When you start writing a book, it’s likely because you have characters who are speaking to you. The question is: how do you go about telling their story? To complicate matters, there are no wrong answers for how you portray them. The best POV to write a novel in is the one that serves your storytelling the most. That could mean third-person limited or first-person.
Your main character may tell you exactly how they want their story told, but most times, you’ll have to make a judgment call.
If you’ve been wondering whether 1st person or 3rd person is the right fit, here is what you should know before you start writing.
First-Person Point of View: The Most Immediate and Intimate
Every writer has a perspective that they tend to favor. For me, that means I write the vast majority of my books in first-person POV and often in the present tense. This is a holdout from all of my freelance work writing romance novels. The main POV in these books is typically first-person with alternating chapters between the lead characters.
But there are some solid reasons to consider a first-person point of view, beyond just personal preference.
This allows you to get the perspective of your character without speculation from an outside observer or narrator. You know (and more importantly, your reader knows) exactly what that character is thinking, feeling, and doing at any given time. There are no hidden secrets or surprises for the reader unless you happen to be leveraging an unreliable narrator.
If you have a really strong character who is going to have a voice of their own, then you may want to get right in their head – and let the reader in there too.
Keep in mind that you can still write multiple points of view even inside of 1st person narration. You just can’t switch narrators within the same chapter. There needs to be some kind of logical break and a cue to the reader that you’re now writing a new POV character.
Second-Person Point of View: A Rare Choice
We’ll go in order here, which means that the next POV option to consider is second person. Keep in mind that this is a very rare option that can be extremely difficult to pull off, even for a seasoned writer. When you write in the second person point of view, you are involving the reader directly in the story. You’ll be writing specifically to them. In other words, you write to “you” instead of “I” or “he/she/they.”
This is a great way to immerse the reader in your fiction writing, but it’s extremely challenging to pull off. I can’t think of any of my favorite books that utilize this storytelling method. Could it be the right POV for you? Maybe, but proceed with caution unless you’re doing something highly experimental.
It could be a fun challenge for a writing prompt or a single chapter just to try it out before you get hundreds of pages into a new manuscript.
Third-Person Point of View: A Bit of Distance
Last but not least, writers could choose a third-person point of view which gives them a bit of distance from their characters. This is great if you want a strong narrator who isn’t necessarily involved in the story. You get to tell the story from your perspective, outside of the timeline and events that take place in the book.
But there are tons of reasons to choose 3rd person over other options.
There are a couple of ways you can go about introducing this perspective: third-person omniscient or third-person limited.
Third Person Omniscient
In omniscient, the narrator sees and knows everything. They know the thoughts in your main character’s head, their feelings, and their motivations. They even know what’s going on in the minds of other characters. Everything is clear to you – and by extension, to the reader. This gives you some of the immediacy and intimacy of first-person.
However, it gives you the freedom to switch between multiple POVs if you have a more complex story to tell. The omniscient POV is great if you want to switch around between characters and know exactly what everyone is thinking. Keep in mind that you want to keep head-hopping to a minimum (the phenomenon of switching between the internal dialogue of multiple characters in a single scene).
Third Person Limited
On the other hand, you could write in third person limited or close third person. This follows just one person through the entire story. Similar to first person, this narrative choice gives you the space to follow one character closely. The narrator knows how one character thinks and feels whereas third person omniscient knows everything.
If you want to take a little bit of a break from the rumination of your character, then a third person POV might be the better fit for your story.
Of course, you can still have more than one viewpoint character that you follow closely. Multiple perspectives work just as well, as long as the break from one character to the next is clear. When you are writing from your main character’s view, you can’t know what’s going on elsewhere in the story or propose what someone else is thinking, very similar to what you would be limited by in a first person POV.
Choosing a Different Point of View: How to Choose Which is Right for Your Story
The novel writing process is long and complex, but you can make it significantly easier by making the right choices upfront. Nobody wants to revise a novel simply because they want to change from an omniscient narrator to a first-person POV. It’s frustrating and time consuming to make these changes, so figure out perspective from the beginning.
Not sure which one is right for your story?
I recommend doing a little heavy lifting at the beginning of the writing process.
Write a Little Bit of Each
The first thing you can do is try the first chapter in a variety of styles. Write 2,000 words from each perspective and see which one feels the most natural to your characters and your storytelling. This should take you five or six hours to do this work upfront, but it lets you see what the story looks and feels like from different POVs.
You could also write a short story with a piece of your plot to see how it feels in your proposed POV before you get into the meat of a novel.
Complete an Inside Outline
The other thing you can do is map out your story using the Inside Outline (Author Accelerator’s tool for marrying your plot to your point). If you notice that there is a lot of action going on outside of your main character that needs to be shared with the reader, then it might be obvious that you need a third-person narrator. Think about what character knows what and when to decide if an omniscient narrator would work better than a third-person limited point of view or first-person point of view.
This can be especially helpful if you’re writing fiction with lots of twists and turns.
When you’re ready to dive into your story, you may not want to stop to figure out whether the first-person or third-person perspective is right, but it will save you lots of heartache down the road.
Get a Book Coach
The truth is that you might simply be too close to your story to figure out what would give your reader the best experience. You may benefit from the guidance of a person who is outside of your story world to tell you what is working and what isn’t. A book coach can help you put your ideas on the page and start to get to the heart of your story.
If you’re ready to work with a book coach, you can reach out to me here to talk about your story, get some ideas of how you can write forward, and get the perspective you need for your book!