How to Edit for Point of View
Writing fiction involves holding a lens up to a story, so the reader can look through it. That lens belongs to a character. There might be more than one lens, but the reader experiences the story through one lens at a time.
Another term for that lens is point of view.
There are actually two things involved with POV: Which character and from which perspective.
Or — who is telling this story and from how far away?
The reader, ideally, is never confused about whose head they’re in — whose lens they’re experiencing the story through. And they should also never be confused about the perspective.
This is simple enough. Which character is telling your story?
You don’t have to stick to a single character’s point of view for an entire novel. Many, many novels switch between two or more point-of-view characters.
The key is to make sure that you’re consistent through your book when it comes to making those shifts.
0 Comments