Point of View, Part One

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each point of view, and how can we choose the right one for our manuscripts?

This post is part of the Write With Me series. For more like this, check out the writing your novel page.

Selecting a point of view for our manuscripts is a critical step, one that is often overlooked when diving in to a first draft. In many cases, it's easy to jump into the point of view that seems most natural to us as writers: the one which we read most or simply whichever felt best at the time.

Being deliberate with our POV selection is important, however, as it has possibly the greatest base-line effect on the presentation of our entire story. Our characters, the worlds in which they live, our readers' experiences of both—all of it is viewed through the lens of POV.

So what points of view are available, and how do we pick one? Let's tackle these topics one at a time.

The Points of View

There are four to choose from:

• First person

• Second person

• Third person limited

• Third person omniscient

Some will argue that there are only three of these—that the third person limited and third person omniscient are simply two aspects of one POV—but for the purposes of this post, let's treat them as separate entities.

With each of these four in mind, let's examine what defines them and explore their advantages and disadvantages.

First Person

These are narratives told from the perspective of "I." That is to say, our main character refers to him- or herself in the first person through the narrative. Examples of books told in the first person include Room by Emma Donoghue and The Martian by Andy Weir. The latter does change POV at times, but more on that in a moment.

Advantages

If you've read either Room or The Martian, one of the things that likely stands out most from both titles is the strong voice of the main character. Since readers have the opportunity to experience the world (or Mars) as the main characters experience it, we have access to these characters' hopes, fears, opinions and observations in the most direct way possible. This creates a tight sense of proximity between the reader and POV character, which indirectly strengthens a reader's bond to the narrative itself.

It's for these reasons that I ultimately chose to write my current work in progress in the first person. After about 20,000 words of it written in the third person, it felt like even I as the writer couldn't connect with the main character, something I knew was critical for the narrative I aimed to tell. With that in mind, I surged forward in the first person, which helped me get a much better feel of who my main character was as a person. I'm hoping this does the same for readers, too.

Disadvantages

The above advantages can quickly become disadvantages, however, in that stories written from the first person perspective often fail to employ dramatic irony. That is to say, there are no or few opportunities for readers to have access to information that the main character does not, which can be a storytelling asset if implemented properly. Furthermore, relying on the first person means that our readers had better love to love or love to hate being with that one character for the entire tale. If not, what I'll call first-person fatigue might get to them, pushing them away from our character (and story!).

One way that The Martian gets around this fatigue (not that I tired of Watney's POV in the first place), and also builds a sense of dramatic irony is by cutting away from Watney at times to be with the characters actively attempting to rescue him. In this way, the reader is privy to information that only the folks at NASA have, and also privy to information that only Watney has. The reader can then anticipate future tension points, which creates a more engrossing read.

Also, I should mention there is such a thing as a novel told from the first-person plural perspective, but the only example of this I can think of is Anthem by Ayn Rand. I have a strict "No Ayn Rand" policy around here though, so all I'll say about the use of first-person plural (in this novel, especially) can be gimmicky and ham-fisted. Don't be gimmicky and ham-fisted.

Note: Yes, I write in the first person plural at times on this blog, but I do it with the intent of serving a greater purpose—namely, that we're all in this together.

Second Person

Second-person narratives are the closet at the end of the hall labeled DO NOT ENTER. Most people see the sign and move along, but once in a while some folks, well, they just have to see what's behind that door.

Stories told in the second person use "you" to relay the events of the story as though they were happening to the reader directly. One popular manifestation of this are those choose-your-own-path books, the kind of thing R.L. Stine put to use in the Give Yourself Goosebumps stories however many years ago.

Advantages