Point of View Basics: Through My Eyes. Or Your Eyes. Or Somebody's Eyes.

By Janice Hardy. @Janice_Hardy

Point of view defines the scope of a story--from the close and personal journey to the epic tale of generations. It's been a long time since POV basics first ran, so here's an updated look at the different types of point of view and their pitfalls.

Anyone who's ever attended one of my writing workshops has heard me say how vital point of view is to a writer. It's at the heart of everything we write, and the better we understand how to use it, the better our writing will be. Understanding point of view fixes (or helps us avoid) most common writing problems, such as telling, backstory, passive writing, and infodumping.

When you nail point of view, everything else gets easier. That's how strongly I feel about it.

When you're just starting out, point of view can be a murky aspect to master, let alone really get. Even writers who are solid one one type, can be clueless about another. And not just newbies have difficulties here. I recently ran into an extremely talented published author who was struggling with third person, since she'd never really written it before.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com