I’m in a number of writing groups, and one of the questions I see popping up all the time is about whether or not people should write their story in first or third person. There are polls, arguments, anxious requests for critique… It’s a pretty consistent worry for a lot of authors, honestly.
Rather than telling you which POV to choose, though, I’m going to get into what POV is really about and how to use it effectively. It’s one of those choices that many authors make instinctively (and are usually right), but there is theory behind it that should be examined.
What’s out there?
First, there are a number of POVs authors typically use and some they generally don’t use because, well, they’re not useful for most types of storytelling (but they can be done!).
The usual types of POV are:
First person single POV (told from the perspective of the character, “I” pronouns)
First person multi-POV (told from the perspective of a character at a time, “I” pronouns)
Second person (often used for “Choose Your Own Adventure®” type stories, “you” pronouns)
Third person limited single POV (perspective of one person in third person, “he/she/they” pronouns)
Third person limited multi-POV (perspective of one character in third person at a time, but POV characters sometimes change between scenes or chapters, “he/she/they” pronouns)
Third person omniscient (told from the perspective of a narrator or outside influence, in everyone’s head all the time)
Other POV styles exist, I’m sure, but these are the ones I am familiar with. Second person is rarely ever used, but I did want to acknowledge that it does exist and has been used.
Head Hopping vs. Omniscient
Head hopping is something certain genres sometimes employ (notably romance), but it always gets my feathers ruffled because it’s immersion breaking and oftentimes very confusing. There is, however, a difference between that and omniscient POV, and that difference is important.
With omniscient, the perspective of the storyteller is outside the characters. It’s like being told the story by someone sitting around a campfire. Think A Series of Unfortunate Events where the narrator talks to the reader about things and is kind of almost their own character. Also, The Lord of the Rings used omniscient POV without the narrator being as much of a character.
It’s like the metaphorical camera lens you are watching this series of events through is positioned above the battlefield. You can see everything happening and also get an understanding of things that individual characters do not know and cannot know (like an orc hiding around a corner). You can also know what everyone is thinking, but you’re nowhere near as intimate to any of the characters because you’re not in there with them as deeply. If a character’s thoughts are known, they’re rarely given in first person dialogue-style and more narrated. For example:
Glorith and her army fought through the orcish horde, blades flashing and glinting in the sunlight. All of them were too deep in the battle to notice the enemy forces amassing on a nearby hillock. The enemy commander, too, knew the distraction had worked. He smiled a horrible smile as he prepared to tell his men to engage.
You can see in that we are kind of with Glorith and her people but also seeing the enemy commander and what he knows. It’s both, but there’s no real intimacy with the characters. You can guess what they’re feeling and know the enemy commander is pleased, but it’s not really deep in anybody’s perspective.
Head hopping, by contrast, is this:
Glorith panted, the sweat on her brow running into her eyes as she swung at the enemy soldiers. The attack had been sudden, and she hadn’t seen the enemy patrol until they’d blundered straight into them on the road. I have to get back to the castle, she reminded herself. Whatever happens, I have to get back.
The enemy commander up on the hill grinned as he watched Glorith fight. She would never make it back to that castle. He’d make sure of it. He nodded to his soldiers and gestured to the fighting elves. The master will be pleased with me, he thought. They are all going to die.
As you can see here, you’re far closer to Glorith and right in her head with her thoughts in that first paragraph. Then immediately you’re yanked out of her head and plopped into the orcish commander’s head where you hear his thoughts. There are plenty of times where head hopping doesn’t even have a paragraph break between them, too, and people just write the perspective of all the characters at once resulting in a mess of confusion.
While some genres do head hop (I mentioned romance, for example), I really advise against it. When you get intimate with one character’s POV, being yanked out of it that hard and that often isn’t a pleasant experience. Also, there are plenty of times where I’ve struggled to know what perspective I was even in when an author was head hopping constantly, and I just found myself lost.
Head hopping, to note, is when you change POV mid-stream. If you write multi-POV, you have paragraph or chapter breaks between the different POVs. This gives the readers a chance to know a change in POV is coming.
Should I have multiple POVs?
This is one of those questions that depends on your story. If you are going to do multi-POV, you have to understand a few things, though. First is that you need to be able to differentiate the individual character voices from each other. PARTICULARLY if you’re doing it in first person. My urban fantasy novels are written in first person, and my POV characters have very different voices in their heads. As such, if I was writing a multi-POV first person, I’d need to take care they didn’t bleed into each other. It’s a little simpler in third person than it is in first, but the principle remains.
Next, we need to know why you need more than one POV. Is it because the story is being told from two different characters in different locations? Is it to give insight into two sides of the same story (like a romance)? What is the reason for wanting multiple POVs? You have to make that choice on purpose, really, and give it some real thought. The reason for that is multi-POV is, by its nature, more complicated than single POV. Keeping track of those thoughts and internal experiences for multiple characters is not a simple task.
If there’s interest (let me know in the comments) I can do another episode on POV talking about how to use it effectively rather than just what it is. Multi-POV books have very specific guidelines on what works and what doesn’t. While you can do a lot with them, there are a number of pitfalls authors tumble into when doing this early on in their writing career.
Which POV style should I use?
Honestly, that depends largely on the story you want to tell. There’s no wrong answer here, and what POV style you choose is ultimately going to boil down to personal taste. There are no actual rules around what POV style you need to choose in which type of writing. I recommend thinking about what you like writing best and exploring that for your story.
For me, my urban fantasy series is written in first, but the [PROJECT REDACTED] I’m working on is in third person limited. I also have a high fantasy series I’ve been messing with forever that’s third person limited. Some stories just lend themselves better to certain POV styles. The only wrong answer here is the one you don’t end up clicking with for whatever reason. That’s it.
Can I mix POV styles?
Oh heck yes you can. I have read high fantasy novels that had journal-style entries written from the perspective of the villain as first person thoughts showing him spiraling into madness (without revealing his identity) with the main body of the story written in third person limited. Mixing POVs can absolutely be done! You just have to make sure you do it with a purpose in mind and use it effectively.
The thing about POV styles is that they’re pretty forgiving a lot of the time. You just absolutely need to make sure the reader is on board. If you’re writing in third person limited and switch to third person omniscient halfway through a chapter and then back again, it will give a reader whiplash and confuse them. Your job as an author is to make sure they can follow the flow of what you’re doing.
When in doubt, if you’re going to mess with POV styles, your best bet is to do it after scene or chapter breaks and do it with an actual plan.
So there are no rules?
Just like most other things in your book, the “rules” for POV are mostly surrounding what makes sense for a reader. If you’re going to confuse or dismay a reader, obviously you shouldn’t do it that way. If it gives the reader literary whiplash, don’t do it that way. Some of this is a function of taste, so understand that not everyone will like anything you do, but if your beta readers all come back confused, then you’ll want to revisit that.
The only solid rule I really try to impose on people is that head hopping is a mess, and I find it almost never ends well. Some genres are permissive to it, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It was a pretty common thing back in certain eras of writing, but as with all things, expectations change. The writing styles of the days of yore are not always what modern audiences want. If you choose to do that on purpose, knowing it’ll limit your audience, then have at it. Artistic choice is artistic choice. Just make sure you do it on purpose.
