POV: Point of View - a big piece of story

1st, 2nd, 3rd, so many forms--what difference does your choice make? exercises and experiments

Photo by Edi Libedinsky on Unsplash

As mentioned in the close-read post on Anne Tyler’s French Braid, “point of view” is on my mind. Issues of narration and voice are linked so closely, but deserve other focused posts. Let’s begin to look at POV.

The choices you make—who holds the camera in your story, where do they place the camera, do they share it—are critical. How your reader experiences the story, how you connect the “how” with the “what”—the telling with the theme/s. Form and content. I go on about the coupling of those two, but to consider each separately and then together is critical. Sometimes the dance just happens. But to step back and contemplate is a piece of creating, to question and understand our choices and how they build—foundation, walls, doors, windows, the roof of the thing.

Who tells the story? What do they know? What do they learn? What do they miss? At what cost do they learn, and at what cost do they miss?

Josip Novakovich says “The fictional source of information corresponds to the POV.”