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Writer's pictureHayley Walsh

How To Tell Your Reader The Story By Way Of Point Of View



I like to constantly challenge my self as an author. One way an author can do this, is to write stories in different points of view, or POV for short. In a written piece of work, POV is the mode of narration that an author uses, to let the readers ‘hear’ and ‘see’ what takes place in a story.


Here are the four main POV types used in fiction:

· First person point of view. First person is when ‘I’ am telling the story. The main character is in the story, relating his or her experiences directly to the reader from their POV. The reader is only shown their thoughts and experiences in order to relay what is going on.

· Second person point of view. The story is told to ‘you’. This POV is not common in fiction, but it’s still good to know (it is common in nonfiction).

· Third person point of view, limited. The story is about ‘he’ or ‘she’ This is the most common point of view in commercial fiction. The narrator is outside of the story and relating the experiences of a character. The main advantage to this POV, is that the story can be told from the POV of many different characters, and not just the main character.

· Third person point of view, omniscient. The story is still about ‘he’ or ‘she’, but the narrator has full access to the thoughts and experiences of all characters in the story.

My first two published books are both written in first person POV, in dairy form. The reader gets told the story by way of daily thoughts that are written in the main characters journal.

In first POV the main character is so well developed, the reader almost feels that they are also living their reality. This is the only character the reader gets to know in great detail. One limitation to this POV, is that the reader only gets to learn about other characters through the main character’s eyes.

In Crayons and Chaos, the story is told by Natalie. She tells the reader about her daily struggles, funny moments, and triumphs, trying to adjust to suddenly becoming an instant step mum to two young boys.

In Making March, the story is told by Kate. Kate is feeling stressed, fed up, and overwhelmed by where she finds herself in her life, waking up on her fortieth birthday. Kate is very real and very raw. The reader gets to experience her anger, frustrations, grief, insecurities, friendships, relationships, and parenting fails, all through her eyes.

With my current work in progress, a novel titled Scattered Scones, I decided to write in third person POV. Crayons and Chaos and Making March are both light hearted and cheeky stories. Scattered Scones is still light-hearted, as all my books are, however, the story is more of a sweet drama with some humour thrown in.

I enjoyed the change of pace, writing in third person POV. There are four main pivotal characters who are essential to the plot, and if I change POV, one whole chapter is told from one character’s POV. It opened up many and varied ways of telling the story, and allows me to really develop all four characters in detail.

No matter which way I choose to tell the reader a story, I hope they enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed creating it.





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