Last week we talked about choosing a narrator and the narrative voice, usually either first-person or third-person limited.
Today, we shift to a closely related topic: Point-of-view.
Today’s discussion topics include:
What is point-of-view (POV) in fiction?
Narrator POV
Main character POV
Secondary character POV
Multiple POVs
Head-hopping
Unreliable narrator
Point-of-view: Through whose eyes do we see the story or scene?
First, there was the choice of narrator, then the voice (first- or third-person), and now point-of-view (POV). Some use these terms interchangeably, but I see them as tightly woven but separate elements that have to fit together to create the camera lens for your story.
Point-of-view is simply “through whose eyes do we see the story in any given scene.” Or, “whose head are readers in at this moment.” That includes seeing the surrounding setting, action, and other characters. It also includes whose thoughts and emotions do we experience as we read.
And yes, this can shift from one scene to the next in third-person limited with two or more POV characters.
Narrator
At some points in the story, the reader will hear directly from the narrator.
This might be a third-person narrator, the disembodied voice that describes the setting, the events, or tells what a character is doing or thinking from a distance.
The narrator might be describing the weather or the setting, narrating the action, or providing backstory—the wide-angle perspective.
Other times, the third-person narrator shifts from this external, wide-angle POV to the close-up view from within a character in the moment.
Or it might be a first-person narrator who is narrating her story as it happens, including description, exposition, backstory, actions, and internal thoughts and emotions.
Main character
Most stories, whether in first- or third-person, are told from the point-of-view of the main character. In third-person, the narrative can move from the wide-angle lens looking at the story from the outside to the internal view through the eyes and inside the head of the main character.
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