Point of View in Fiction: A Refresher
Below are the definitions of the various points of view available to writers, as well as examples of Point of View in first, second, and the various third-person POVs from a few different works of fiction:
Picking a point of view for you novel, short story, flash fiction, etc. requires you to select the narator's perspective. Through whose eyes are we watching our story unfold? Is it your narrator's story? Someone else's story? We hear a voice, but whose is it and what do they see, and how do they judge/consider observe? What do they think about it? It's through that voice that we see the world in which your characters live, and it's one of the most critical elements of fiction, and of your narrative. I've written about this topic previously, but I believe it's time to discuss why we need a point of view in fiction: a refresher.
1. First Person, which uses “I.” I did this, I did that. (The narrator’s reliability is called into question, as I mentioned, though not always); but it tells the story subjectively. First person narratives are very common, but I’ve always thought of them as cheating in a way—but again, that’s just my view. There are great novels written in the first person so take my comment with a grain of salt.
Pros: You’re immediately right there with your reader, meaning you feel, see, hear, know and experience everything your narrator knows and is experiencing.
Cons: You can only write from one perspective. This perspective limits what the reader can know, because they can only know what the narrator knows.
Point of View in Fiction: A Refresher
Here's an excerpt from my novel, “The Losses”: This is what I was thinking: There’s a kid, small, like a fetus. A catchy title that’s two words max, maybe a book that they make into a movie, a play off Broadway or out in London somewhere, a pseudohorror flick of some sort, something with eerie organ music, a cherubic, angel-looking fetus in a Victorian getup—all black. The kid’s giving a monologue, pacing back and forth on stage, a little itty bitty solemn-looking character, tough like a Dickens’ orphan tough, but a little uh-oh-scary a-la The Shining or The Ring, the original version of it, the Ringu version with subtitles. Something like that. Maybe I tell Lettie, Sammy’s sister, about it, let her write it all up, give her a good story to really write about, just in case she doesn’t have any good ideas already.
I couldn’t help thinking it. I thought it all the time. A boy and a girl, crawling on Berber carpet, riding Big Wheels, kneading too-wet dough to bake bread in Easy Bake ovens. Not never-born kids, I guess, but definitely never happened ones—aborted ones, snuffed out by Sammy and me before we got married, before we wanted children. Now that we’re older, not being able to have what you want, not having what your friends have, kills us. Especially when before you didn’t think twice about driving to a clinic, filling out some forms—her laying down for a bit, me reading about bone fishing in the Keys, her crying—not sobbing crying, but enough, distant for a few hours, thinking of what could have been.”
2. The next POV you can use is the Second Person point of view. This POV uses the pronoun “You.” “You run to the store and open the door. You look inside. You see the man with the gun at the back of the store. You approach him with your hands out in front of you.” Second person is the least common POV used by novelists, but there are some famous novels written in the second person including Jay McInerney’s “Bright Lights, Big City,” and Italo Calvino’s “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.” Give it a shot; you never know, second person may just be the POV that gets your writing flowing.
Pros: You, the writer, builds a very quick (albeit strange) closeness with your reader, and the reader is thrust into the author’s world instantly as she becomes the work’s protagonist.
Cons: It’s a very difficult point of view to pull off for an entire novel. The reader may not relate to a narrator telling them what they’re (the reader) is doing, or worse, they may not like the narrator at all.
Here’s an excerpt from Calvino’s novel: “With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author Or Subject Appeals To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Not New (for you or in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new).
All this simply means that, having rapidly glanced over the titles of the volumes displayed in the bookshop, you have turned toward a stack of If on a winter's night a traveler fresh off the press, you have grasped a copy, and you have carried it to the cashier so that your right to own it can be established.”
3. Next is Third Person, which uses the pronouns he, she, they, or it, and has been called the “Movie camera” point of view because of its being similar to the objective eye of a movie camera. There are multiple types of third person points of view, and each has its pros and cons. You’ll need to understand what those are before you start writing, or, hopefully, early on in your writing process, otherwise you may need to go back and revise, looking for those places in your novel where you slipped up somehow and jumped into another third person POV. In third-person, the narrator does not appear as a character.
