Simply stated, point of view is the lens through which your reader will experience a story. It dictates not just who is telling the story, but also how much the reader knows and how intimately they feel connected with your characters. Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formerly repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Reddit Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Reddit Scared podcast, where we talk about the messy, brave act of writing our novels and how to do it with more courage, clarity, and self-trust. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, and today is Isso Lo Show. We're gonna do a little craft chat on point of view. And I felt like this was a good topic to bring up at this time because we reviewed story structure and character arcs back in episode 42. And then we talked about how to plan and outline your novel back in episode 50. And I'll link those episodes in the show notes if you want to go back and listen. But I felt like point of view was just a natural progression into the next step of okay, how do we actually tell the story? But before we jump into our topic, I do want to remind you that this is the last week to sign up for the Ride It Scared Podcast Anniversary giveaway to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the podcast and to celebrate you, the listeners, I am giving away three plot coaching strategy sessions. They are 90 minutes long, plus some other prizes. So if you want to enter the giveaway, the deadline is June 11th. And you can go to the link in the show notes, follow the prompts, and you will be entered to win. And I'll announce the winners on June 16th. Okay, so narrative viewpoint, also called point of view, sometimes referred to as POV, is something I see many new writers struggle with. I know I certainly did when I started writing because I didn't understand it and I just didn't know what I was doing. And I wound up a good 40,000 words into my first story before I finally figured out where I went wrong. And that was only because I got feedback from a compassionate book coach and editor at the time. So I hope to save you some of the same heartache that I had when I had to go back to the beginning and start over. So let's talk about what point of view actually is, why it matters, discuss the different types, and talk about how you can use them to make intentional and effective point of view choices in your novel. And then I'll also give you some quick tips on how to avoid some common pitfalls when writing them. So, what is point of view? Simply stated, point of view is the lens through which your reader will experience the story. It dictates not just who is telling the story, but also how much the reader knows and how intimately they feel connected with your characters. When point of view is working, it often feels invisible. The story just kind of flows and the emotional arc is clear and the readers are immersed without consciously thinking about how the story is being delivered to them. But when point of view is inconsistent or unclear or misapplied, it can break that immersive story spell. Readers can get confused or disconnected, and that can cost you their trust and their readership. So if there is one hard, fast rule about point of view, I would say it is to be consistent. And I know we really say there's no there's no rules, there's no hard, fast rules. Well, there are some, and we break them with intention once we learn them and learn how to do that. But for this one, hold your line pretty close here. Be consistent. Now, that does not mean that you are limited to just one character's perspective throughout the whole book. Of course it doesn't. But your reader should always know whose lens they are looking through. So what I would caution you against is being in two characters' perspectives in the same scene. This is known as head hopping. Head hopping is a literary technique when the narrative POV jumps around between two or more characters' internal thoughts in the same scene or paragraph without clear scene breaks. So, for example, in one minute we might be in Anna's head feeling her dread about the phone call she missed. And then in the next sentence, we're over in Jacob's head wondering if he should have said something to Anna about the fact she took out, she forgot to take out the trash. In general, this is a jarring experience for your reader. Now, yes, you are right if you're thinking that some of the classics and some current well-known authors do use head hopping, and some of them make it work beautifully. Emily Morgenstein's The Night Circus comes to mind. But for most contemporary fiction, head hopping is a pretty quick way to lose your reader's focus and emotional connection. So if you're early in your writing journey, my advice is this: don't head hop. Keep your point of view consistent and your character centered within the scene. So let's talk about the different types of point of view at a writer's disposal and look at what each can do for your story and how it shapes your reader's experience. So the three point of views are first person, second person, and third person. First person uses the pronouns I and me and is told from a character within the story, often the protagonist, but not always. And the advantages of this point of view is that it creates a deeply intimate feel and a real connection to the narrator's voice. The reader lives inside the narrator's worldview. Now, this also means that it naturally limits the amount of information that character can know. So though it's great for building mystery and suspense and even creating unreliable narration, it's often hard to describe what the protagonist looks like in an objective way. Hence the, you know, cliche characters staring at themselves in the mirror and describing what they look like. I've done that and been called out for it. And world building can be challenging too if the character couldn't or wouldn't realistically be able to explain certain certain things in their world or circumstances. This happens more in the speculative fiction realm when we're talking sci-fi or maybe a portal fantasy where a character is plunked down into a place that they don't understand. One of the common drawbacks of using first person is that it can be a little bit claustrophobic for your reader. As writers, we tend to forget about the outside world because we are so focused on being inside that character in their interiority. And it can also become repetitive and redundant if every paragraph or sentence begins with I. This is definitely a hang-up that I have, and it's something that I focus on improving in revision. So here's a few tips to prevent falling into the repetitive eye trap of the first-person