Ask the book doctor - self publishing - point of view in literature - Brief Article

Black Issues Book Review, Jan-Feb, 2002

Dear Dr. Rosie:

I've sent my book to several agents, but I keep getting rejections. They say that I have "point of view" problems. Could you please explain what point of view is?

Dear Author:

Point of view (POV) refers to whoever is telling the story. It's a powerful literary tool and determines what the reader learns about the story. Whoever tells the story controls the action and perspective, even if an "unreliable narrator" is telling the story. Think of a camera lens and how it follows one character at a time.

There are four different points of view used in fiction: first person, second person, third person and omniscient. The first person point of view includes: "I said," "I saw," "I thought." In the first person, you cannot say, "I saw him go around the corner, and then he climbed over the railroad tracks" if you, the "I" narrator, are not on the scene. The story has to be filtered through the eyes of that narrator. You can only see, hear, feel and witness what that character experiences. A secondary character can tell stories to the narrator when the narrator is not present. Sol Stein, the late editor, publisher and best-selling writer believed that "first person" was an advanced point of view.

In first person POV, the writer gets into the character's head. Many new writers have a difficult time using this technique. They think it's boring. But many classics like Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye were written in the first person and are far from boring. Today, the first person is a popular viewpoint in literary and contemporary fiction. Oprah's Book Club pick What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage is an excellent example.

If done well, there are advantages to the first person point of view. The first person protagonist immediately puts the reader on an intimate basis with the narrator. First person can elicit the reader's emotions, or empathy, even when the narrator does horrible things like Humbert in Lolita, which is told from the point of view of a pedophile.

One disadvantage of using first person is that it's limited by the dimensions of the character. The narrator must be interesting and able to carry the story.

The second person point of view, "you saw," "you said," "you did," is seldom used because the reader doesn't necessarily get involved with the character. Besides, it allows the reader to engage with one or more points of view that are not the second person.

The third person is the most popular commercial viewpoint. It uses the "he" and "she" pronouns, although an unidentified narrator describes the action. The advantages are that the reader can follow multiple viewpoint characters. Third person works best when the story is consistently seen through the eyes of one character at a time.

Last is the omniscient point of view, where the author can jump around from character to character. The omniscient point of view allows the author to say things the characters would never say. It can be used well in panoramic novels dealing with war, global settings, or generational stories. However, the disadvantage can be that this will feel like authorial intrusion to the reader and can often be confusing if the author jumps into too many heads within one paragraph. Omniscient point of view also runs the risk of the author losing control and sounding undisciplined in his writing.

Readers don't always notice point of view mistakes, but they can make for bad writing. Point of view is a technique, and if handled well, it will give your book its best chance at placement.