Establishing and maintaining a constant point of view (POV) in your story is important to keep your readers engaged. If the POV is frequently changed or inconsistent and the author jumps from the first person to third person and even second person, the reader will not only get lost but will also lose interest. That’s the last thing we, as writers, want to happen.

So, what is a point of view (POV)? That’s the voice of the person telling the story: the narrative’s voice. It’s the angle from which the story speaks. Are you writing in the first person, as if “I did this” and “I did that”? Or, do you want to distance the reader from the story by writing it in the third person?

First-person allows the reader to feel like they are more than just a part of the narrative: they are the narrative. Why? Because when you read “I ran all the way home” you are reading something you did – in theory.

Third-person allows some distancing between the reader and the storyline and its characters. The reader may be invited into the story but observes from the perimeter. Third-person is the most popular point of view and probably the safest to use. However, even within the third person, the author must take care of the point of view. If the protagonist is dominating one scene with multiple references to how he or she is feeling or why he or she is acting the way he or she is acting, and then, all of a sudden, the author describes the antagonist’s actions and feelings, then the reader loses perspective of the who’s who, whose story this is and which part of the story belongs to which character. Keep it simple, basic. If you want to present another character’s POV, start a new chapter and make it clear that it’s a new POV.

Second-person POV is possible, but it’s difficult, if not almost impossible, to maintain the storyline and develop a plot with persistent use of the pronouns: you, your or yours. The problem with the second person is it inevitably disintegrates into the first or third person. The only story I’ve read recently that attempts such a feat is Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus (2011). Cleverly written, but confusing. It begins in the second person, only to slip into third and then alternate between first and third person, with the occasional passage in the second person.

The best way to choose your POV is to read. Study the various POVs used by published authors. Make a list of different techniques used to maintain POVs and decide which one you think would work for you.

Third-person, the most frequently used, has the most flexibility for changing POVs within the story, as long as the different POV is introduced in new chapters or new scenes.

However, first-person is not as limiting as you might suspect. If you choose the first person, you might want to consider using multiple narratives to provide different perspectives on the developing plot, different POVs. But, again, like the second person, you have to be careful how you orchestrate this shifting POV in the first-person narrative. If you’re considering this approach, you might want to study some examples by authors who write first-person from various POVs. Jodi Picoult does it quite successfully. Each chapter is titled by the character’s name, clearly identifying who is writing that chapter’s point of view. Joseph Boyden tried the same idea in The Orenda (2013). He didn’t identify the character for each chapter. Rather he started writing the chapter in a way that readers would gradually catch on to who was speaking. It was very confusing for the first half of the book until the reader knew each of the narrator characters well enough to recognize their voice at the beginning of a chapter.

The important thing to remember when writing your story is to maintain a consistent POV, using any of the methods outlined above. Changing POVs, jumping from the first person to third person or shifting between characters will not only confuse your reader (and perhaps, regrettably, turn them away from your work) but it will confuse you, too, as you write the story. If you’re not sure you’re maintaining a consistent POV, have another set of eyes read your work and take their criticism seriously. If someone else notices a problem, then there probably is one.