Married to one POV?

[noob of the north]

My usual POV is always "third person limited" and I don't even have to think about it, but recently I've started to wonder that maybe I'm too married to it. I slipped into writing third person omniscient when starting a new story this autumn, but I was scared I wouldn't be able to keep it up for a whole novel, so I changed it to limited after a few pages. That might have been the wrong choice, and maybe I should be braver and get out of the pipe and slippers-comfort of third limited.

So, I was wondering: if you're not married to one particular POV, what makes you choose a particular one for a story? Is it carefully thought out before you start, or based on genre-convention, or that it "feels right"? Other reasons? Do you experiment much with POVs? Maybe you changed from one favourite POV to another? I'd love to hear about it.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Half of my second book is first person, but switches from different characters' perspectives. Then the second half is primarily third person limited. Book 3 is almost extensively first person, and so is Book 4 except for some flashbacks in the latter. Half of Book 6 is journal entries, and I haven't quite decided whether to use first person or third limited for the second half yet. It depends primarily on the story, and who is telling it, I guess.

 

[noob of the north]

Half of my second book is first person, but switches from different characters' perspectives. Then the second half is primarily third person limited. Book 3 is almost extensively first person, and so is Book 4 except for some flashbacks in the latter. Half of Book 6 is journal entries, and I haven't quite decided whether to use first person or third limited for the second half yet. It depends primarily on the story, and who is telling it, I guess.

O, cool. So you are definitely not a one-POV kind of writer. It sounds like a really good idea to separate flashbacks and other stuff by using a POV-switch. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Insolent Lad]

About half my novels are first person which, of course, forces me into a single point of view. For better or worse! Never been big on the omniscient third—it just doesn't feel 'real' that we would know what is going on in characters' heads and so on—so I go limited there but generally (not always) more than one character's POV. I'm all over the place in my Donzalo books, which I chose to write in short scenes cutting back and forth from subplot to subplot. I think it works but I recognize it could also be confusing.

The nice thing about first person is that we can know what is going on in the narrator's head (as he or she perceives it) without it seeming unnatural.

 

[noob of the north]

About half my novels are first person which, of course, forces me into a single point of view. For better or worse! Never been big on the omniscient third—it just doesn't feel 'real' that we would know what is going on in characters' heads and so on—so I go limited there but generally (not always) more than one character's POV. I'm all over the place in my Donzalo books, which I chose to write in short scenes cutting back and forth from subplot to subplot. I think it works but I recognize it could also be confusing.

The nice thing about first person is that we can know what is going on in the narrator's head (as he or she perceives it) without it seeming unnatural.

I agree that first person feels very natural when it comes to knowing the character's inner world, and it definitely comes with a lot of benefits. I used to write strictly from one person's POV (3rd lim.) for a book, but for my last two projects I've worked with two POVs who get alternate chapters, and that was a lot of fun. It felt like the story world got a lot more scope, which is kinda what I'm after, so I think your way of having more than one POV-character is really useful for a limited point of view. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

I write my stories in either first person or third person limited. I often write outlines in third person omniscient, but omniscient doesn't work well for me with stories, putting too much distance between me and my characters. My WIP uses multiple third person limited POVs, switching POV with each chapter, alternating between three POVs, and I'm enjoying it. I hope readers will.

 

[Chessie2]

My usual POV is always "third person limited" and I don't even have to think about it, but recently I've started to wonder that maybe I'm too married to it. I slipped into writing third person omniscient when starting a new story this autumn, but I was scared I wouldn't be able to keep it up for a whole novel, so I changed it to limited after a few pages. That might have been the wrong choice, and maybe I should be braver and get out of the pipe and slippers-comfort of third limited.

So, I was wondering: if you're not married to one particular POV, what makes you choose a particular one for a story? Is it carefully thought out before you start, or based on genre-convention, or that it "feels right"? Other reasons? Do you experiment much with POVs? Maybe you changed from one favourite POV to another? I'd love to hear about it.

Great question! I think this mainly depends on a few factors:

-your author style/voice and what pov you are most comfortable writing in.
-the audience you are trying to reach (for example in Y.A. or urban fantasy first person would be the default pov).
-your message or theme
-the genre, subgenre and tone of your book

Not sure how prevalent this is anymore, but epic fantasy seems to go well with omniscient. For other types of fantasy I'd say 3rd.

I mostly write in 3rd but sometimes omniscient. My 20th century romance series is written in omniscient because I'm going for an old movie feel. I often bring in several other perspectives throughout the story even though they aren't the heroes. So, the kid gets a pov, the maid, the receptionist at work...etc. But they will have 1-2 pov lead scenes in a book that will do a lot of heavy lifting for the plot. I don't do this with my other books. Now, 3rd close...I don't really know if I can write it...?!?! It feels so limiting. I need to be able to say what needs to be said and move around the world or room as I need to in order to tell the story. 3rd close just doesn't do it for me.

 

[noob of the north]

I write my stories in either first person or third person limited. I often write outlines in third person omniscient, but omniscient doesn't work well for me with stories, putting too much distance between me and my characters. My WIP uses multiple third person limited POVs, switching POV with each chapter, alternating between three POVs, and I'm enjoying it. I hope readers will.

