4 Tips for Choosing Your POV Character

Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 8 “POV Characters”

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"He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness...."

Last time, we spoke about every story has a narrator, and about how to create the narrator that will tell your story. If you have decided to write with a narrator who is not an actual character in the story, you now need one last character whose eyes you will tell the story. That character is the Point-of-View (POV) character. This character can be anyone in the story. They will not necessarily be the protagonist; you can use any character type from antagonist to supporting character. Today we're going to talk about how to choose and develop the character in the story best suited to look at the story. 

Tip 1: Select a POV character, based on which will paint the clearest picture.

The reason that your POV character will most often be the protagonist is that he or she is generally at the center of all the interesting things that the story has to offer. Whatever they think, see, or otherwise sense is central to the story and told from a more direct perspective than any other character. When you choose a POV character who is not a protagonist, you should do so because for whatever reason they are the one who can reveal the story and its intimate details better than anybody else. For example, if your protagonist's senses are obscured because they are utterly insane, it may be best to tell the story through another set of eyes.

Tip 2: Select a POV character based upon who would have the most interesting Voice.

It is a convention to tell the story through the narration of a side character who is looking back with a sense of omniscience. In these cases, you can sometimes create a narrator/pov side-character hybrid who tells the story after it is over. Just like an omniscient narrator, they often go inside of other character's head while still maintaining their own separate voices and insights. Should you use this convention, you may want to choose the POV character based on which one has the most interesting voice. Do you have a wisecracking sidekick or a mentor character who is good at explaining things? You may want to tell the story through their eyes, especially if intellect or wit is not one of your protagonist's strengths.

Tip 3: Decide how many POV characters you want to use.

If you have multiple narrators or a totally omniscient narrator that is a head-hopper, you may want to have multiple POV characters. Doing this is especially useful if you have a complicated story that you need to tell from several perspectives or when characters are far apart in physical distance. Be careful not to spread yourself too thin, however. For every character that you include in a story, you have to give your audience time with them so that we will actually grow attachment and appreciation. When we can see into their mind, this is especially so. This means that if you had too many POV characters, your story may end up being exceedingly long by necessity. Also, be exceptionally clear when you switch your POV character and to specify which one you are using. This writing technique is a good one, but it allows a lot of room for unnecessary confusion. 

Tip 4: Resist the temptation to sacrifice storytelling for originality.

For both the Narrator and the POV character, I have revealed many possibilities of how you can tell your story. Many people will look at these and very accurately note that you could come up with some rarely used combinations. With this in mind, I implore you to always choose the option that best serves your story, not which one you think will make you seem most original as an author. There is nothing worse than a story that had great potential but was watered down by the writer's attempts at being so super-original that it made the story less fun or interesting. If you really want to create a story with a unique twist or perspective, save the idea to your notebook and wait for a story to come along for which it would be perfectly suited. This way, both your story and your creativity/originality will work together instead of wrestling for supremacy.

Write-a-Novel Exercise 5.8

Using the steps above, choose your POV Character and write down exactly what type you have created for your novel.

Click here to submit your exercise to the gallery.

-O-

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