One of the best ways to review your story is to scrutinize its point of view, the lens through which the reader views the events that take place on the page. A story’s POV is often a subtle negotiation between the writer and the reader. While some stories lack a formal narrator, every good story is told from a particular perspective. The angle and the distance of that perspective are what determine the POV.

There are many ways to approach the question of POV when re-writing a story. The important thing is to find the right voice and perspective to draw your reader in and tell your story.

To help you expand the horizons of your writing pallet, here’s a list of different POV options and examples:

First Person
Told from the perspective of a character in the story, usually a main character, or protagonist. Sometimes, however, the first person narrator is a character who observes from the sidelines of a story.

Second Person
Told in the voice of a narrator who leads the reader to view the story from his/her own perspective.

Third Person
Told from the perspective of a narrator who is not a character in the story. Sometimes the third person narrator has access to the thoughts of one character in the story. However, the third person narrator can also be detached from all of the characters, in which case he/she is called “objective.”

Third Person, Omniscient
Told from the perspective of an all-seeing narrator who knows everything about all of the characters, including their thoughts, as well as past, present, and future events. This
POV allows the writer to share the most information with his/her reader.

	Your Turn Examine an event in your story from multiple POVs. Fill it out the following POV Chart PDF.