I definitely enjoy reading the third person limited the most, and it does bring a lovely closeness to the characters. And that distance omniscient brings... that's my worry about using it. Thank you for sharing.

 

[noob of the north]

Great question! I think this mainly depends on a few factors:

-your author style/voice and what pov you are most comfortable writing in.
-the audience you are trying to reach (for example in Y.A. or urban fantasy first person would be the default pov).
-your message or theme
-the genre, subgenre and tone of your book

Not sure how prevalent this is anymore, but epic fantasy seems to go well with omniscient. For other types of fantasy I'd say 3rd.

I mostly write in 3rd but sometimes omniscient. My 20th century romance series is written in omniscient because I'm going for an old movie feel. I often bring in several other perspectives throughout the story even though they aren't the heroes. So, the kid gets a pov, the maid, the receptionist at work...etc. But they will have 1-2 pov lead scenes in a book that will do a lot of heavy lifting for the plot. I don't do this with my other books. Now, 3rd close...I don't really know if I can write it...?!?! It feels so limiting. I need to be able to say what needs to be said and move around the world or room as I need to in order to tell the story. 3rd close just doesn't do it for me.

I think you're right about those factors, and that it suits epic fantasy very well. I can see it work in Steampunk and other historical fantasy, and I think that's the draw for me to try omniscient. The tone definitely feels like an important factor. I've never really looked into the different POVs and narrators before because I was so comfortable with my third limited, but I think I'm gonna branch out a bit and at least try the omniscient. That you used omniscient for a 20th century romance sounds amazing, and that old movie feel... You got me really curious about that. I love the old screwball comedies, and I also have a dream of writing a 1940's hard-boiled detective story some day. Then I'll have to try the first person-POV. Yep, might as well try them all. Thank you so much for sharing, and you gave me a lot of things to consider for this POV.

 

[TWErvin2]

I consider the story. What POV would best relay the story to the reader? After that what POV character(s) should be used.

All of my novels published thus far have been 1st person POV, although the current two are Third person limited. My two published novellas were in their person limited and my short stories are pretty much split between 1st person and third.

Actually, I 'learned' to figure out what POV would be best through writing short stories. Thinking about the plot and characters, and the point of the story, it helped me on a smaller scale decide which was the best...this was, of course, after writing two 1st person POV novels...but, even in retrospect, 1st person was the best for them.

To help with the decision, consider taking a look at novels that you have enjoyed reading, and study how the authors used different POVs to relay the stories. Then, consider your project and how it might relate to those novels to give you an idea before you dive in with a selected POV.

 

[noob of the north]

I consider the story. What POV would best relay the story to the reader? After that what POV character(s) should be used.

All of my novels published thus far have been 1st person POV, although the current two are Third person limited. My two published novellas were in their person limited and my short stories are pretty much split between 1st person and third.

Actually, I 'learned' to figure out what POV would be best through writing short stories. Thinking about the plot and characters, and the point of the story, it helped me on a smaller scale decide which was the best...this was, of course, after writing two 1st person POV novels...but, even in retrospect, 1st person was the best for them.

To help with the decision, consider taking a look at novels that you have enjoyed reading, and study how the authors used different POVs to relay the stories. Then, consider your project and how it might relate to those novels to give you an idea before you dive in with a selected POV.

I think you're right about looking at the story itself first, and then pick the POV. I was probably overly influenced by reading a lot of novels in a row featuring the omniscient POV, and I'm too easily inspired by stuff like that. My favourite books are written in either third limited or first person, and I'll definitely take your advice and consider the story, and what I want that to be, before changing a trusted POV. Maybe I'll try it out in a shorter story first. It was very interesting hearing that you switch POV depending on plot, character and story, so thank you for sharing that, and for the advice.

 

[Xitra_Blud]

I used to be married to first person POV early in my writing "career", but lately I've been writing in third person multiple. I used to never write outside of first person for one reason, I didn't know what I was doing, but I think that was detrimental to a lot of my stories because many of them called for third person POV. I eventually started reading third person POV books (because, as I favored writing first person, I also favored reading it as well), and it gave me a better understanding of writing in third POV. Ironically, third multiple is probably my favorite way to write now, only because it allows me to not only see through the eyes of different character, but also be close to them as well kind of like first person. Go figure!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It’s interesting, 3rd limited with multiple POV’s is in a sense just 3rd OM, only stuck to one POV over extended periods. It’s fun to break things down, but people get hung up on it. I often write what I consider 3rd intimate, but I do pull back to a narrative 3rd in instances. Chapter openings are a natural place for this.

Personally I tend to think of it in terms of what does the story need... and of course, writers can tend to write similar styles of stories and can fall into pattern of POV, but in much modern fiction, the 3rd intimate and 1st POV are so similar... But for me, I like multi-POV stories, so 1st doesn’t work well for most of my stories.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

It’s interesting, 3rd limited with multiple POV’s is in a sense just 3rd OM, only stuck to one POV over extended periods.

You could also say that 3rd limited with a single POV is in a sense just 3rd OM -- we just never look at any other character, though we could.

But for me, I like multi-POV stories, so 1st doesn’t work well for most of my stories.

My WIP is multi-POV, with three POVs total, two in 3rd limited and one in 1st person. For this particular story, I think it works very well. I tried many different POV configurations before hitting on this one; it's my favorite, and the one I plan to go with.