Choosing Your Point of View

Hello 👋🏽! How are you? I thought I’d talk a little about writing craft today. Are you interested in getting started in writing, but don’t know where to begin? I thought I might address writing in different points of views, and how it works.

Let’s talk about points of view. There’s so many ways to start. Third-person POV: it's like an outsider looking in, you use pronouns like he, she, it, or they. It differs from the first-person, which uses pronouns such as I and me, and from the second-person, which uses pronouns such as you and yours. Deep POV, sometimes called close third, can be a hard writing technique to master. Once you learn how to capture your POV character’s voice, you’ll soon learn the benefits of writing from this perspective. Just like first-person writing, third-person deep POV focuses on a single character.

When I wrote THE WATCHERS, the second book in The 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐵𝓁𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒟𝒶𝑔𝑔𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝑒𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓈, I decided to alternate first-person POVs with my two main characters: Larna and Corinth. I hadn’t read a lot of books (at the time, and I still haven't) where authors had attempted to do this ... so I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off, or if I’d end up confusing readers, or not be able to distinguish the two voices from each other.

Overall, It was a risky move.

I hired a developmental editor in addition to my copy editor, and I also had several beta readers weigh in on my final edit, and it ended up working.

My point is is that sometimes you just have to go with your gut on how you choose to write your story. It's your story. Your voice. Trust in your characters, they will set you straight.

First-person POV, for me, has usually been my preferred way to read a book—so it’s also my preferred way to write one as well ... But boy am I falling in love with writing in third POV, too. Practice makes perfect. Challenge yourself. If you don’t like to write in a certain POV, force yourself to work on that ... You might just end up surprising yourself. Happy reading and writing, everyone!

What is your favorite writing POV?

If you have any questions about this topic, drop them in the comments