry audience screamed, humiliated those who were in the back, and encouraged those who were in the front. The beads of sweat were walking down Luis’s forehead, all his money was in the race, his dignity, and his future.

Advantages:

The writer knows everything about the characters, their stories, their past and future actions. You can narrate at the time and place you want, with the details you allow, you just have to set the reader in the right place, and say what you have to say. So, if two highly relevant actions take place at the same time, you can narrate both without losing importance, and without omitting any details.

By narrating in third person, you can express more than actions, but also the thoughts the characters keep to themselves, so even the most secondary character obtains significant profundity, of course, if you grant it to him.

As a characteristic of this point of view, the vision offered is mostly objective, therefore, the writer is strange to the story. So, no matter what the character does, the writer will not judge his actions, and this will let the reader judge for himself the actions of those who intervene and have his own judgment of what happens.

One factor that you’ll probably really like about writing in the third person, is that you can provide a lot of information, even the smallest details. Therefore, no matter what the intensity of the scene is, the writer sees everything and knows everything, for example; If our protagonist was in the middle of a bloody battle on the high seas if you are narrating in the first person, it does not make sense for him to notice the dolphins that jump around the ship, but, with the point of view in the third person, you can describe the ease of the dolphins’ jump and even their color.

Disadvantages of the third person omniscient POV:

As I said a moment ago, you can provide a lot of information, but this is not entirely positive, why? Because over-detailing a scene can be adverse. The rhythm of your narration can suffer a lot with so many descriptive elements, boring the reader, and turning your book into a bedtime story.

On the other hand, exploring too deeply into the thoughts of the characters can give your novel an unwanted subjectivity, for the simple fact that, if you focus too much on narrating the experiences of the characters, you take away the consistency of your story. The trick is not to overdo it, over-describe unimportant items, or dig too deep into feelings.

Something that is very difficult to handle, is to obtain a greater density in the argument. Let me explain this better. In a good book, it will not be enough to tell only what interests us, we must also give importance and active attention to the other stories that are part of the novel. It’s common that, for inexpert writers, facing too many characters, the third person POV becomes a real problem.

Mixing points of view…

More than once, I have read books where the author combines more than one point of view. This makes the plot move from different angles. Multiple POVs can give a more complete and close view of the life of each character.

The girl on the train by Paula Hawkins is a perfect example of this. Told from the first-person POV, the story is narrated from the perspectives of three different female characters.

Another good example is the Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo. Both, the prologue and the epilogue are told in the third person, while the story as such is told from the first-person point of view.

Mixing things up can add an extra something to your novel. Now, things have to be done wisely. This is not an encouragement to mix whichever two POV you find interesting.

In both examples mentioned above, the authors manage to do it masterfully. However, in the first case, even when you have multiple perspectives, all of them are done from the First-person POV. In the second case, the author only uses a different POV in the prologue and epilogue,. This way, she sets perfect limits between one POV and the other.

Summing up…

Points of view are a basic element of any story… and they can be tricky. Keep in mind that your choice depends on the context of the story you want to tell.

Whether you choose first person, third person limited or omniscient, make sure that it benefits your plot. Make sure that your characters or narrator are telling the part of the story that matters. It all depends on the context of your story.

 So, here you have more munitions to start, I hope you give them good use. And always remember, there’s always a beginning, you could be anything you want, with a good effort.

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