I will no longer be updating this guide. I'm leaving it up in case it will continue to be helpful to anyone in the future.
People have asked me writing tips, Wattpad tips, and whatever. This is some of that advice I give them. Keep in mind most of t...
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Let's talk point of view aka POV. Authors have a tendency to lean toward one POV over the other, meaning they'll find themselves always writing in that POV. There's nothing wrong with that, but I would honestly say branch out once in a while. Break from your norms and give it a try even if it's just a short story. You can't truly appreciate a POV unless you've tried it yourself. You also don't know for sure you hate one POV if you haven't tried it on. It's like a pair of crock shoes. Looking at them from the outside, they're god ugly. Try them on and it's like walking on a cloud. When you're a newbie writer trying to find your voice, explore the POV options available. Don't just stick to one because it's easier, challenge yourself once in a while.
You've heard the term, but what is a POV exactly? Well, it's the way the story is told. It's how we see that story through the MC's eyes. The two most common POV's are third and first person, but there is also second person. The POV of the story can become a character in its own. Despite what some people say, there is no right or wrong POV. It's what is right for your story.
All right, let's break down the POV options. Hopefully I can do this in a not so confusing fashion. Lord knows when I was trying to figure out some of these things my mind went all zzzzz "nobody home."
Third Person: This one actually has two break downs for it. Limited and Omniscient. Third person is when there is a narrator telling the story. Third person is he did this, she did that, they went here, Sue sells sea shells by the sea shore.
Limited is from one set of eyes at a time and only one set. If you're following a character named Sue, the narrator only knows what Sue knows and is telling you what she knows while we're following Sue. Sue can't know what her boyfriend, Mike, is thinking unless he tells her. So the narrator can't know.
Now you can have multiple POV's in limited, but it's still one POV at a time on a scene by scene basis. The rule of thumb with head hoping in limited is do one scene at a time from one character at a time. So don't have a paragraph from Sue's POV then follow up a paragraph in the same scene from Mike. The best course of action is to have the swap happen between chapters, where chapter one might be from Sue and we follow her action until chapter five when it hops over to Mike. While I'm guilty of having scene breaks in the same chapter that does a head hop, it is easier on the reader to do a swap chapter by chapter.
Omniscient . . . well this is the one I won't do a good job of explaining so I'm going to keep it short to what I do know. It's basically where where the narrator is God and knows everything that has happened in the story before it happens. This is where you can have different paragraphs from different POVs . . . at least I think it's okay. That is unfortunately probably the best I can do to explain it. I admit I often find it hard to understand Omni. Trust me, I wish I could explain it more. I'd say most modern day third person books are written in limited and Omni is more of an archaic style.
Personally, I'm of the belief that head hopping should only be done in third person. Never hop heads in first person within a single book.
