What is a Point of View in Fiction Writing and How to Choose the Best POV for Your Story?

Whenever you start writing a story or a novel, choosing a point of view is one of the most important decisions. 

But wait, what does the point of view in writing mean? 

In fiction writing, the point of view, or POV, denotes the perspective from which the narrator tells the story. But that’s a very textbookish definition, right? But as a writer who has used different points of view for my different stories, let me break it down. 

Let’s first approach POV from a reader’s perspective. How do you recognize the POV of a book or a story? It’s very simple. If the story is narrated with the pronoun “I”, then it’s the first person POV. If it’s narrated with the pronoun “he/she/they”, it’s the third person POV, and if it is narrated using the pronoun “you,” it’s a second person POV. There! I have given you a crash course on POV’s. But if you want to dig deeper into POVs and make your life miserable, you’re welcome to read on. 

But first, let’s start with the basics. Let me reiterate the three types of points of view. 

3 Main Types of Point of View

1. First person point of view
2. Third person point of view 
3. Second person point of view 

The First Person Point of View

In some stories, you’ll see that a character is directly telling you the story. This character is often the story’s protagonist or a main character. The character speaks in the first person, so this POV is known as the first person point of view. The character could use first person singular, “I”, or first person plural “we.” But the latter is very rare. 

Here’s an example of the first person narrative from my debut novel, Lost Edges.

“The counsellor’s waiting room had pale Naples-yellow walls—the colour of the skin around a healing wound. I sat below the whirring air conditioner, choking on the damp, recycled air. My head pulsated in a painful rhythm.” 

In this example, Ravi, the protagonist of the novel, is narrating an incident that happened to him. 

However, the first-person narrator of a story doesn’t need to be the protagonist of the story. The narrator could be a sub-character in the story. For example, the famous novel The Great Gatsby is narrated from the first person POV. However, it’s told by Nick Carraway, a rather unimportant side character. Even though Nick tells the story from a first person POV, the incidents are happening to the main character, Gatsby. 

So, in a nutshell, the first-person POV is a narrative technique where the narrator is a character in the story.

Third Person Point of View

In some other stories, the narrator is not a character but an external observer who narrates things that happen in a story. So, the narrator uses the third-person pronoun, ‘he or she.’ 

The third person POV is the most widely used point of view. Not because it’s better than any other POV, but it gives a writer a lot of options. You will find different interesting flavours of the third person POV, just like the Apsara ice creams in Bangalore. 

So, here are the main types of 3rd person point of view. 

• The close third person point of view / third person intimate
• The omniscient third-person point of view
• The objective third person

The Close Third Person Point of View

I have always felt that the close third-person POV is very similar to the first person POV. In the 1st person point of view, a character tells the story using the ‘I’ pronoun, revealing their thoughts and actions. In a third person intimate POV, an external observer tells the story from only one character’s perspective at a time (called a POV character). 

Even though the narrator uses the pronouns “he/she/they”, the narrator knows every thought that goes through the POV character’s head. But, in the close third person writing, the narrator doesn’t have a God-like perspective. 

What does it mean? In close third-person POV, the narrator only knows (or narrates) one character’s thoughts at a time. Every scene is filtered through the head of one character, the POV character. In a particular scene, the narrator doesn’t know the inner thoughts of the other characters. 

So, what if you want to get into different characters’ heads? Or tell the story from different people’s perspectives? 

Writers often start a new section or even a chapter to tell the story from a new character’s perspective. It means you can’t switch from one character’s head to the other character’s mid-scene. Some writers make this mistake, and it’s commonly known as the head-hopping issue. 

The Omniscient Third-person Point of View

Now, you might ask this question: What if I want my narrator to know the thoughts of each and every character? Here’s the good news: you’ve got the omniscient 3rd person point of view. 

This omniscient narrator is a real God with the knowledge of every character’s thoughts and even things the characters don’t know. The omniscient third-person POV is often used by 19th-century writers like Jane Austen. Another famous example is the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. 

Even contemporary writers use third-person omniscient, for example, the Covenant of Water by Abraham Varghese. While it sounds good to be a god-like narrator, there are some disadvantages to using the omniscient third person POV. We will get to that in a later section. 

