Point of View: Whose Head Am I In?
by Louise Bohmer © 2009 All Rights Reserved

Next to verb tense, point of view is one of the hardest areas of story composition to master. I certainly haven’t mastered it yet, but I have developed strategies to help keep my point of view on track. In this short article, I hope to provide knowledge and examples to help other writers manage point of view issues.

Point of view describes from which person’s perspective the story is perceived. It’s a narrative mode. It is the method you choose to convey your plot to your audience. Point of view is where you determine your narrator. The narrator(s) of your story is the character(s) you choose to convey the story. Through the narrative, and point of view chosen to carry the narrative, you show the experience through the eyes of the character chosen to convey the story (unless you’re using third person omniscient or universal omniscient, which we’ll cover later).

The narrative is not the author’s perspective. Once you give your perspective as the author, you’ve wandered into territory of authorial intrusion. Remember, you can’t give your reader information your narrator doesn’t know. You shouldn’t impinge your personal voice on your narrator.

An example of authorial intrusion:

Jim looked out at the sea. He watched the seagulls dip low over the water, seeking fish. Little did he know someone was about to bat him over the head with a frying pan. People can be cruel that way.

The last two sentences are authorial intrusion. The small section is told from Jim’s point of view. Jim is our narrator. If we can’t give the reader information the narrator doesn’t know, and we can’t impinge our personal voice, then we shouldn’t be telling the reader someone’s sneaking up behind Jim with a tire iron, when Jim can’t see it. If Jim can’t see it, he can’t perceive it. Nor should we tell the reader people can be cruel in this manner. These last statements hop out of Jim’s narration and become authorial intrusion. Not only have you pulled the reader out of the story with this, you’ve killed the suspense.

Let’s look at different points of view the writer can use. There’s first person, second person, and third person. (more…)