In the last part, we discussed first-person POV and third-person omniscient POV. Next, we’ll discuss another third-person POV.

Third-Person Limited POV – He, She

In grammatical terms, ‘he’ and ‘she’ are used in the same way as the third-person omniscient POV but, rather than multiple points of view, this is just from one person through the entire story. Your readers are only going to see what your main protagonist sees, what they feel and what they learn at the time the character experiences it. This can bring about a certain amount of emotional connection between your main character and your readers.

There is, however, a downside and that is this – only one character can be followed through the story. You cannot show any other character’s feelings or thoughts or anything that they may see. If you have one main character who takes part in all the major plots of your story, this is the POV to use.

Some of the best examples of third-person limited POV are all of the Harry Potter books. The reader will see everything that happens in the books, but they only get Harry’s point of view. Whenever Harry is surprised, so is the reader. When the story ends and Harry finds out what happens, so does the reader. Another example is The Metamorphosis by Kafka, where we experience everything Gregor does and see only his POV through the story.

Second-Person POV - You

The second-person POV has to be the least used because it is the one that puts the reader firmly in the hot seat and is not really manageable for full-length books. It tends to be more used in experimental literature, purely for looking at new writing styles. Used in the wrong way, in the wrong hands, it just doesn’t feel right.

Perhaps one of the best-known examples of second-person POV that really works is the series of Choose Your Own Adventure books. These are entirely second-person POV and put the reader in charge of the story, choosing how it will end.

Examples

See if you can identify the POV in each of these sentences – the same dialog but from different Points of View:

“ I have something to tell you,” I said, trying to see what his reaction was. What was he thinking?

“I have something to tell you,” she said. She watched as he tried to find the right thing to say.

“I have something to tell you,” she said, watching his face, wondering what thoughts were going through his head.

“I have something to tell you,” you say. You try to work out the thoughts in his head. Do you give him a hug or do you walk away?

It is important that, before you begin to experiment with POV, you understand the basics so read some of the books mentioned here to get an idea of the POV, to see how it affects the story’s narrative. At the end of the day, it is down to personal choice but, whichever POV you choose, it will affect your entire story so getting it right is vital.