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Maintaining Point of View Integrity

© Laura Elvin

I was thinking about how to describe POV or incorrect POV, and the best I came up with is this: Think of it like a camera, a camera in one character's eyes and mind. Anything described in the story has to be seen from that character's eyes, felt on that character's body, or thought in that character's head. For example, say you have a story in which we're in character A's head. Everything so far is from the point of view of this character. You may not suddenly say "character B" felt it odd that "character A" didn't come home that night. She can SAY it, but we can't have her thinking it. We don't have access to anyone else's head but our point of view character, character A.

You cannot hear any noises in the room once our character has LEFT the room. He's gone, his perspective is gone.

Having said all this, I've got to say that Clive Barker is one of my favorite authors, yet I've seen in his works, on more than one occasion, shifts in POV. They were not gross, and perhaps this is an important distinction. I recently read a story that went back and forth so many times between two characters, I nearly gave up. I was completely and utterly lost as to who was thinking what. I don't like to re-read sentences or paragraphs in order to 'get it'.

My point... hm... that maybe it's okay to break some of these rules some of the times, but it's been my vast experience that a good writer first KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS the rules before he decides which ones to break. And when you do break them, subtle is usually best.

By the way, enough editors mention POV for me to believe they will not take kindly to a swinging POV.

There is another POV that is NOT to be confused with the subject of this article. That has to do with first person, third person, and second person point of view. We can cover that in a future article, but for now know that these are apples and oranges.