Is Your Point of View Clear as Mud?

One of the best ways to lose your reader is to confuse them. They are left wondering, What the heck was that all about? What just happened?

And poof! the reader is no longer paying attention to the story. They’re paying attention to how confused they are.

If you confuse the reader, you lose the reader. A great way to confuse readers is when we start “head-hopping,” or changing the perspective from which the story is told—in the wrong place and/or without leaving any clues as to why we do this. I call this the “muddy POV” (point of view).

What is POV?

Every piece of writing has a POV: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, you name it. The story has to come from somewhere, even if it seems to come from the Universe; every story has a narrator, even if this is a disembodied voice, like the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first meets him. Different POVs include:

• First person (“I”)
• Second person (“you”)
• Third person close/limited (from one particular character’s perspective; the narrator knows all about this person, not so much about everyone else)
• Third person multiple (from the alternating close POV of multiple characters)
• Third person omniscient (the “God” perspective; the unnamed narrator knows about everyone’s thoughts & feelings)

As you can see, only the third person omniscient and third person multiple give you full license to switch POVs, although you should still be choosy about when you do this. Remember your goal: to not confuse the reader!

Why do we change our POV?

A shift in POV indicates that we’re trying to tell the story from another angle. This is not always the best idea for your story.

Good reasons to shift POV: to create narrative tension, develop character, or examine all sides of an issue (useful in nonfiction, not so much in mystery novels, unless you can artfully use the different perspective to obscure rather than illuminate). As with everything else you do in your book, your choice should be in service of the book’s greater goal. Ask yourself why you are changing the perspective. The switch should be about more than your curiosity about another character, or fascination with a piece of information you’ve dug up in your research.

What does your changing POV add to the story?

Changing POV can be dangerous

One of the authors I worked with had started a book from one character’s point of view, and in the final third of the manuscript, described events that that character could never have known about or understood in that way. The manuscript was in close third person, and the effect was disorienting.

Another author I worked with wanted to incorporate information in their first-person narrative that they received from someone else. The source of this other information could express themselves beautifully, so my author was tempted to incorporate the words as-is, but they were different in tone from the author’s own work. This is also strange (from the reader’s perspective) and unnecessary (from the writer’s).

And quite a few writers I’ve worked with tripped into head-hopping without knowing it. Head-hopping is just what it sounds like: jumping around between characters’ heads—within the same scene.

This is where people often get confused. Can’t we tell a story from multiple perspectives? You just said so. Why yes, you can, and yes, I did. The key is where and how you switch perspectives…once you’ve decided this is in fact the best way to tell your story.

Where and how to switch POV

The place to make a POV switch is at a break: whether a scene (usually indicated by a blank space on the page, though sometimes with a nifty graphic) or chapter. Both are well-recognized opportunities for switching a whole host of details, including setting, geography, and time, as well as POV.

You always want to leave clues for your reader that they can expect more than one POV in the book. You should do this as soon as possible—as close to the beginning as you can. You can do this in the Table of Contents, even. The longer you spend with one POV (without switching), the more we, the readers, expect this to be the sole point of view.

One of the most famous examples of head-hopping in fiction is William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Each character tells their story in the first person, in separate chapters that bear that person’s name. We are always clear through whose eyes we witness events. However, you can be more subtle than this, if you want.

Make sure the characters are distinct individuals. It’s easy to fall into a muddy “group character.”

Different people have different ways of speaking, thinking, and acting. If your characters are all the same, we’re not really going to notice that you’re switching heads (and a lack of distinct characters is a whole other problem).

The bottom line

Head-hopping can work, though it requires finesse and attention to detail. However, you should always be switching perspectives for a good reason—one that elevates your story. Arbitrary switches lose readers and muddle the reading experience. Be clear on what POV you are using, whether you are switching, why, and when.

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CC image “Old Anchor & New Chairs” courtesy of Dennis Jarvis on Flickr. Some rights reserved.