How to fall back in love with your point-of-view choices
Writers often select a point of view according to what feels right for the story and suits their mood at the time. POV decisions are usually made from the gut: we sit down at our writing desks, commit to a POV, and let our stories rip. But sometimes we wish we’d gone on a few more dates with 1st Person before committing to marriage and kids—and lately 3rd Person, who you dated briefly in high school, has been looking particularly delightful. We end up regretting our initial decision and even contemplate sending 1st Person packing.
Before pulling the plug on what was once a promising relationship, let’s take a step back and try to see things, well, from the POV’s POV. You knew what you were getting into when you first made that full-throated commitment…so, what’s changed?
POV can go sideways at some point in the crafting process, because each particular point of view brings to the page a unique set of virtues that, if mishandled, can turn on you without warning. The deep interiority of 1st Person can lead to sublime revelations—as well as tedious, never-ending navel-gazing. And the same 3rd Person omniscient that facilitated a powerful bird’s-eye view is now serving up a wooden, unfocused narrative. Your relationship with POV can deteriorate over the duration of your writing project, but with a little patience and understanding, you’ll be renewing your vows in no time.
Let’s take a closer look at our beloved Points of View one by one, giving them the airtime they deserve.
The reigning narcissist of POV, 1st Person allows a writer to get as far inside a protagonist's head as humanly possible
The reigning narcissist of POV, 1st Person allows a writer to get as far inside a protagonist’s head as is humanly possible. For all intents and purposes, the writer is the protagonist—or, at least, they’re playing the role of Protagonist on the page. And what’s more fun than literary dress-up?
Why We Love 1st Person: 1st Person POV can invite readers into the impassioned hearts of angsty young protagonists, allow artistes to wax philosophical for pages on end, and engage readers from the get-go with a unique, grabby voice. Those are some potent super powers! But that doesn't mean we can put this fan-favorite on autopilot.
Where 1st Person Can Get Us Into Trouble: Sometimes, an overzealous writer can abuse the 1st Person voice by providing too much interiority. But when, exactly, does “just right” become “too much”? Your 1st Person protagonist may have reached the narrative breaking point when they’re reporting observations, ideas, and innermost feelings that have nothing to do with the story at large. A successful piece of fiction writing—especially short fiction—should have a clear narrative thrust, a framework upon which the story is constructed. Keeping this framework in your line of sight is critical. Let’s take a story that’s ostensibly about a young man’s estrangement from his grumpy father. If the man spends an entire section ruminating over a harrowing breakup with his grade-school sweetheart, the writer may have slipped inside the “too much” danger zone. Or, if the protagonist is engaged in a heated argument with his dad, then pauses to reflect on the temperate weather for the next three pages, the writer might be knocking at the door of excessiveness. Interior passages must in some way—big or small, obviously or subtly—inform either plot, thematics, or the psychological/emotional heartbeat of the story.
Interior passages must in some way inform the
plot, thematics, or emotion at the heart of your story
Another way 1st Person can trip us up is in a narrator’s description of their own body. The narrator is the protagonist, so it's awkward to describe her own eyes as having “dimmed as a shadow passed overhead.” The narrator would had to have been outside the protagonist’s body in order to see the eyes, which would be impossible without a mirror, because those
eyes are her own. Neither is a protagonist likely to report on micro-movements of her body that might be noteworthy only to someone viewing her from the outside. “My left eye twitched at the mention of my dead cat” would be worth the real estate only if the protagonist felt that twitch, and there was some serious—and seriously relevant—baggage associated with that cat. Similarly, 1st Person narrators occasionally suffer from disembodied digits, limbs, and extremities, e.g., “My hand rubbed at the stain until it disappeared.” If a true 1st Person narrator were to experience and report on this scene, she would likely say that “I rubbed the stain until it disappeared.” The same goes for “My lips curled into a smile,” “my legs skipped along the pavement,” or “my knuckles rapped on the door.” The protagonist herself is doing the smiling, the skipping, and rapping—her lips, legs, and knuckles are not (I hope!) acting independently of her brain.
The Slush-Pile Verdict: When encountering infraction #1 (too much interiority) a slush-pile reader may deem the story unfocused, self-indulgent, or lacking restraint, in essence: squandering the gifts of 1st Person POV. These are early drafts still trying to figure themselves out, not quite ready for prime time. Infraction #2 (narrators observing their own bodies from the outside) makes the prose seem clumsy and unpolished, in essence: neglecting the gifts of 1st Person POV. The reader will wonder why the writer didn't go with 3rd Person instead.
Falling Back in Love with 1st Person: But don't give up. Writing, as some obnoxious story coach once said, is rewriting. Consider the POV with fresh eyes. 1st Person is fun, charming, and emotionally available. You originally fell in love because you found it thrilling to go deep inside your protagonist’s psyche, assume a new voice, and riff on a novel personality—or, conversely, to speak honestly with a voice resembling your own. Remember this impulse, and stick with it. Instead of writing from outside the body or using 1st as a free pass to meander indiscriminately, take the opportunity to re-enter your story from an authentic place and imagine that you are the protagonist. Eliminate passages that indulge arbitrary stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and instead use the 1st Person POV as an entry point to engage the protagonist’s observations and feelings as they relate to your story. A well-placed interior monologue is the equivalent of a brilliant, freeform jazz session—and if you remember to stay on key and resolve your riffs with a thematic hook, you’ll fall back into your lovin' groove in no time.
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