image credit: pixabay.com
POV, or "Point of View" was one of the first things I had to study after I finished my Irish story. I'd swept through, creating a 100,000-word epic which I believed would become a best seller, not knowing what POV meant or how it can impact a story.
I'll assume you understand the basic principle of POV and get right to the heart of this post - WHY IT MATTERS.
I've been reading a YA fantasy called Pulse. Patrick Carman does an amazing job with world-building, much like Veronica Roth did in Divergent. But Carman, unlike Roth, left me scratching my head.
The story began in Faith Daniel's POV, so I assumed it was about her. But then Carman switched to another character's POV, and another and soon I was in the head of no less than five others. Confusing? You betta. (So much so that when I went to write this post, I had to grab his book to remind myself of the character's first name!)
Far worse was the frustration I felt when I was swept from one POV and stuffed into another's. It left me baffled as to who the protagonist was in the first place. Like the image above, how does one care about five characters?
Here was my problem:
I couldn't fall in love with the protagonist because I didn't know who the protagonist was!
So, why does POV matter? It gives your reader a chance to know your character, lets them BE the character, FEEL the character's struggle, experience the character's emotions.
Does your story pop in and out of multiple POVs? If so, you may want to rethink and edit. Trust me, your readers will thank you.
Happy writing!
Sue
POV, or "Point of View" was one of the first things I had to study after I finished my Irish story. I'd swept through, creating a 100,000-word epic which I believed would become a best seller, not knowing what POV meant or how it can impact a story.
I'll assume you understand the basic principle of POV and get right to the heart of this post - WHY IT MATTERS.
I've been reading a YA fantasy called Pulse. Patrick Carman does an amazing job with world-building, much like Veronica Roth did in Divergent. But Carman, unlike Roth, left me scratching my head.
The story began in Faith Daniel's POV, so I assumed it was about her. But then Carman switched to another character's POV, and another and soon I was in the head of no less than five others. Confusing? You betta. (So much so that when I went to write this post, I had to grab his book to remind myself of the character's first name!)
Far worse was the frustration I felt when I was swept from one POV and stuffed into another's. It left me baffled as to who the protagonist was in the first place. Like the image above, how does one care about five characters?
Here was my problem:
I couldn't fall in love with the protagonist because I didn't know who the protagonist was!
So, why does POV matter? It gives your reader a chance to know your character, lets them BE the character, FEEL the character's struggle, experience the character's emotions.
Does your story pop in and out of multiple POVs? If so, you may want to rethink and edit. Trust me, your readers will thank you.
Happy writing!
Sue