Writing: Point of View

POV is a contract with the reader about what the narration can know. The moment that contract is violated — the moment the narration accesses something it has promised not to access — the reader's trust breaks. Usually they don't know why. They just feel the seam, the moment the author's hand becomes visible. "How did we know that?" is the diagnostic question.

Each POV type makes a different promise:

First person: The narrator tells us what they experienced, observed, thought, and felt. They cannot know what other characters are thinking unless they are told or infer it (and the inference should be flagged as inference). They can be unreliable — their account of events may be shaped by their psychology, their blindspots, their desire to present themselves well.

Close third person: Narration follows one character's subjective experience. The narration can access their thoughts and feelings but cannot access anyone else's interior. Physical details that the POV character couldn't observe (what their own face looks like, what's happening in a room they're not in) require specific handling. Thought and feeling are rendered from inside, not described from outside.

Omniscient: The narrator has access to any mind. But omniscient POV is not a licence for chaos — it must be used consistently. An omniscient narrator who dips into three minds in one scene and then goes external in the next has not chosen omniscient POV; they have abandoned POV control entirely.

The fit question is as important as the violation question: does the chosen POV serve what the story is trying to do? A story whose power lives in dramatic irony (the reader knows something the protagonist doesn't) may work better in third than first. A story whose power is unreliable memory may need first person. The POV choice is not arbitrary — the story's core effect often depends on it.

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