Everyone's Guide to Wattpad

Point of View

Your story's POV (point of view) is a crucial element of your story.

What is Point of View?

POV is the way your story is told. Is it told through your main character? Is there a narrator telling the story? Who is telling it? You need to define your point of view throughout the whole story. Yes, the entire thing.

Let's point out what types of POV's there are.

1st Person Narrative: told through the eyes of a character.

2nd Person Narrative: Interjects the reader and the writer using "I" and "You" type words. This is rarely used in writing. Most commonly used in advertisements.

3rd Person Narrative: Told through the eyes of a narrator or another character not in the story telling the life of A SINGULAR CHARACTER. You are narrating the story, but only one character's internal and external thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.

There are benefits and disadvantages for each POV. For first person narrative, you can speak through multiple people. A limit of 3 is a good amount, because otherwise your readers may get confused and make writing difficult on yourself. This also allows the readers to feel the character easier, which is a huge win.

Third person narrative should stay focused on one person. I've said this above, but it should be said again. However, you can break this rule. You can break any rule and possibly receive amazing results. If you're willing to take that risk, go for it, but switching around can confuse your readers quite a bit. Anyways, third person narrative can make a character's life seem like it's a movie. Your character is in the movie, and all your readers are the people that watch the movie. However, it could lack this "I'm-in-the-character's-shoes" type feeling.

Both narratives work just fine, but it's up to you to decide which would be best for your story.

How to Write Different Narratives

How do you write first person narratives? Easy. When your character refers to him or herself, you say "I," unless your character refers to himself in the third person. It's simple. Place yourself in your character's shoes and imagine the ownership of that item or even person, from your characters perspective.

Third person narrative is simple, as well. Only, you never ever say I. Only if there's dialogue or if you bring out your characters inner thoughts can you say "I" or "my" or anything of that sort. You're narrating the story. How are you narrating it? This narrative is easy to use, but also easy to mess up. They want to feel one person's emotions at the moment.

Now, am I saying that it's bad to break the rules and do third person from different characters' perspectives? Not at all, but you need to keep THAT CHAPTER focused on THAT PERSON. If you switch characters, start a new chapter, even if it's a mere 100 words long. This goes the same for first person. Most novels you read aren't switching POV five times in a single chapter. Just keep that in mind.

That's all for now!

-OrangeGuy