Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

Point of view determines what a reader can know and what they have to infer. Two characters can enter the same room and tell completely different stories because they notice different things and misunderstand different clues.

At a family dinner, a teenager notices her father has set an extra place. In her perspective, the empty chair could signal a guest she was never told about. In his, it might mark a difficult decision he has yet to announce. The teenager’s perspective makes the scene about discovery. His makes it about how long he can delay telling the truth.

First person can bring the narrator’s phrasing and judgments close to the reader. Close third person offers similar intimacy while referring to the character by name or pronoun. Either can be written with more or less distance. A tight perspective reports the clink of a fork or the unwanted memory that follows. A wider passage can summarize the whole dinner in a few lines.

In close third, “Her father was ashamed” supplies access she may lack. “Her father smoothed the same crease in the napkin until it tore” gives readers an observation they can interpret. If your story deliberately moves between perspectives, use scene or chapter breaks where helpful and establish the new viewpoint early.

Write the same arrival twice, once through the person entering and once through the person waiting. Give each person a different object they notice first. Underline any information that only one could know. Pick the version that best supports the reader’s central question, then revise the first paragraph so the perspective is clear.

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