Writing Tip: Point of View

  

You might be tempted to allow your readers access to every character's thoughts, but please don't! Read on to learn about point of view...

While writing your story, it's easy to jump from one character's thoughts to another. Suddenly you're not only describing the action, you're actually crawling around in the heads of multiple characters, exploring their thoughts, feelings, and motivation.

Instead, pick the character who is either the focus of the story, or at least is the focus of that particular chapter, and stay with them. Let us hear their thoughts, but describe every other character's actions through the observations made by your primary character.

Here's an example: Ashley is your lead character, and she's talking with Kirsten. It's okay to write:

����She needed the money right away, but Ashley was embarrassed having to ask Kirsten for a loan.

However, if the situation was reversed, we wouldn't know that Kirsten was embarrassed; we would have to observe what looked like embarrassment, and assume. You'd write it like this:

����Ashley was happy to loan the money, but Kirsten seemed embarrassed to ask.

See, we're observing that Kirsten seems embarrassed, but we're in Ashley's head, not Kirsten's. We might assume things about Kirsten, but it all stems from Ashley's point of view, often written as POV.

Keeping your POV focused will make your story tight and more professional. Multiple points of view are difficult for your readers to keep up with; often it's an unconscious awkward feeling that you're creating.

Look through some of your finished stories; can you spot shifts in POV? Re-write those scenes and see how much better they turn out when you focus.

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