4. The first Third Person point of view is the Limited Third POV. Limited third is common in contemporary works, and there are a variety of them including our previously mentioned classic, George Orwell’s “1984.” Others include the Harry Potter novels by JK Rowling, “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman, and “The Mad Women’s Ball,” by Victoria Mas. Some of the Third-Person Limited POVs are the Third-Person Limited Subjective, the Third-Person Limited Objective, and the Third-Person Limited Omniscient.
Pros: The reader feels closer to a character because they only know that character’s thoughts and feelings.
Cons: The story must be told from a single character’s perspective. The narrator cannot know other characters’ feelings or thoughts.
Here's an excerpt from Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: “Dumbledore got to his feet and held out his hand again. Take it, Riddle said, ‘I can speak to snakes. I found out when we’ve been to the country on trips—they find me, they whisper to me. Is that normal for a wizard?’
Harry could tell that he had withheld mention of this strangest power until that moment, determined to impress.”
5. The third person Objective POV, or “Fly on the wall” POV allows us to watch our character, but we don’t know what she’s thinking, and we don’t get that from another character either. The narrator is neutral. Events are described, but the narrator reveals nothing besides the external facts. The reader is not provided with the feelings, motivations, or internal thoughts of the characters.
Pros: The reader is allowed to deduce what’s happening. The author has more leeway in terms of perspective.
Cons: It’s possible the reader doesn’t connect with the narrator. Motivation must be shown through dialogue and character action.
Here’s an excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants”: “The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the
other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far
away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved
across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.
"And we could have all this," she said. "And we could have everything
and every day we make it more impossible."
"What did you say?"
"I said we could have everything."
"We can have everything."
"No, we can't."
"We can have the whole world."
6. Third person omniscient POV, on the other hand, is where the narrator knows everything about the characters (what they’re thinking, feeling, their motivation for doing the things they do, and so on) as well as the places and settings in the novel, the action and events, and everything else. It is the most flexible of POVs. Some examples of third person omniscient POV include Frank Herbert’s DUNE, Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and J.M. Barrie’s PETER PAN.
Pros: The reader gets to know more than the characters know. The reader also gets to go inside the various characters’ heads to learn their thoughts and feelings. The author is the authoritative voice of the novel, and had a “God’s” eye view of everything.
Cons: May create emotional distance between a reader and the characters. May be more telling than showing. Less tension is created for the reader.
Here’s an excerpt from Herbert’s “Dune”: “The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sat in a tapestried chair watching mother and son approach. Windows on each side of her overlooked the curving southern bend of the river and the green farmlands of the Atreides family holding, but the Reverend Mother ignored the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than a little petulant. She blamed it on space travel and association with that abominable Spacing Guild and its secretive ways. But here was a mission that required personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight. Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade that responsibility when the duty call came.”
7. Third person multiple POV is similar to the omniscient POV, but akin to a few third-person limited POVs without the author intruding into the narrative. This can be achieved in various ways: think, for example, of a novel where each chapter is told through a different character’s perspective, or at least each scene’s perspective is from a different character’s POV.
Pros: Readers get a glimpse into each of the character’s heads to learn their thoughts and feelings and motivations.
Cons: You may lose the reader as they may become confused with all of the varying characters. As an author, you need to be diligent as to when you change perspectives/POVs.
Here’s an excerpt from E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web”: "The goose shouted to the nearest cow that Wilbur was free, and soon all the cows knew. Then one of the cows told one of the sheep, and soon all the sheep knew. The lambs learned about it from their mothers. The horses, in their stalls in the barn, pricked up their ears when they heard the goose hollering; and soon the horses had caught on to what was happening."
8. There’s also another point of view, sometimes referred to as the fourth point of view or the first-person plural point of view, which uses the “We,” “Us,” or “Our” pronouns, though it can also use One, Someone, Anybody, Anyone, Somebody, and so on. It is the group or collective POV, and I’ve seen it used well in the recent past. Novels like Joshua Ferris’s “Then we Came to the End,” Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Virgin Suicides,” and Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” all of which were wildly successful.
