E S S A Y S
Using Points of View by Sorcha
An important part of planning fiction is to decide what point of view to write from. One of the worse and most jarring things that can happen to be while reading a good fic is when the author suddenly, and not for the purpose of effect of plot, changes point of view (POV). So, here I have made a short rundown of the various POVs that can be present in fic and explained them to help you understand a little bit better.
1st Person
This is written from the POV of a character in the story. And the pronoun "I" will
be used as you describe what the character is going through, their thoughts,
emotions what they see or feel. You have to really get inside the head of the
character and because of this your fiction will be very subjective. The advantages
of this style of writing is that it gives your fiction a very personal feel
and you won't be limited in any aspect of description. On the downside the
narrator cannot tell what other characters are feeling, so the story could
become very one-sided if there's not a good mix of exposition and dialogue.
2nd Person
This is written from the POV of someone outside the story, but to a character.
The pronoun "you" will be used as you are talking directly to one
character. This is a strange POV and is rarely used in fiction, but can be
very effective if used to the full advantage. You can become a conscience
voice or the little voices inside someone's head. The guilt trip is a common
occurrence in 2nd Person fiction. There is not often a lot of dialogue included
in this style of fiction, unless it is used in flashback scenes written in
a different POV. The advantages of this POV are that because you become an
omniscient being you can know anything you want about a character, or all
the characters. This gives you no limitation in how you describe things or
what you tell your characters about others. The disadvantages are that it's
much more difficult to incorporate dialogue or interaction between characters
and often authors can become confused while writing this POV.
3rd Person Objective
This is written from the POV of someone outside of the story, not a character
present. The pronouns "he", "she" and "they" will
be used and only objective observations can be made using this voice. That
means that anything not available to you through the main five senses cannot
be written about. You cannot tell what a character is thinking or feeling
and anything that the reader would not be able to tell for themselves, you
cannot tell. The advantages of this are that you do not become caught up
in a subjective or bias view of characters and everyone is given equal importance.
On the downside though it is not very personal, as the narrator can give
no more insight to the characters than the reader already knows.
3rd Person Omniscient
This is again written from the POV of someone outside of the story, not a character
present. The pronouns "he", "she" and "they" will
be used but unlike the 3rd Person Objective the narrator in 3rd Person Omniscient
knows the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the story. They can
therefore write not only the dialogue happening between two characters, but
the thoughts and reactions each have to the dialogue. The advantages of this
are that it is made much more personal than 3rd Person Objective but still
maintains a rather overall look at the characters. The disadvantages are
that there is less focus on one character's thoughts or feelings and there
is no personal observation from the narrator, as they know exactly what the
characters are thinking and therefore do not need to speculate.
3rd Person Subjective
This POV is written from the POV of one of the characters in the story but
will still use the pronouns “he”, “she” and “it”.
The advantage of this kind of POV is that your narrator has a very strong
voice and is closely connected to the story. Of course the disadvantages
of this are that the story can become very one-sided, which is why many writers
choose a different character to be their narrator for each chapter therefore
balancing out the bias of opinion. This is a very common POV in fanfiction.
These are some of the main point of views used in fiction, and over all the final 3rd Person Subjective/Objective are probably the most present in fiction, especially large epics. But remember, it doesn't matter which you use, or if you use a collection of them, just plan carefully before hand so that your reader is not jolted from POV to POV with no real reason other than your carelessness.