Tag: POV

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How to fix point of view problems in your novel | Revise and Refine

Mandy Webster

Once you’ve learned how to spot POV shifts in your writing, it’s time to fix them. Let’s look at this short fictional story, courtesy of Chat GPT, that demonstrates how shifting the point of view (POV) too often can lead to confusion and disrupt the reader’s experience:

It can be difficult to spot POV shifts in your own novel manuscript!

The Picnic by the Lake

It was a beautiful day, and Emma spread the blanket on the grass by the lake. She smiled, looking at the calm water, imagining how perfect the afternoon would be with her friends. (At this point, the story appears to focus on Emma. Because we have insight into her imagination, we feel like we are seeing the story from her point of view).

Continue reading “How to fix point of view problems in your novel | Revise and Refine” →
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How to spot POV shifts when revising and refining your novel

Mandy Webster

Shifting points of view (POV) too frequently in a novel can be confusing and disorienting for the reader, making it difficult for them to engage with the story. However, it may be difficult for you to spot this problem on your own since you yourself are so fully immersed in the story. This is one of the many reasons why it is important to get outside feedback on your novel manuscript during the evaluation stage of the writing process.

It can be difficult to spot POV shifts in your own novel manuscript!

The first step you should take when revising and refining your manuscript with your attention turned to POV is to review the outside feedback that you have received to identify specific places in the story where your reviewer(s) noted that they were confused or where the story lost their attention. The following is a list of signs that the point of view in your story is shifting too much:

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The problem with inconsistent point of view | Revise and Refine

Mandy Webster

Inconsistent point of view (POV) in fiction can significantly affect the reader’s experience, often in a negative way if not handled with care. For example, readers often find William Faulkner’s novel, The Sound and the Fury, difficult to read because of its inconsistency in POV. Readers are forced to actively engage with the text, filling in gaps and reconciling differing perspectives.

Inconsistent point of view in a novel can disrupt the reader’s experience of the story as well as causing reader fatigue.

While this lack of consistency isn’t necessarily “wrong” when done with purpose, it is important for the writer to consider just how hard they want their reader to have to work to understand what they have written. You must consider your intended audience: do your readers prefer to read a novel that makes them work to tease out its meaning? Or does your target audience consist of readers who want to be fully immersed in a story without having to pause regularly to think outside of the story?

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The importance of maintaining a consistent point of view in fiction

Mandy Webster

Maintaining a consistent point of view (POV) is important in novel writing because it helps create a clear and immersive narrative for the reader. When a story’s POV changes frequently or unexpectedly, it can be jarring for the reader and disrupt their engagement with the story. POV is such an important element to tackle during the revise and refine stage of the novel writing process, you may find it useful to do a complete read-through of your manuscript with your attention focused solely on spotting POV shifts.

Revising for point of view is one of the most important tasks that you will complete when revising and refining your novel manuscript.

Below are a few reasons why it is so important to maintain consistent POV(s) in your novel:

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What is point of view in fiction? | Revise and Refine

Mandy Webster

Point of view (POV) refers to the perspective from which a story is told in fiction writing. It determines whose thoughts, feelings, and experiences are being shared with the reader. Consistent POV in fiction plays a crucial role in shaping the reader’s experience by providing clarity and enhancing immersion in the story.

In third person limited point of view, the reader only knows what the POV character knows. The reader is, in a sense, inside that character’s head and is able to see the view through the character’s eyes. In third person omniscient, the view is more like this one where the reader experiences the character — and everything else in the story — from outside of the character’s head.

On the other hand, inconsistent point of view in fiction can significantly affect the reader’s experience, often in a negative way if not handled with care. It may cause confusion for the reader or create a break in the reader’s suspension of disbelief. Inconsistent POV can also dilute the emotional impact of the story and undermine the reader’s trust in the narrative.

I’ll discuss the importance of maintaining a consistent point of view in your writing in more depth in the next few posts, but for today, let’s talk about what it is. First, there are three primary types of point of view in fiction:

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Writing Basics

Stop the head-hopping: Picking the right POV for your story

Mandy Webster

The cover of the children's book, "Eulalie and the Hopping Head."
For some reason, the topic of head-hopping always makes me think of this book!

How do you know what point of view is right for your story? Honestly, the degree of intimacy your story requires is completely up to you. It comes down to artistic choice. Whatever POV you choose, the important thing is to keep it consistent to avoid confusing your readers.

Head-hopping is one of the many distractive elements of writing that can remind your reader that she is reading, thus pulling her out of the story. To avoid head-hopping, if you need to switch POVs, you should include some sort of visual indicator to tip readers off to the fact that a POV switch is about to take place. This could be as simple as providing a new header that includes the name of the POV character to let the reader know a POV switch is coming. Continue reading “Stop the head-hopping: Picking the right POV for your story” →

Writing Basics

Point of view basics: Third person and omniscient POV in fiction

Mandy Webster

the front cover of Valley of the Bees
My first novel, Valley of the Bees, is written in third person point of view. The entire story is filtered closely through the perspective of the protagonist, Valley Bickerstaff.

So, we’ve discussed first and second person points of view in this series. Today, let’s talk third person and omniscient. In third person POV, a narrator tells a story about characters who are outside himself. From a logistical perspective, both the third person narrator and the omniscient narrator tell the story using, “he,” “she,” and “they.” The difference between these two POVs lies fully in the amount of narrative distance created by the writer.

Third person point of view can be as intimate or distant as you like. You can make it intimate – like first person – by picking one main character and filtering the entire story through his or her POV, using language that character would use and only showing what that character knows. Continue reading “Point of view basics: Third person and omniscient POV in fiction” →

Writing Basics

Point of view basics: Second person POV in fiction

Mandy Webster

me pointing at a rug on my wall
You: You are but a tapestry on the wall. But, what have you seen? What stories can you tell?

Yesterday we discussed first person point of view. Today, let’s focus on second person. This will be a short conversation as second person POV is not used much in fiction or creative non-fiction. When you do see it, it mostly occurs with characters like Deadpool who are known to occasionally break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience.

In second person point of view, the narrator speaks to “you,” whether “you” be the reader or another character or even the protagonist. I have only seen this once in recent memory, in N.K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award-winning Broken Earth series. Continue reading “Point of view basics: Second person POV in fiction” →

Writing Basics

Point of view basics: First person POV in fiction

Mandy Webster

I’m teaching a creative writing workshop this semester at my local community college, and I just had an epiphany as I was writing notes for our next class. I thought, “Hey, dummy! As long as you’re typing all of this writing stuff up, maybe you could use the content for a series of blog posts!” Of course, I’m a huge fan of re-purposing content, so I replied, “Okay, cool. Let’s do this.” So today, here’s blog post #1 of a series I have written to provide a brief overview of the basics of Point of View (POV) in fiction writing.

According to Self-editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print, there are as many as 26 flavors of point of view. For the purpose of this series, we will focus on four basics: first, second, third, and omniscient. Today, let’s start with first person POV. Continue reading “Point of view basics: First person POV in fiction” →