Defining Point of View: Pros and Cons of Six POVs in Fiction

Journal and PenPoint of view is one of the most important decisions that a writer makes when writing a story.  Point of view dictates how close the reader comes to the characters as well as how the narration is related to the reader.  It is trendy these days to get as close as possible, so that the reader feel as though they are in a character’s skin.  Of course how close or far from the the reader gets to the characters is dictated by the story content.

If we look at the various points of view available we can see that each has different attributes that can be both helpful and hindering to our writing.  When deciding on point of view the writer needs to be aware of what each point of view can bring to the table.

First Person Singular: This point of view uses the pronoun ‘I/me/my’ to express who the narrator is.   Since the reader is usually in the narrator’s head this point of view can be used to bring the reader close to a character.  Often the downside is that the setting and actions of characters are overlooked.  So while we can come very close to a character and see the world through their eyes, we also run the risk of placing the reader in a sort of limbo where they feel like they are lost in someone’s head.

Example:

Jane and I moved the dead body to the bathroom and heaved it into the tub.  There’s so much blood, I thought.

“Maybe we should call the police,” she said, placing her hand on my wrist.

Second Person Singular and Plural: This point of view employs the pronoun ‘You,’ for both singular and plural although it is possible to use a colloquial version for plural such as ‘you all,’ or ‘you guys.’  Novels which have used it effectively include Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, and Tom Robbins’s Skinny Legs and All.   However, it should be pointed out that this point of view can be troublesome.  While it does place the reader in the story it can also become tiresome and seem like a gimmick.

Example:

You and Jane moved the dead body to the bathroom and heaved it into the tub.  There’s so much blood, you thought.

“Maybe we should call the police,” she said, placing her hand on your wrist.

Third Person Limited: This point of view uses the pronoun ‘He/She/It.’  In theory it can bring the reader as close to the characters as first person.  When done properly we should be able to replace the pronoun ‘He/She/It’ with ‘I’ because we are only following one character.  However, this is seldom the case.  Usually writing in the third person limited slightly distances us from the characters.  Still, it can be very helpful when creating the setting and the action of the characters.  While third person limited doesn’t usually help us understand our characters it does create a writing environment that is both grounding and descriptive.

Example:

Michael and Jane moved the dead body to the bathroom and heaved it into the tub.  There’s so much blood, he thought.

“Maybe we should call the police,” Jane said, placing her hand on his wrist.

First Person and Third Person Plural: This point of view employs ‘We,’ for first person and They/Them/their(s) for third person.  It is often used for formal academic writing because it doesn’t specify gender.  However, it can be used in fiction as well.  A good example is Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera.  In García Márquez’s novel he uses the pronoun ‘we’ in order to create a sort of community that is telling the story.  The pieces of the novel come from not one person alone but a group of people.

letter-writing41Third Person Omniscient (Omni): This point of view uses the pronoun “He/She/It.”  However, it differs from third person limited in that the narrator can go into various characters’ heads.  Instead of following one character throughout a story we have the possibility to follow multiple characters.  For this reason it can also be problematic.  Since we are not following one character, but many, we often do not get close to any of the characters.  On top of that it rarely helps us with setting because omniscient uses a wide angle lens which can encompass an entire village or the whole word.  Instead of getting close to the setting the reader often sees the scenery through a bird’s eye view.

It is also interesting to note that third person omniscient is not trendy at the moment.  Richard Russo is the only author to use omniscient in a novel and win the Pulitzer Prize in the last ten years.  More and more writers are replacing the omniscient point of view with multiple third person limited points of view like Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.

However, this shouldn’t deter aspiring writers.  Once the other points of view have been mastered writers should at least attempt to write using omniscient because it allows the writer free rein over the entire world they are creating.  As Russo writes in his essay, ‘In Defense of Omnisciens:’ “If playing God scares you, there are other professions.”

Example:

Michael and Jane moved the dead body to the bathroom and heaved it into the tub.  There’s so much blood, he thought.

“Maybe we should call the police,” Jane said.  Judging from the way he shivered she knew calling the cops was out of the question.

Dramatic: This point of view uses the pronoun “He/She/It/I.”  It is similar to what we might find in a play.  We, the readers, witness the dialogue and the actions without getting inside any of the character’s head.  Usually the narrator is not a fully developed character but a simple voice describing a scene to us.

On first look the dramatic point of view may seem as unhelpful as third person omniscient.  It is true that it is one of the more difficult points of view to master.  It does not bring us close to the characters and it does not force the writer to describe the setting.  However, it does one thing that is very helpful to a writer.  It forces us to write scene (the actions of the various characters.)

writingMost stories have parts that are not as strong as others.  The writer may have strong characters, but be lacking in setting.  The writer may have great exposition but be missing believable dialogue.  Still, the one thing that almost all stories are missing is good scene.  Since the dramatic point of view’s focus is on scene, it forces the writer to write out the actions of the characters rather than summarize them in the exposition.

Example:

Michael and Jane moved the dead body to the bathroom and heaved it into the tub.  He kneeled down and touched the pool of blood on the floor.  It went from the bathroom all the way out to the kitchen.

“Maybe we should call the police,” Jane said, placing her hand on his wrist.

As we can see, this example is very different from the others.  Here we don’t have Michael’s thoughts.  Not being in his head distances us from the character.  However, we do have a description of him leaning down and touching the pool of blood.  Since we are not telling the audience exactly how Michael feels about the blood we allow the reader to come to their own conclusion based on what is presented.

For more information on point of view read, How to decided which point of view to use in fiction.

 


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