Insane Dames

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Point of View

by Deb Klein

The first short story I’d submitted to an editor put me on the hot seat. It was a lousy ten pages long and I was sure I’d written it to the best of my ability. Imagine my surprise when the editor returned it so marked up that it took me several days to fix it.

Sure, there were the usual typos, and yes, a grammatical boo-boo here and there, but what I’d consistently done wrong was switch point of views. The editor referred to my rapid changes as ‘jarring’ because she was too polite to call it ‘head-hopping’ like everyone else does.

Like all first experiences, this one was memorable. In fact, it was so memorable that I’d got paranoid about point of view, and froze up every time I tried to write. I had to arm myself with a pile of how-to books to study this effervescent thing called point of view in order to write again.

What I’ve learned about point of view, abbreviated as POV, can be shared in this very simple format:

Definition of POV:
Who is telling the story?

Types of POV:
First person = ‘I’ am telling the story.
Second person = ‘You’ are telling the story.
Third person = ‘She’ is telling the story.
Omniscient = ‘God’ is telling the story.

Usage of POV:
First person = Second most popular, but it limits what the story teller can know.
Second person = Obsolete because it’s so annoying to read about ‘you’ doing this and that.
Third person = Longest use in history and the most popular today.
Omniscient = Used occasionally by few. Not recommended for building suspense since the narrator knows everything about everyone at all times.

Narrowing it down, you’ll notice first person and third person POV are the most popular. Let’s look at some examples of these two versions.

First person POV: I drove to the bookstore.
Third person POV: She drove to the bookstore.

First person POV: My novel got published.
Third person POV: Her novel got published.

Can you switch POV during your story? Yes, of course you can, but it’s when you switch that makes the difference between a good story and a head-hopping scrimmage. The rule of thumb is to stay in one POV for an entire scene. In the books I enjoy reading the most, the POV switches are done chapter by chapter and I can follow without getting ‘jarred’. Of course, I’m talking about successful authors with years of experience here. As for me, I’d be more than happy to be able to stay in one POV for now.

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