Whose Point of View?

It’s been a busy start to the year working on my novels and several different projects. I’ve also been writing scripts and filming an exciting new series of videos that I’ll launch on my Patreon page soon with a free version available on my YouTube channel!

All very exciting, but it means the blog has been a bit neglected… So, I’m back to give it some love and share my thoughts on Point of View.

Point of view or POV, is an element that can often be overlooked or not given the consideration it needs when thinking about elements of narrative. But choosing the narrator of your story and the point of view is perhaps one of the most significant decisions you’ll make as a writer. So, I’m going to lay out the options and highlight the advantages and drawbacks of each perspective to help with any decision-making.

A good starting point is taking advice from David Corbett in The Art of Character, who recommends that when you’re deciding which point of view to use, ask yourself these three questions:

• Why is this story being told?

• Who has the authority to tell it?

• How should it be told?

Deciding who, why and how your story needs to be told, will also make working out narrative structure and plotting a whole lot easier.

Most stories are either written in first person (I, me) or one of the third person options (he, she, they, them.) So, here’s a breakdown of possibilities for you to consider.

First Person Point of View

First person is where a story is told by one of the main characters, so they’re both the narrator and the protagonist. For example, Pip in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, who looks back on his journey from an innocent, sensitive child to an ambitious young man, before facing his failures and realising that compassion and loyalty are the true values for greatness, and not wealth or class propriety.

This POV is a great way to identify closely with the character telling the story, because the reader knows their innermost thoughts and feelings, as well as the events of the novel, which are seen almost entirely from that character's perspective.

However, it does have limitations because the reader's knowledge of what happens in the story is restricted to a single consciousness, with the narrator unaware of the unspoken thoughts or feelings of anyone else. Unless, of course, they discover a letter or diary or overhear a conversation, which is one way around it, but this can’t be relied upon too often, or it will shatter suspension of disbelief. The reader also misses out on events or scenes where the narrator isn’t present, which can cause difficulties with plotting or result in potentially juicy scenes being left out, only hinted at or imagined rather than explored and experienced because they can’t actually be worked into the narrative.  

Not all first person narrators need to be entirely trustworthy, either, and can tell the story with varying degrees of deception while manipulating the reader and, sometimes, manipulating the truth to hide it from themselves. By being able to decide what to reveal and what to conceal, an unreliable narrator can create a highly subjective perspective of the story, which is not necessarily an accurate one. Sometimes, narrators can be skilled liars, such as the voice telling the story in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where he omits his actions in the name of ‘truth’ rather than presenting all the facts. It’s a clever deception to hide from the reader that the narrator is in fact the actual murderer…

Alternatively, there can be naïve narrators, usually children, who recount events without understanding the full meaning of what they’ve witnessed because of a lack of knowledge and experience. Think of the comedic naivety in The Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and  3/4 where his intellectual confidence doesn’t quite match his lack of understanding about the real world or the complexities of adult relationships.

Third Person Point of View

With third-person point of view (he, she, they, them), the story is told by someone who is not a character in the story. This is the most variable and flexible form of POV and has been used for a wide range of diverse characters, such as Kafka's Metamorphosis, Hardy's Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Steinbeck’s Of Mice & Men, Miller’s Circe, Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea and Hemingway’s The Old Man & The Sea.

At its most simplistic, third person POV allows the writer to remain on the outside of the action in the story while describing what takes place. Degrees of detachment from the characters can vary with limited or ‘distant’ at one end of the spectrum - featuring just actions, dialogue, and scenes, similar to seeing a play - while at the other end, they can be ‘close’ and make the reader aware of what’s going on in any character's mind. This kind of narrator can know all about a character’s past, present or fate. They can essentially move around the narrative at will and dip into any scene or place in direct contrast to a first-person narrative which is anchored to a single consciousness. This kind of ‘close’ narrator is sometimes described as omniscient  - the all-knowing creator who can allow the reader to know about any part of the story.

If you’re tempted by using third person POV, think about how far or near you want the narrator to be to your characters. Experimenting with degrees of ‘closeness’ or ‘distance’ is always a good idea to discover what works best for your story. To make it easier, think about how physically close you want to be – are you watching them from across the street or are you breathing down their neck and looking over their shoulder? Are you seeing things directly through their eyes or seeing their external reactions?

You can also use multiple narrators with shifting points of view and perspectives. Psychological thrillers and crime novels often use this method, like Lucy Foley’s The Guest List or Vera Caspary’s Laura. It’s also the method I use in my novel The Bookfinder, with alternating third person POV chapters that allows the reader to follow the journey and perspective of three main characters in the story. George R.R Martin does the same with A Song of Ice and Fire, where each chapter focuses on the knowledge, thoughts, and feelings of a single character.

Another option with third person POV is having no narrator at all to introduce elements like character and setting, while instead telling the story through the eyes and consciousness of one of the characters. This style of third person is called internal focalisation with the reader experiencing the character's unfiltered story by effectively being inside their mind without interruptions from an external narrative voice. It creates a personal, intimate and subjective story limited to what only the central character knows or experiences. Modernist writers, such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Henry James, Ford Madox Ford and Katherine Mansfield used this point of view to direct the reader's attention away from the narrator and towards the internal mind of the main character instead.

Second Person Point of View (yes, you read that correctly, Second Person Point of View...)

Finally, you might want to consider the rare second person point of view, which uses the present tense to ensure the story immediately unfolds, creating a sense that the reader is an active participant. You’ll recognise this POV from interactive fiction, or ‘choose your own adventure’ type books and games, as well as TV shows where breaking the fourth wall brings viewers into the story. It uses you, your and yours to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, creating intimacy while showing a character’s internal dissociation.

Although, be aware that second person POV can create problems, such as readers rebelling against what they’re effectively being told to do. They can also translate the you into I, which then turns the narrative into a first person point of view, limiting the sense of active participation, which the writer may not want. But if it’s done well, it can be an incredibly immersive experience. Iain Banks uses this technique in his dark, compelling and thought-provoking novel Complicity, specifically in chapters recounting the actions of a murderer. Here’s a taste:

You're wearing your moustache and wig and glasses and you have clip-on sunshades over the lenses because it is a bright day. You ring the doorbell, watching down the drive for any cars while you pull on your leather gloves. You're sweating and nervous and you know you're out on a limb here.

The overall effect is to make the reader feel complicit with the murderer's actions by experiencing everything with them as it occurs – after all the novel is called Complicity, so the clue's in the title!

Whichever point of view you choose, avoid shifting between perspectives in the same scene otherwise it’ll be way too confusing, and any potential dramatic impact will be lost, along with your reader... I also recommend taking a look at different novels in the genre you want to write in so you can learn what other authors have used and how effective they are. For The Bookfinder, I first began writing scenes in first person POV because I wanted intimacy but after reading a few contemporary fantasy stories, like David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, I realised I could do so much more in terms of narrative structure and plotting with a ‘close’ or omniscient third person point of view. After making that decision, the rest of the story flowed…

I hope this foray into point of view has helped with deciding the perspective you want to use and look out for my next post on worldbuilding. In the meantime, happy writing!