POV. You can consider starting the paragraph or the sentence with setting, action, or sensory details. For example, instead of saying, I didn't want to drink the hot coffee, you could write the steam curled off the surface of my coffee. I didn't touch it. You can use interior monologue directly, something like, would he call me back? question mark, instead of, I wondered if he'd call back. You can also imply the character's presence and emotional state through their body language. For example, instead of saying, I clinched my fists at my sides, you can shorten that and just say, my hands clinched. You can break up the rhythm with voice and fragments, and I am a serious fan of sentence fragments, often to my detriment. But we all have our things. But you could say, but if you said something like, I wasn't ready to face another day, instead you could say, Not today, not again, I wasn't ready. And you do want to make sure you're pulling in some setting description. So give us a feel for what the character is experiencing as they move through the world on a physical level. What do they see, not just what they feel? So those little shifts can reduce repetition and deepen your narrative voice without pulling your reader out of the character's experience or boring them with the redundancy of I, I, I. The next point of view is second person. And second person point of view uses the pronouns you and yours. And what this does is it puts the reader into the role of the narrator who may or may not be the protagonist. I would say this is probably one of the least common points of views in commercial fiction. It can definitely create a very intimate reader experience, and it can be pretty unsettling too, depending on the context of how it's used. It's damn interesting when it's done really well. A couple of my favorite examples are the book You by Carolyn Kepnes, which is a psychological thriller. It's now a hit show on Netflix. But the way that one's written is a little different. It directly addresses the object of the narrator's obsession. So what that does is make the reader's not necessarily the narrator in that situation. It's more like you, the reader, actually become the woman who's being stalked. It's very chilling. The other example that comes to mind is The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison. And this is a novel that alternates between different points of view, and one of which is second person. And the POV choice for this is very purposeful, and the reason becomes clear as the story unfolds. So, like I said, it can be very intimate, but it can be really hard to sustain across an entire novel. You know, I don't think I've ever read a novel that uses second person consistently throughout the whole thing. Granted, I have not read all the books, but to me, that would be a very labor-intensive experience as a reader and probably as a writer, because you're so in it all the time. So you have to be really careful with your pacing and keep it from feeling gimmicky. Okay, third person. Third person point of view is a big one because it has several variations. Third person point of view uses the pronouns he, she, they, and so on. And it's very flexible because it offers this range of distance between the narrator and the character. And so that offers this range of emotional distance between the reader and the character. So we're gonna go through each variation. I would say this is arguably the most common point of view in contemporary fiction. Although I I think first person is really sliding in there too. In third person limited, the narrator follows one character's perspective at a time. The reader can only know what the character knows, sees, and feels. However, you do have some flexibility to pull back and slide in exposition kind of seamlessly, so long as you don't drop into info dumping with this point of view. Now, there is also third person close, sometimes referred to as third person deep, or sometimes referred to as third person immersive. I know, right? But to me, this is a subcategory of third person limited. And when people say I use third person close, what they mean is that the narration closely mirrors the character's internal thoughts, voice, and worldview. So much so that when it's done really well, it's just as intimate, just as immediate as first person. In fact, it almost reads like first person, except it's just done with those third person pronouns. It's very voice-driven, very intimate and emotionally compelling. And personally, it's one of my favorite point of views. Then we have third person limited multiple. And this is just multiple third-person limited perspectives. So each chapter sticks to one point of view character. An example of this would be Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, where each chapter is limited to a single character. Another example is the Dance of the Elements series by A.M. Dees, who is actually coming on the podcast in a couple of weeks to chat with us about writing fantasy. So Third Person Limited offers a lot of intimacy, a lot of control, but it can come with some missteps too. So here are some quick tips to help you wield it. You want to stay anchored in one character's perspective per scene. If I haven't said that enough, I'll say it one more time. No head hopping into other characters' thoughts. So let your character's voice color the narration. So the narrative tone, even down to the descriptions they choose, should reflect the point of view character's worldview, their lived experience, their current mood, and all of this lends to their authentic voice. Remember, you can control the narrative distance of the moment. So you could choose to drop into third person close for an intimate or heavy emotional beat. And then you could pull back a bit when you need to for pacing or scene transition. But do stay aware of how far you pull back because you don't want to go so far that you drop your reader out of the story. And with this point of view, especially, you want to make sure that you are showing emotion. Honestly, don't hold back what the character feels from themselves. So when in doubt, put the interiority on the page, show their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions. You can always pull it out later if it's too much. And then finally, use sensory details and descriptions to ground your reader in the moment in the world. So what your point of view character notices or ignores can actually tell us volumes about the world they live in and about themselves. Now let's talk about third-person omniscient. This is the point of view where the narrator is godlike or all-knowing. The narrator knows everything about the story, all of its characters, it knows the past, knows