Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [pov]

'PoV' stands for 'Point of View'. Use this tag for questions about usage of PoV in novels. Use the 'viewpoint' tag if your question is about the grammatical viewpoints (first, third, etc.), which to use, or how to use them.

'PoV' stands for 'Point of View'. It refers to the character through whose eyes a reader views the story. A novel can have multiple PoV characters, or just one. Note that this tag is different from the . That tag deals specifically with the grammatical persons a story is related in (first, third, etc.).

Use this tag for questions about how to handle PoV problems or similar questions.

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How do I keep the gender of my main character purposely ambiguous?

I'm a newcomer to this community, and have recently started giving serious thought to my first novel. I'm basically working on an idea I had a few years back. It's fiction, has a lot to do with faeries, Celtic mythology, dark fantasy, nightmarish…
Jack Rabbit
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How to write female characters with agency?

I'm attempting to write a novel, an historical fiction with a small fantasy component (time travel through a portal). The travelers (main characters) are a young couple from the late 23rd Century who are (without preparation or intent) transported…
J.D. Ray
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How to not confuse readers with simultaneous events?

In an omniscient third person, I have 8 (practically unrelated) events going simultaneously in different parts of a large mansion. I want to present these events as they happen, but I feel jumping around every two sentences is bound to cause…
Weckar E.
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How to Write Like a Little Kid

I'm writing a story with 3 POV's. One of which is a 6 year old girl. The problem is simply this: I'm neither a girl nor in first grade. In fact, I'm quite a bit older. The first problem I've more-or-less gotten, but it's the second one I'm having…
Murphy L.
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When two POV characters meet

I have two POV (3rd person limited) characters and they start the story as complete strangers and far apart. They don't meet for some time and they have very different experiences. Now I want them to meet and live through some intense, important…
Miroslav Zadravec
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Is omniscient observer POV really dead?

I am in the midst of reworking my latest manuscript into a shape that someone might be inclined to publish. To help me along I hired a professional editor and writer, whose comments and suggestions, for the most part, have been very helpful.…
Candon
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How important is it for multiple POVs to run chronologically?

The way I am currently designing a story with three distinct POVs. An issue I am running into, however, is that one of these has much more to do in the first third than the other two while having less to do later. Because of this, I am considering…
Weckar E.
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I'm writing a prologue from the POV of a non-English-speaking character. How should I write the dialogue?

Picturing this in movie form would be easy. I would have the character speak their native language in the scene and place subtitles. But I do not have this luxury in writing. It would be weird to mention that they're speaking their own tongue as the…
Drask
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Does the reader need to like the PoV character?

I have the feeling this is already been asked, but I can't seem to find it. Close the question if it comes out as duplicate. There's an issue with novels with a first-person narrator, or a third person limited narrator that doesn't switch point of…
Liquid
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How to write a convincing character with a opinion that differs from the author's?

So I wrote a short text recently in which the character has a very strong political opinion (anti-LGBTQ), which in addition is totally different to my own opinion. Now, I wanted to make the character as realistic as possible and used real arguments…
Féileacán
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Is it bad style if the personal first person narrator of a story dies during said story?

Right now I'm writing a novel in which I use the changing perspectives of two main characters with limited information each to slowly unveil the whole plot to the reader. Both use the past tense and first person (i.e. "When I woke up that morning,…
DLCom
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How do I differentiate between the "voices" of my characters in a multi-character POV?

I'm currently writing a novel with 3-4 character POVs in it - two male, two female. Each have different upbringings, different cultural backgrounds, different professions, different motivators and driving factors - in short, how the characters…
Bumble Bee
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When two first person POV characters meet

NOTE: I've seen this question asked when the POV is third but not first. I write psychological thrillers that move quickly and focus heavily on what is going on in the mind of the protagonist. As such, I write in present tense, first person…
GGx
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Why not God as our subject?

Certainly there are many Science Fiction writers who touch upon the subject of beings supreme to Man...but always Man is central in writing.
Doctor Zhivago
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Can the prologue's POV be different from the POV of the main story?

I want to write the prologue of the story with the narrator in first person with the point of view of the protagonist. But the story is already written in a third person narrator... and I have 2 protagonists so it's not omniscient. I think it's a…
V LeFox
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