To control POV, you must determine whose head you want the reader to be in or which character’s emotion and conflict the reader will experience.
A popular POV character is the protagonist or the hero of the story, but this may not always be the best choice. Some writers choose to use multiple POVs to tell their story from several angles. Whichever you choose, POV is the most powerful tool you have and should be understood because of this.
It doesn’t matter how well the writer constructs the prose, how intense the action is, or how much drama she inserts into the climax; if the POV is written so we’re hopping uncontrolled from one head (or perspective) to the next, the story is ruined. POV control must be deliberate.
Here are a couple of tips that can aid in controlling POV in your story.
Determine whose POV you’re in
First determine the right point of view to show your story through. Which perspective is the best one to show the scene? To determine this, ask yourself which character has the most to gain or lose in the scene or which one has the primary conflict and then use that character’s POV. The reason for this is that the reader enjoys the story more if she can identify with the POV character. Unless you’re writing in first person POV, using a character outside of the story (such as a narrator not involved in the events) you must ask yourself these questions for each scene in order to write from the most compelling viewpoint possible. If the POV character has nothing invested in the scene, or nothing to lose, the reader won't care what happens.
Avoid head-hopping
When you begin to write a scene you must be in a single POV and this cannot change for the duration of the scene. Some writers may shift from first to third, but this is done in different scenes, never the same one. Don’t head-hop, or move from one character’s thoughts to another within a single scene. The reader can only experience or know what the POV character knows. For example, beginning with the protagonist’s POV and then sharing the antagonist’s internal thoughts when he enters later in the scene is wrong. Instead, show through action or dialogue and stick to one POV.
And remember, when a character loses consciousness or dies, we cannot be in that POV anymore. This will have to be shown with a section break and the new POV written as another scene.
You’ve read novels where the author switches heads all the time. What about Nora Roberts or Stephen King? There’s a distinct difference between us and them; experience. First, these authors use omniscient POV. Second, they’ve mastered the intricacies of POV so that they can use omniscient effectively, without head-hopping.
If you were to examine a novel by those same authors, you’d note that they only change POV when absolutely necessary and never to just change things up with another character’s thoughts. The shift from one POV to another is only at moments when it is critical, and never when the writer is too lazy to use action or dialogue to show instead.
Establish POV early
Begin by establishing whose POV you’re in at the beginning of every scene and chapter. No, it doesn’t matter if you’ve used only one POV for your story, you must ground the reader in the POV each time because she can’t know from one book to the next which writer won’t shift to another character’s POV and which writer will remain with one POV. With each new scene or chapter, the reader is lost until you establish whose head you’re in. Establishing POV is easily done by inserting the character’s name within the first lines.
Each type of POV, be it third person limited, first person, omniscient or cinematic, has its own set of rules that guide how you will write your story depending on which you decide to use. Knowing how POV is controlled will make these rules easier to understand and follow.
Renee Miller - Co-author of Writer's Companion, a reference manual for creative writers, and freelancer/fiction writer.
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