The Objective Third Person POV

Both intimate and objective 3rd person POVs reveal the thoughts of the characters. However, the objective third person narrator doesn’t reveal the thoughts of any characters but only reports the events as they happen. 

I will give you an analogy to understand the objective third person perspective better: The objective third person writing is much like a movie camera. The movie camera shows us what happens in the movie but doesn’t tell you what each character is thinking (of course, except for Gautam Menon movies, where the hero goes on about minutes-long interior monologues)

Many plot-based novels are written in objective third person, where there is no need to show the inner thoughts of the characters. The short story, Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, is an excellent example of objective third person narrative, where the narrator never reveals the thoughts of the characters. The narrator only describes the actions and dialogs by the characters, just like an objective movie camera! 

Second Person Point of View 

I dare say a second person is the rarest point of view in writing. While there are authors who are brave enough to try this POV for an entire novel (like Shehan Karunathilaka did in Seven Moons of Mallie Almedia), most writers use this POV sparingly.

So, What is a Second Person POV?

The 2nd person point of view uses the pronoun “you” to describe the thoughts and actions of the character. Just because the second person narrative uses the pronoun “you,” it doesn’t mean that the narrator is talking about the reader or the reader is the character. I will go back to Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, where the second person narrative is used, but the story is about this particular character, Maali Almeida, a Srilankan journalist. 

There is another type of 2nd person POV where “you” is used to address the reader directly, especially in non-fiction like how-to guides or tutorials.

While it’s challenging to use the second person POV, it’s interesting to use it occasionally if you want to tell the story in a unique way. I would suggest you read a number of second person POV stories. Here’s one of my favourites, Michelle D’Costa’s The Guy Who Could Dance.

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story? 

Let me start with a disclaimer: When I sit down to write a story, I usually don’t think about the complex theories of POV or narrative styles. Mostly, I sit down with a firm idea about what POV will work best for this story. 

“Hey, that’s not helpful at all!” I hear you saying. So, I have gathered a few tips to help you pick the right POV for your story. But, I must warn you: take these tips just as broad guidelines. From my experience, when you start your creative process, it’s best not to break your head with all these rules. But it doesn’t hurt to know these.

So, here it goes. 

Using the First Person Point of View

Here are a few situations where the first person narrative can make your story shine.

• If you want your narrative to make a personal connection between your main character and reader
• If your POV character has a unique and interesting voice (I am thinking of Balram Halwai, the protagonist of Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger) 
• If you’re writing a character-driven novel, where it’s essential for the reader to understand the thought process of the character ( a stream of consciousness 1st person will work best)

Now, let’s look at the downside of the first person narrative. When should you not use the first person?

• Using the first person point of view limits a narrative’s scope. You can only narrate things that the POV character sees/knows. So, it might not be novels with a large number of characters in a large canvas. 
• When you use first person POV with multiple POV characters, it’s difficult to create a unique voice for each character.

Using the Third Person Point of View

Since the third person POV is very versatile, you can use different flavours of it for a wide range of stories. Here’s a hack if you are really confused about which POV to use: try third person intimate first. In my experience, it fits a wide range of stories. 

Here are situations where you can use the third person point of view:

• Use an intimate third person perspective if you want to show your character’s innermost thoughts, but don’t want to sound like your character.
• Use the objective third person if you want to give a bit of emotional distance between your characters and readers. 
• Use the omniscient third person POV if you have a big novel in a large canvas and with a lot of characters
• Omniscient also work for period dramas and multi-generational novels
• The third person objective POV  is great for any plot-driven novels like investigation thrillers and detective stories. 

Using The Second Person POV

I’ll be honest. Till recently, I avoided second person POV like the plague. I have always felt that the second person POV is too unnatural and a bit condescending. But I finally used it in one of my recent stories. 

While it’s a bit contrived and difficult to pull off, second person POV could be useful in different situations.

• If you want to have a drastic effect on the reader and draw them in.
• If you want the reader to feel like this story is their own story or trigger the reader 
• If you want to convince the reader of something
• If you’re simply feeling adventurous
  

So, that’s all I have for now about the point of view in writing. I would like to say something as parting words. There are no strict rules in writing. It’s just that you should learn these guidelines so that you can break them consciously. After all, as a writer, you have the full freedom to write in whichever narrative style and voice. So, go have fun!

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