How annoying is it when reading a book and you find that the point of view (POV) is all screwed and characters are out of character with no direction? One of the main choices authors have to consider when first fathoming the novel that they will write is whom will be doing the talking, and from what angle. Experienced writers will readily tell you that this is an important entity, despite the fact that third person is usually the first option. In my current creative writing classes I’m trying to get students to embrace the basics of allowing their readers to not have to wonder about what point of view is prevalent to avoid confusion. We are currently reading a book that will be discussed for technical merit and literal objectivity. One of my students, Carrie came to me with viable questions: “Why are so many books written in third person…why not first, second or even in ways where the main character tells it all?”

In my exuberance to answer those questions I immediately harkened back to the many manuscripts I’ve edited where the point of view was all wrong and misrepresented. First and foremost, I’ve always felt that the storyline should be legit with the need to add more developmental text to embellish the story so that whatever viewpoints elicited would be apropos. I find that aspiring writers in some cases are not tightening their writing for reasonable plots to give resolve for intrigue to illustrate better supporting text leading to scenarios that would color settings better. It’s as if they are apprehensive to add fodder to the content as it pertain to the storyline in the sense that would challenge their ability to write beyond what their stories are about. I tell them that readers want much more than what is status quo in the type of story they are writing. With this, a few mechanics explaining different points of view gets center stage to illustrate my points here.

Writers will have to determine what ‘voice’ they will be using for the main character and all of the secondary role players. I’m reminded that who tells the story, and how it is told are ever so important for authors to contemplate tone and tenor of their stories. Even meanings can change to extremes depending on who is telling the story. I told Carrie that there are elements at all points between the reader and the action of any story. Those elements, if not the main character, is telling the story from his or her own point of view. This angle of vision, the point of view from which the people, events, and details of a story are viewed, can come in several versions, i.e., Objective Point of View (where the author is a detached observer, never revealing anything short of inference from the story); First Person Point of View (the author here participates first hand in narrating the story from an I, me, mine, type of reference); Second Person Narrative (the person whom someone is speaking to, or writing about. It usually is prefaced by the pronoun ‘you’); Third Person Point of View (here, the author does not participate in the action of the story as one of the characters, but lets us know exactly how the characters feel, usually through an outside voice); Omniscient Points of View (this is where the author uses the main character or any other character where they know everything about all the other characters in an ‘all knowing’ situation. This view often has subsidiaries in depicting a narrator whose knowledge is limited to one character, either major or minor).

I also had to explain and give reasons why points of view should be subjective in the clarity of writing to each. To wit: How does the point of view affect responses to the characters? How can responses influence how much the narrator knows and how objective he or she is? More often than not I’ve found where writers are privy to ‘head hopping’ –- that situation where they jump from one point of view to another, thus confusing readers. The reader can’t and won’t appreciate the story to keep from asking, “Who’s talking now?” Carrie challenged me again by imploring the fact that it’s so hard to keep track of a particular point of view in her writing. I told her that that’s natural for beginning writers who are struggling to understand how to pace their writing and use a storyboard. And that, whatever limitations you place on your narrator to clarify his/her point of view, you should stick with it.

By far, most writers have confided in me that the Omniscient point of view is the hardest and most intimidating to write, especially with its penchant for limited and unlimited factions. There’s even a Third Person Omniscient Voice that can be challenging for writers from time to time…this from authors who really feel that to write viably is to do so across the board for sustained acceptability. In this version, the method of storytelling allows the narrator to know the thoughts and feelings of all the characters in the story. Third person being the most frequent voice used, can be objective and/or dramatic, where the narrator is not limited to just one POV. Choices will have to be made concerning characters’ voices whether it’s from the limited or unlimited extreme. A Limited Third Person narrator is essentially a first person using the him /her voice. The perspective is limited to that one main character’s mindset, with the occasional outside look at him or her depending on how the character is written. It’s yet another way to offer readers more than one perspective for your book to have appeal. This approach alluding to the aforementioned angst that writers experience is a perception that they’re writing from a different esthetic. It can be most difficult because if you use it you will need to establish early on that you have an omniscient narrator in place that can pop into anyone’s head at will. Another use of the first person narrator is (for them) to tell the story about someone else…and essentially this is what is done using multiple characters having their own voice with alternating chapters.

The writer often starts with an overview (and that can be depicted in a prologue), as if the narrative voice were that of someone on a cloud if you will, seeing all, knowing all from on high above the actions of the little people below. Then the roving eye zooms in to the one character’s perspective, bobs out to give the readers the outer view. They then pop into someone else’s head (namely the other secondary characters) for a few more sensory descriptions. The beauty of this situation is that the narrator still has control over what is being conveyed, thus allowing for a different view to another character!

In closing, it always comes back to the author’s original intent of the story. Is it more important to be in the mind of the main character so that readers can experience what is being optioned, or do you want to get a fuller picture of the story with a little distance from the main character? How would you know without voice being established early on? You will need to thoroughly understand point of view in order to write the type of novel you have with characterization that have flair for the dramatic and clarity to have page-turning delight. Not getting it write will cause your whole book to go awry. Perhaps this article may not have appealed to you that are already published and are seasoned, but to aspiring writers such as Carrie, it could mean a world of difference viewing the points that may give their writing a voice. Here’s hoping that someone endeavors to write with a point of view that will give without question– who’s really doing the talking!