the present, knows the future, all the thoughts, feelings, motivations, and even things that the characters don't know about themselves. This narrator can also move freely between the characters, it can provide commentary and reveal big picture truths. The advantage of this point of view is that it's great for epic adventures because of its very expansive scope. So think of stories like Dune. The narrator can also have a very opinionated and distinctive voice. Think of like Lemony Snicket. And you can play with a lot of dramatic irony and suspense here. So that means that your reader knows that something's about to happen, but the character doesn't see it coming yet. And you can do that because your narrator has the advantage of knowing everything about the story. Now, some disadvantages here is that this POV is hard to pull off. It requires a lot of control and it can be quite distancing to the reader. And there is a very real risk of giving too much away too soon and losing the element of suspense. And even though you could technically jump into another character's head or perspective in a scene, it's not recommended because that's head hopping. Some popular examples of this point of view would be Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Now there is one more variation of third person point of view that deserves to be mentioned. It's kind of an outlier, and I honestly don't think I've ever read a novel that was sustained by this point of view alone, or even substantially in parts. That said, I haven't read all the books, but if you have and you know of one, please let me know. So this is third person objective. And in the third person objective point of view, the narrator has zero access to any of the character's internal thoughts or emotions, and therefore neither does the reader. The narrator can only observe and report what is being seen or heard. So it's kind of like a fly on the wall or a camera. This point of view depends on action and dialogue to convey what's going on, and the reader has to infer a lot through subtext and physical cues to make sense of the situation. The most notable and classic example that I know of is the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. Okay, so you just learned a lot about point of view, right? So now can you ever blend them? Can you ever blend your point of views? Well, not in a single scene, right? But in a book, absolutely. In a book, you can do whatever you want. You can have one character who presents in first person and another character who you're writing in third person. You can have sections of the story be told through an omniscient point of view and some of it be told in third person limited. Absolutely, yes, you can do all those things, just do them with intention and care. A good example of this is Harry Potter. Most of that series is in the third person limited from Harry's perspective. But there are key scenes, especially in the opening chapters of The Sorcerer's Stone and The Goblet of Fire, that use an omniscient point of view. And these scenes work because the point of view stays consistent within that scene. There's no head hopping, and they serve a narrative purpose. They set the tone, they present the stakes, and they give the reader information that Harry doesn't have because he's not there. He's not present in those moments. And this creates some dramatic irony. And a lot of times you needed to know that information before you could dip into Harry's perspective. So it serves a purpose. So, yes, absolutely you can blend, have fun. But know why you're doing it and focus on keeping your reader grounded in one point of view at a time. So now let's talk about how you consider choosing the right point of view or the right vehicle for your story. Well, there's no hard fast answer here. There's certainly no one size fits all answer. But here are a few things to consider to help guide you. Consider how much narrative distance you want between your reader and your point of view character. How close do you want that reader to feel to the experience the point of view character is having? Consider your own reading experience and taste here. What do you enjoy reading? I find that most of us gravitate toward writing what we like to read. So pay attention to that. Look at the novel on your nightstand. What point of view is it? What do you like about it? What don't you like? How much information are you gaining as the story progresses because of the point of view choice? Another question to consider is: do you want your reader to know more than your character knows? If you do, you might consider using omniscient or multiple third-person perspectives, or a first-person and a third-person limited perspective in your story. If you want your reader to discover everything right alongside the character as they learn it, then you're probably looking at using more of a first-person point of view or a third-person point of view, either limited or close. And then lastly, consider the emotional journey of the story. Is it more about one person's emotional journey or is it broader than that? Is it more of a multi-character tapestry? That will help you decide if you should lean towards a more intimate first person or third person limited point of view, or if you want to shift over to something more distant, like omniscient, or even multiple third person limited. My favorite thing to do, and what I often recommend, is just try writing some scenes in a couple different POVs and see what sticks. See what feels good. Try first person, third, try limited, try close, try omniscient, see what works, see what works for you. Pick a scene that isn't in the novel story present. Maybe write a backstory scene. Make it low stakes, make it fun. There's no one right way to do this. There is the way that works for you and the story that you're telling. And remember, writing is an iterative process and point of view is a tool and it's a skill. So do your due diligence and learn about it. Understand how to use it, and then you can start using it with intention. And the more you write and the more you practice, the more powerful a tool it will become in your storytelling toolbox. So go write something messy, go get brave, go have fun. Remember, you can always revise it or throw it away. Until next time, just keep going. You've got this. And I will be back next week with a new guest. Brooke Adams Law is coming on the podcast, and we are going to talk about how we can be more brave with our words on the page. And don't forget, if you want to sign up for the one-year podcast anniversary giveaway, the link is in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in, and I will see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.