Viewpoint as a Fix

“Viewpoint fixes everything,” I heard a writer claim at a convention some years back.

Well, that depends on what you mean by “viewpoint” and how you expect to use it to “fix” things.

“Viewpoint” in fiction can mean either the viewpoint character (the narrator, through whose eyes the reader sees the story) or the viewpoint type (whether the story is in omniscient, tight-third-person, stream-of-consciousness, etc.).

Who the viewpoint character is has an enormous impact on the story, even if all...