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Now that you have discovered how to write using all of the senses to bring your reader into your story, you must now decide who will be telling your story. Whose eyes will your reader be looking through as your story unfolds? Will it be those of a narrator, or of a character? Will you tell the story yourself? So many decisions! There are three choices for deciding on a POV:
Just because this is a story that you are creating doesn't mean that you have to be the one telling it. You might find it easier to let one of your characters tell the story (the character's POV)…even if the character isn't in the story. Let the hero of the story, even the villain can plead it's case by narrating. You can have great fun with this. Before deciding…try shaping the character by giving it a personality, an agenda, and motivation. In what time period is your story? There are no rules when you are writing fiction. POV RULE FOR BEGINNERS: Be consistent in POV - do not change it in the middle of your story. Write a short paragraph using one of the points of view and then write the same paragraph using the other points of view as well. This is an example of a paragraph using a certain POV - can you tell which one I have used? Gabriela thought back over the years she had spent in this room discussing her hopes, dreams and fantasies with her most attentive audience - her foreign doll collection and her stuffed animal friends. She thought about all the times she was sent to her room for her defiance, a trait that proved to get stronger with age. She let her eyes wander to the bay window, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she remembered climbing through that window and making good her escape in defiance of her father's order to remain in her room until she can be civil. ©2000 JA The correct answer: 3rd person point of view. For more information on POV, visit http://4-writers.com and sign up for their free fiction-writing course. OTHER ARTICLES BY JOZETTE |