Pros: It keeps the reader close to the narrator. The reader feels what the narrator feels, when the narrator feels it. It’s a flexible POV.
Cons: It’s an uncommon POV that requires a very compelling voice and narrator for readers to stay engaged. It limits access to other character’s thoughts and feelings, as it’s a collective “we” speaking.
Here’s an excerpt from Joshua Ferris’s “Then We Came to the End”: “WE WERE FRACTIOUS AND overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled. We loved free bagels in the morning. They happened all too infrequently.
Our benefits were astonishing in comprehensiveness and quality of care. Sometimes we questioned whether they were worth it. We thought moving to India might be better, or going back to nursing school. Doing something with the handicapped or working with our hands. No one ever acted on these impulses, despite their daily, sometimes hourly contractions. Instead, we met in conference rooms to discuss the issues of the day.”
9. The last thing I want to mention is the ever-dangerous Shifting POV (also known as dual POV or multiple POV). This is where the narrative shifts from one character’s voice to another character’s voice, most often by accident, but not always. It’s distracting, for the most part, but like anything in fiction, if you can make it work, go for it. Shifting POV is more common in Young Adult and Romance novels. Laura Lippman’s “Lady in the Lake” uses a shifting point of view. I used different points of view in my novel, “The Losses.” Six, in fact, though I broke them into 6 long chapters or mini-novellas. It helps if you, the author, establish with the reader that you’ll be shifting points of view early on Remember, if it works, it works.
Pros: Helps create tension, give the writer control over pacing, and it allows flexibility.
Cons: Readers will be confused. It’s easy to accidentally switch from one character’s thoughts to another character’s thoughts. As a writer, you have to ensure you’re keeping track of everything. And then there’s the characters. Because we’re bouncing around between them, you’ll need to figure out how to make each character distinct and identifiable by the reader.
Shifting POV is more common in Young Adult and Romance novels
Here are two excerpts from my novel, “The Losses.” The first excerpt is the beginning of chapter 1. Notice I titled the chapter with the names of the characters who this chapter is about:
Harv and Julianne
“On the morning he was to tell Julianne that he was a liar and a cheat, Harvey Lipscomb walked
down the hill into town and had breakfast with Roscoe Vance, who by last count had more divorces than
Elizabeth Taylor. Roscoe was on his second cup of coffee, stirring three sugars round and round with his
spoon, watching Lucille Meunier’s bottom as she pushed a broom under a booth. Harvey thought he
looked like he was considering adding Lucille to his future ex-wives club. And he didn’t doubt it could
happen.”
The second chapter begins the same way, except this time from two new characters, and their point of view:
James and Rachel
“The bags were packed—two suitcases, two carry-on’s, two laptop cases, one for Rachel’s
MacBook, one for James’s PC. Pick up time for Hadley at Holy Angel’s was between eleven and eleven-thirty (Please be on time), when Hadley would be at lunch and her removal from school would not be a distraction to the other children. Hadley was adamant about not wanting to go; all of the other kids at school, she said, and complained, and moaned, and grumbled, would be having fun doing all of the Christmas stuff—decorating classroom trees, having gift exchanges, acting in the school play. Hadley
said she had waited all year for the play. She knew she was going to be chosen to be Mary this year. But
Rachel told her she could be Mary and anyone else she wanted when they performed not just the one
play, but as many as they wanted to perform at Grandma’s in Georgia.”
Like any rule in writing fiction, you can break point of view rules, but you better know how to do it. In terms of point of view, you can jump around to give different characters’ perspectives, as well as combine the different points of view for effect. After you experiment (or if you’ve accidentally combined points of view while writing), ask yourself if what you’ve written “works.” If it does, great. If it doesn’t, then you have some work to do. Ask yourself if you’ve inadvertently switched points of view. If you weren’t intentionally trying to do it, revise your section for consistency.
Cully Perlman is author of a novel, The Losses. You can but it here.
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